Pastor In Police Net Over Alleged Rape, Says The Lady Is My Girl Friend –Cleric

A 29-year-old cleric identified as Anthony Arogunmasa, popular­ly known as pastor at Ikere-Eki­ti community in Ekiti State, has been nabbed for allegedly raping a 19 -year-old lady in the area.

The victim (names withheld) said that Arogunmasa lured her into his Araromi Street, Ikere-Ekiti residence under the pretence of giving her spiritual cleansing. Describing how the incident happened, the victim in tears, said: “I was just meeting the pastor for the first time in my life. He approached me and told me that I needed some spiritual cleansing.

He said that God instructed him to ensure that the spiritual cleansing was done for me. I fell for him because I saw people calling him pastor. He took me to his house and gave me a candle and soap and asked me to start praying. He also brought out certain ob­jects which he said were prayer items for the spiritual cleansing. In the course of the prayers, he asked me to remove my cloth­ing and just tie a wrapper and I obliged. It wasn’t long after that he suddenly jumped on me and eventually had carnal knowl­edge of me forcefully.”

Though he confessed to having carnal knowledge of the victim, the suspect said that the victim is his girlfriend.” It is true that I slept with her on September 23, but I didn’t do it forcefully because she has al­ways been my girlfriend”, the cleric con­fessed.

While confirming the incident, Eki­ti State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Victor Babayemi said that it has been proved beyond any doubt that the victim wasn’t the pastor’s girlfriend.

The PPRO said: “We have proved that it is a clear case of rape. We have a medical proof and during our investigation, we dis­covered that the victim couldn’t have been a girlfriend to the suspect as he (pastor) claims. You can imagine that he doesn’t know the names of the lady, nor where she lives or any of her friends or relations and he claims to be the lady’s boyfriend. How is that possible?”

The police spokesman added: “The sus­pect, who confessed to committing the crime, accosted the victim on September 23 at about 2000 hours and lured her to his house to perform spiritual cleansing because he perceived that the victim was under a spiritual spell.

On getting to his room, the victim was threatened and put under fear of harm before being raped. Medical report confirmed that the victim was actually raped by the suspect while preliminary investigation revealed that he is a serial rapist who lures hapless women with ‘spiritual cleansing’ to have unlaw­ful canal knowledge of them. He will be charged to court as soon as investigation into the case in concluded.”