The General Overseer of Lagos-based Tongue of Fire Restoration Ministry, Chukwuemeka Nwocha, has been arrested and now held at the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters in Ikeja harboured 13 underaged girls as sex slaves in a three-bedroom harem. On Friday, the 36-year-old pastor was paraded before journalists at the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters. According to Nwocha, “I only tried to help the girls.When the first girl came, she said she did not have anywhere to go. I did not know her parents. I am a pastor and I felt pity for her. After spending three days, I told her she needed to go out and bring some of her relations so that they would know where she was. But she did not. Later, some parents in my church also said they would like to send their chidlren to live with me.
“Some of them came to spend holidays after their exam. I am a pastor, the devil only used the children against me. I did not rape them. I only slept with Sola (real name withheld). She is my girlfriend and we actually planned to marry. When asked how old the girl he mentioned was, he said she was about to clock 17. Asked again if the parents of the girls he claimed knew their whereabouts also knew he was sexually abusing them, he said yes. Meanwhile the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, said that the pastor harboured the girls with the promise of paying their school fees, feeding them and buying gifts for them. “While they were in his house, three of them became pregnant and he took them for abortions. He first denied all the allegations but like all criminals, he later confessed to raping them without using protection,” Owoseni said.
