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Children Accused Of Being Witches And The Extortion Of Their Parents By Men And Women Of God
"The Methodist Church in Afaha-Akpenedi, Esit Eket said I am a
witch and since then my father started maltreating me. My father
tied my hands and legs with a hard rope and locked me up in a shed
where we keep goats and
+*chicken. He kept me there without food and water and every morning he will come beating me and tie me the
* This is the story of 12 year old Miss Ekemini Okon Samuel stigmatized as a witch and abandoned before she was rescued last month by the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) at No. 1 Abat Road, Ikot*
Afaha, in Ikot Odiong, Eket Local Government Council of Akwa Ibom State.
* Another victim, Master Udo Etim Nkankanta, 12 year old from Ikot Ekpene*
Udo in Nsit Ubiom in tears, in his Ibibio dialect said, "I have never been to school before, my father never sent me to school. The local
church in my area said I am a witch and my father and people in the community abandoned me. My father tied me to a pillar and beat me
mercilessly until my left arm got broken and the borne shot out. He would even put fire in my mouth and torture me saying that I am the
devil causing all his problems. One day, some primary school children came around stigmatizing me that I am a witch and they took me to the nearby primary school at Ikot Akpene Udo, beat me and tried to burn me alive, but they ran away when an adult Samaritan came by". Eventually, CRARN rescued Udo in a bush where the injury on his arm was decaying and
the bone was sticking out and the sore covered with flies. He was extremely malnourished and dying gradually before he was taken to the
hospital for treatment.
* Narrating her own story to The Guardian on Saturday, Miss Mary Sunday Udo, 11 years old with a rough acid scare on her forehead, from Mbo in Mbo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State said, "I was not in school, but in CRARN, I am in Primary 2. My mother poured acid on me saying I am a witch because they said so at Qua Iboe Church in Oron. My mother and father who are now living in Efoi, in Eket Local Government Council threw me out of the house and left me to suffer and fend for myself. My father's name is Emman Sunday Udo and my mother, Esther Sunday Udo. We are 3 children in the family, no one took me to the hospital and I roamed the streets of Eket like that until the wound healed naturally. Sometimes, other children will flog me and chase me away saying I am a witch. I had no house to stay; hence, I joined other stigmatized*
children at the tent in the bush by marina road. Sometimes we dump refuse for people to get money to cook and eat or we get food from
refuse or the bush. Adult men sometimes come around at night and want to make love
to us (the girls) but we will run away. The small boys with us sometimes go to steal for us to eat. It was hell for us until we were rescued".
* Master Michael Ita Isang about 9 years old from Oyoabasi in Oron, in Akwa Ibom State, apparently shy and nervous could not speak but the President of CRARN, Mr. Sam Ikpe-Itauma narrated his (Michael) story.*
"On August 15, 2007, one of my coordinators met Michael along the Eket-Oron Road at Ikot Ubo lying down in the flood. He stopped and tried to wake him up, but Michael would not and my Coordinator presumed he must have been killed by unknown persons, so he left. But the following day, we went back to the scene but we did not find him. After some search, we spotted him inside the bush eating palm fruits. We took him, dressed him up and brought him to the centre and gave him first aid. He was dirty, malnourished and like a skeleton. He (Michael) told us that his father took him to one Prophet's church, Jesus Divine Ministry in
Oron and the Pastor said he and his sister were witches. Michael resisted but Esther his sister accepted under torture and they claimed
they carried deliverance on her. At a point, their father was ill and later died and everyone suspected Michael to have killed the father with his witchcraft spirit. His step mother and father went for findings yet they saw nothing. But they were always beating him up until Michael then J SS 1 student, found himself in the bush at Ikot Ubo".
* In Calabar the story is almost the same. Master Gideon Edet Okon, age 13, disclosed that "for the past 3 years I have lived in the park (Etim Edem Motor Park) and I earn my living by loading and running errand. On a good day I make N200 to N400 a day. We live and rise up with the big boys thieves but I don't steal. When they asked us to go for robbery,*
they will beat us when we resist. My father is sick and diabetic and my mother has since run away. I now fend for myself and my father. In most cases, I go to places of ceremonies to get remnants of food especially at the State Library Complex. Sometimes I squat with my kid friends at a big building along the Highway near an abandoned filling station. One big man, a soldier, very fat and dark is in charge of the house as the security man. We helped him to cut the grass in the big compound occupied by nobody except us and the security man. The man all the time will take one person to a room and make love to us through the anus. He did it to me once and after that I ran away but he does it to other kids who continued to stay with him. Occasionally, I sleep in the park or my father's house at 29 Calabar Road, Calabar".
* Inemesit Ekanem, from Obioikot Ita (10 years), Effiong Victor Okon (10 years), Ubong Asuquo Nyong from Akpabuyo Council of Cross River State suffer similar fate. For close to 3 years they have lived in the park and sometimes with the Unknown Soldier security man at Highway in Calabar. They don't have where to sleep or eat and they are not in school but carry load at the park to survive and go to places of*
ceremonies.
* Inemesit claims his father is alive and he stays at 6 Academy Street, but several visits there, The Guardian on Saturday could not trace him. Ubong who claims to worship with the Deeper Life Church at Musaha Street*
does not know anything about his parents, lives a destitute in the streets of Calabar, Cross River State.
* This is the fate of these children and they are commonly found in Eket, Esit Eket, Mbo and Oron in Akwa Ibom State stigmatized as witches and wizards and abandoned. In other parts of Akwa Ibom like Uyo, Ikot Ekpene and Oron; and Calabar, Ikom, Ugep, Yala, Ogoja and others, they abound the streets as destitute and hawkers. Some of them are easily taken away to other parts of the country on child trafficking and forced labour. Today, 125 0f them have been rescued by CRARN and are currently being rehabilitated in Eket, Akwa Ibom State.*
* Convention on the Rights of the child of 20th November, 1989, that came to focus on September 2, 1990 declares: "States parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians or family members".*
* In addition, the 4 core principles of the convention are, "non discrimination, devotion to the best interests of the child, the right of life, survival and development, and respect for the*
views of the child".
* Again, the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924, Declaration of the Rights of the Child adopted by the General*
Assembly on November 20, 1959 and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights have all stated the need to give particular care to the child.
* In furtherance of this, the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) had recently in a conference,*
advocated for more progress towards the domestication of Child Rights Act and Convention on the elimination of all forms of
discrimination Against Women in all the states of the Federation.
* In spite of all these, the story is the same as the fate of the child in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States is dangerously threatened.*
* Worried by this decaying social problem where children are dehumanized, stigmatized and abandoned by their parents, churches, their communities, the government and the society, in the name of witches and wizards in*
Akwa Ibom State, CRARN in collaboration with Stepping Stones Nigeria (SSN) moved to retrieve and rescue these children. As at today, CRARN according to its president has about 125 stigmatized children rescued from the streets and they are going through formal education and rehabilitation as normal children at CRARN headquarters in Ikot Afaha.
* At the CRARN office, which is a rented room and a parlour bungalow, the kids were seen crowded at the sitting room (parlour) watching television donated by SSN for the children's recreation. These stigmatized children are between the ages of 3 and 13 years. There, the kids mix up with one another, play and watch television while the one room is the poorly*
furnished office of Mr. Itauma. Apart from the television, the recreation centre has nothing else for the kids. Besides the office building and recreation centre, there is the un-plastered 6 rooms building as hostel for the boys. Double bunk beds and mosquito nets are just the best and only furniture the 65 boys (inmates) enjoy, while the rented girls hostel has 4 rooms with same furniture.
* "Ironically, when some churches brand these kids witches and wizards and ostracize them to the streets, the Catholic Church, Eket Parish, the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint, and Akwa Ibom State Government under the Obong Victor Attah's regime assisted in putting down a permanent structure for CRARN. This is the boys' hostel and the school block, which has 4 classrooms", Itauma said adding that the Latter Day Saint Church built the borehole, which now serves the kids and the Ikot Odiong Community of villages.*
* Behind the girls' hostel, CRARN runs a small 3 snail banks, rabbitory with 14 rabbits, goat ranch (2 goats) and poultry to provide nutrition*
and little income for the kids and the school.
* One of the Volunteers, Mr. David Emmanuel Umoren, who go about searchingand picking those kids from the streets, gave an experience and encounter with the kids saying, "In the bush we see them suffering to eat. They build little huts or tents in the bush to live and eat. These huts are just barely 3 feet high and they used water proofs and abandoned rusty zincs to build. To eat, they go to people's farmland to steal cassava to survive or sometimes you see them around dustbins*
picking garbage to eat in the name of food. The bad boys and okada riders go raping the girls at late night yet some people turn around to say they are witches.
* He explained that at the initial stage, we experienced by resistance because the never knew what we are doing. Sometimes you go to pick 2 out of 3 and one is left; later the one left*
will naturally follow. We have experience cases of a few of them running away from the camp because they are used to street life for years and they feel uncomfortable with a place like this.
* Equally narrating the story of the abandoned kids, Itauma, the President of CRARN said, "I started this project in June 2003 when some abandoned children in Eket were attacked by some people. In other places, scores of children were found everywhere, so I felt bad about it. I tried to cry out with some friends to see how we can set up an NGO to protect*
these children. At a point, we realized that protecting them alone was not enough so in 2004 we came together to see how we can rehabilitate them since no other organization in the State then was into rehabilitating the streets of abandoned children so that is why you have CRARN today".
* On how he copes with them, "children like this, we are putting up acquisition for the children and some of them are even up to 13 years now and they are into training like sowing and sometimes we want to put*
them into hair dressing and computer training. But for now, it is only sowing the girls are into. For the boys, we are trying to get into carpentry, spraying, painting and other skill acquisition, while still going to school at the CRARN children Academy".
* Itauma who is from the Eket community and is very familiar with the stories of witchcraft reeled out his experience with the stigmatized*
kids laughed excitedly saying, I have never heard any funny sound of witchcraft and undoubtedly, my association with the kids has not had any effect on me and I don't believe anything can happen to me. My belief as far as witchcraft is concerned, is very different. The belief that people turn into birds or other animals in the name of witchcraft is not true, it's a myth. I will say it is an antithesis of our general belief here in Akwa Ibom State and I will say in simple terms that I don't believe in the witchcraft concept of Akwa Ibom State. What the Bible says about witches I do believe but what the Akwa Ibom people are saying, I don't believe. There is a big variation from what the Bible is saying. The Bible is talking about somebody to be a witch when you have
other gods, believing in other gods, believing in foreign gods and practicing magic, deceiving people and all sorts of sorcery and divinations. That is what the Bible is talking about witchcraft. But in our case, witchcraft is seen as a particular place where people go out in
the night, dance, suck blood, kill people, because all sorts of diseases, madness, disorganize or ruin peoples' economy and all sort of things. They also believe that people can metamorphose into cats, animals, which
is absolutely impossible and I don't believe in that.
* "I have been working with this children for the past 4 years, no child has metamorphose into a cat, no child has hurt me and all of them are*
very lovely children, except that they are normal children as you see some of them exhibit the threats of normal human beings like
stubbornness and may be very intelligent or low witty. The believe system is that if you are so intelligent or stubborn, you are suspected.
If you are equally low witty you are suspected to be a witch.
* "Coping with their daily routine, sometimes I wake up in the morning as my phone alarm will wake me up by 4:00am to see how I can arrange some files and always prepare for the day to day duty. As the day breaks, the normal responsibility coming to us is trying to get the small children, trying to reconcile children with parents, trying to enlighten people not to believe about witchcraft, get the food for the children, get medical assistance and also trying to open new links and partners to see*
how people can assist these children. Apparently, I and other volunteers have not been resting and it is very difficult to get many people to support this situation so we have to work round the clock to make sure that these children exist. If you look at our records, since we began this project, we have reconciled more than 40 children with their parents. Though there are very few of them that when we reconcile, about 1% of the total, they still have some problems. For instance, a
* girl whose father poured fuel on and lit her up is still here with us, in spite of our effort to talk to the mother and father, they still believe that the girl is still a witch. The father having been pardoned by the Magistrate when he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, still believe that child is a witch. So the child ran away because of being starved and not given food, water and other things. But few other children we have talked to reconcile with their parents, they are living very well. You can see other children like Daniel, James and Ekemini and others are living very happily with their parents doing no harm and the parents very*
happy too. At a point, such parents equally say the witchcraft thing is not true".
* Itauma and other volunteers have worked hard to sensitize the communities and churches on this matter saying, "when we get to the community, even some churches, we do talk about the witchcraft issue a lot, we have made it upon ourselves together with the SSN and the Akwa Ibom State Government to put up our PAC campaign, which was launched last year as a kind of an enlightenment to stop the attack on children, to stop the abandonment of children, which is paying off very well. Since we launched the campaign for 3 months, we have had the reduction of children coming in even though the problem is still going on. We*
still hope to put up another campaign this November in Esit Eket because of the serious effect of child abandonment and child attack there, because we have identified Esit Eket and Mbo Local Government to be an endemic area for child stigmatization, child assault and child killing. The violence crime against children is very rife in those two areas, though it's every where in Akwa Ibom State but those two areas are very endemic".
* In the CRARN centre, Itauma disclosed that "almost everyday at least a child or two would be brought to the centre, what we do is to see how we can reconcile these children with their parents immediately. At a point, we had to may be go against our own principle, sometimes calling some of our members when we see that the only belief of the parents is that this child is a witch and we need to pray. Some parents believe that this center we have power which we can pray and excise the spirit of witchcraft from the children, so when a father maltreats the child for that reason, actually we don't hesitate to get one of our CRARN members*
to go and pray for the child and tell the father that this child is not a witch. Actually, a good number of them believe us and the child goes
back to the parents and they still come back and give us testimonies. Occasionally, we go back and counsel them because a good number of them need counseling".
* CRARN has a rented apartment for recreation, a hostel for the girls and the twain site where you have the school is the boys hostel. "The space is not enough because the whole place is cramped and overcrowded and*
right now some children happen to sleep on the floor. We are working very hard to see how we can put at least two blocks for the children so
that they can have more space otherwise there can be a kind of disease breaking out. So right now, we don't have enough space for the children. Right now there are enough mattresses for them as SSN has provided for
them and the Latter Day Saint charity also provided some beds and mattresses but we don't have space to keep them. We have 40 double bunk bed right now and mattresses, but no space. We have a permanent structure for the children; the State Government supported us through the joint effort of SSN and CRARN to build those structures in 2006. The boys' hostel and the school block for the children and that is a permanent structure for CRARN. The rent of the girls' hostel which was rented by the Latter Day Saint which of Port Harcourt will expire this year.
* Equally, commenting on the stigmatized children, the Programme Director of SSN, Mr. Gary Foxcroft decried the role of churches in the fate of these children thrown into the streets as witches and wizards saying, "we were carrying a research on street children in Akwa Ibom State and by God's grace we stumbled on CRARN and found out that the reason for so many street children in this particular area is because there is a very*
strong believe in child witches and this leads to children being stigmatized by parents and pastors and then abandoned on the streets,
they are incarcerated, abused, tortured, hot oil poured on them and some are taken to the bush buried alive or butchered. Some are even given local poison. When we discovered these problems and the fantastic work these volunteers are CRARN are doing, we felt morally and ethnically obliged to do as much as humanly possible to help support the work. I am trying to find some money here in Nigeria and England to help train these children so that we can ultimately help serve the lives of many of these children that we work with".
* Foxcroft blamed the churches and pastors for the torture and killing of such children noting that "child stigmatization and the resulting*
abandonment, torture and killing of such children is initiated and propagated by churches in order to make money purely and simple. There are a number of churches operating in Akwa Ibom and Cross River State
and they are making vast amount of money on the back of wide spread suffering and gross violation of children's rights. Our believe is that
this cannot and must not continue any longer. I am here today to stand up and face the lies and deceits and gang right evil that is being propagated by a number of these churches. In my opinion, the church in this region that is leading to children being stigmatized as witches and wizards and abused is the Full Liberty Gospel Church, which is owned by
Helen Ukpabio. I have done my research and I know that she is a capitalist ultimately; she has managed to combine setting up this Liberty Film Production Company, which propagates this myth about child witches, demonization and all of these things. She used this as a means of taking out of the minds of her congregation, and while she is shipping in her
congregation on the back of these cattle trucks, she drives in a car. She has a mansion in Calabar which is just sickening. If you compare the wealth that this woman has with the property of the women that attend services, it's just sickening. It makes me sick to the core, she calls herself a Christian yet a Christian will not have that. Jesus Christ believed in giving, helping others, loving and helping the less
fortunate. I see quite the opposite of that of one making a lot of money on the back of other people suffering and if the belief in witchcraft and completely eradicated, it is the role of civil society in the form of NGOs, charities, women groups, elders, chiefs and the government to
challenge this terrible belief and to challenge the abuses being brought about by churches such as the Full Liberty Gospel Church".
* Itauma on his part said about 8 or 9 years ago a home made video was put up by Liberty Foundation Spearheaded by Mrs. Ukpabio portraying children in the film "End of the Wicked" as possessing witchcraft spell. It is*
very sorrowful showing how children are initiated into witchcraft world and as strong agents who destroy families, kill parents, run down the economy of the society, and even destroy churches. It showed how children are actually initiated and getting other children into the witchcraft world. Since the film was put up the belief in witchcraft came to stay and since then, people became afraid of children especially poor children, children from poverty stricken home, children from broken families, children whose parents must have died of HIV/AIDS or other terminal diseases, accidents or any kind of death. Since then, children who are taken as house boys and house girls are often suspected, taken to either Pastors or Evangelists for a kind of test or probation to
* know whether they are witches or wizards. When these children are taken there for the test, they are hardly going to come back without being stigmatized as a witch. If you don't accept of being a witch, they are*
being beaten, tortured and put through all kinds of excruciating test and at the end of it you accept to be a witch. The moment you accept to be a witch, everything about you has changed. You will be deprived of going to
school, love, support, even food, water and you face constant torture here and there. At the back of it the issue of this child witchcraft is
strong by the Akwa Ibom, Efik speaking community of Cross River State and I will go by saying that with these belief, if a child is stigmatized, sometimes incarcerated for years or taken into church, some of the Pastors and Prophets make a lot of money and become very popular. It has become an easy way if a pastor wants to become popular, he or she make it easy by stigmatizing a child that he or she is a witch and in the process, they will say, I will excise this child or the child has not accepted deliverance and at the end of the day you see them abandoned in the streets and you see that child and the girl is raped and put in the family way and form another circle of destitute children. Some of them like in the Oron areas are thrown into the water, some in other places like in Uyo, we discovered some of these children were stoned to death or a hot rod forced into their anus. We are getting to a stage
where everything is against the children, the child Right Act is being swept under the carpet and the House of Assembly men do not look at
anything about passing this child Right Bill into law because it doesn't border them, but only concerned about laws that will enrich them yet
tomorrow they will say Akwa Ibom State is full of armed robbers, but where do they come from? In this state, the children are to be attackedand allowed to die".
* For Akwa Ibom State to change current trend, Foxcroft said for the Nigerian community, "there is a long way to go, locally the main thing*
that needs to happen is the need for a change in the belief that such children are witches or wizards. That is the first change that needs to
happen.
* "Secondly, so many churches around this area are preaching and stigmatizing the children as witches and wizards saying that is why you have had some form of misfortune or the other. We really need to sensitize the local community to show that in our opinion these problem does not really exist and none of these children are witches and wizards.*
* "At the state level, we need the Akwa Ibom State Government desperately to enact the child Right Act. At the moments, these children don't have any right in the eyes of the law; there is no way of achieving justice. But in the national level, we need to start regulating some of the churches that are springing up in Nigeria. Anybody can set up a church at the moment, but there need to be some form of regulation whereby the government has a process in place whereby new churches have to register,*
have to be monitored, they have to provide some forms of annual report and annual account so that these new churches springing up left, right and center are accountable to somebody some how".
* "Internationally, there is need to create more awareness rights about this particular issue of child witchcraft because at the moment I have*
carried out a lot of research in the last one year and the belief in strongly held in the Congo and parts of Angola. But the main worry is that SSN and especially CRARN have is that at the moment the belief thing seems to be particularly isolated in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States. I have certain passages of certain churches that are growing rapidly on the basis of preaching and get lots of money from it. The
more they grow and spread round Nigeria, the more that we will find these problems not just in Akwa Ibom but throughout Nigeria and
throughout the world. Infact the belief in child witchcraft is not just here in Nigeria, but in London you have members of the Congolese and the Nigerian community are doing exactly the same thing they are doing here, beating, torturing and abusing children. But the international community needs to first get the knowledge of what is going on here in terms of all the gross violation against the child Rights and after all provide assistance and pressure on the governments to regulate these churches and stop these abuses from taking place.
* "From my personal belief and from my studies have shown that of the 125 children currently in the CRARN children camp that have been branded as a witch or wizards, none of them is a witch or wizard. I have been working with them, eating with them, playing with them, drinking water, touching them, laughing, sometimes kissing them on their chick yet I am*
okay. I am not dying, I don't have any problems, and I am healthy, happy. So if they are witches why can't they harm me? Or probably they
are saying locally, he is Whiteman and he has his own witchcraft spell, thats all nonsense!"
* According to him, "in England, we had the belief in witchcraft around 300 to 400 years ago. It was a similar situation here and a lot of*
people were killed and all sorts of atrocities were taking place. Eventually with economic development and industrial revolution, its
(witchcraft) beliefs slowly went and disappeared, so I am hoping that in future, that will equally happen in Akwa Ibom State because the children are suffering.
* For Itauma, If the state is peaceful, then the children must live in peace. This is a serious phenomenon and danger for tomorrow. Some of them are growing up and in next 4 or 5 years, if nothing is done now, they will form serious gangs of armed robbers as the children are being recruited from the streets. When it comes to child trafficking, Akwa Ibom State is number one Africa. In all our researches, we have discovered that Nigeria out of every 4 children trafficked out of Nigeria, one is from Akwa Ibom State. "This is very sad".*
* Evangelist Helen Ukpabio is a multi-gifted and anointed woman of God. Founder and President of the Liberty Foundation Gospel*
Ministries of many years standing. Ukpabio who is also the Executive Director of Child Rescue International was at first instance very reluctant to react on allegations against her or
the church saying "write what they say, I will not contribute. However, she later opened up pointing out that those accusing her of stigmatizing children as witches or extorting from their parents are completely ignorant of her religious activities.
* "I will not say anything since already I stand as an accused, I like it. Which church again will they accuse? If they accuse any*
church and mention my church just because I deliver their children of witchcraft and their mothers and parents free of charge, so if they accuse my church, then write what they said, I
don't want to defend, my scriptural faith is that I should not defend myself when I am accused.... she even declined to defend other churches saying, "why should I, am I mad to go and defend other churches? Do I know what spirit
they are using there. I am so stupid when you know that "Mammy water" and witchcraft churches are more than the genuine one, on
what basis of spiritual standing do I have to defend churches; God forbid!
* According to her, "you must teach the witches the truth, and what they are practicing. Our people only stigmatize you and then*
throw you outside and destroy homes. People are accused by prophesies that they are witches to destroy homes and I don't use
prophesies for that. When I came to Eket, over 3,000 that were driven out by their children stranded, just living in streets and sometimes they help people in the market to carry loads. Now when those children on their own heard I came, they came. I don't give vision on witchcraft because witchcraft is something that if you are a witch, you are a witch and if you are not, you are not. I have never stigmatized anybody that you are a witch. The only time we say you are a witch is when you come to spy on me or you are boasting … and I will just tell you 2-3 things to prove.
* If I am teaching on witchcraft, I screen people using 7 days. I use 5 out of the 7 days for counseling. I use the counseling to*
let them to know what witchcraft is all about, because some that are accused as witches are not".
* On the stigmatized children in Eket, she said, "I delivered them and I was forced to add another one week, and at a point I told*
them even if it is 2 months, I can't finish the witchcraft of Eket. They came following me and crying and the children were more. Adult witches would be pleading, please help me, I am killing all my children. If I don't counsel, I don't handle witchcraft matters. The Eket program was not on witchcraft, but
large number of witches turned up, confessing and pleading for deliverance saying, "Please, Mma (mummy) help me, I am a witch…"
so you must do something to accommodate that person for deliverance. When I announced that all witches should come out, people rushed out in large number and the whole place was filled. Even when I went to Jos, the same thing. Witchcraft is everywhere. Witches look for me, but I don't look for them. if I say let me stop preaching and do witchcraft, everywhere will be jam-packed. On Mondays, you will see
* parents from different churches flooding this place. My God reveal witches to me and remove or heal them of the spell. Some parents even beat their children, but when they come here, I don't go by the testimonies of the mothers, I counsel and conduct deliverance. A special deliverance will soon be conducted by the church.*
* What I teach here can't be gotten outside. Witchcraft is not in the blood or flesh, it is Beelzebub spirit living in human spirit*
carrying out hyper activities in the night. When the witchcraft spirit begins its work, it peels out the human spirit. It is not in the soul or flesh, so as it peels out, the person lies down
there sleeping. I have so much to correct the society so that they can have genuine deliverance. Hear I am , I don't have much
money to project me out and do bigger things.
* On allegation that she makes so much money to deliver witches, Ukpabio screamed and called group of her Pastors (about 50 of*
them) who were meeting in her garden to come and hear the allegation. The pastors, in unison said Ukpabio or the Liberty Church do not collect money to perform deliverance on witches. According to her, "there is a woman in Calabar and some place in Uyo that collect as much as N20,000 per child. But there we don't
collect anything. Infact, some of those people that say we collect money are wizards themselves. They are just trying to hinder others from coming. Ask anybody, we don't collect money, Oh the blood of Jesus, how can they say I collect money from witch deliverance to build my house and drive my car? Like the programs I finished in Eket, Jos and Makurdi, I collected no money or special offering as other pastors do. The only thing is
that they are jealous. I have a gift from God that the world must go. If those people really mean it, let them come, they cannot even come because when they hear the name, Helen, it's like their witchcraft will end today. Some even see me on the street, throw their bags away and run.
* "I don't have any other program on the witches outside the church, I don't just conduct deliverance for the children like that, I look for the parents and I don't accept sentiments. If it*
is the wife, let the husband accompany, or the aged, let the adult children accompany. The reason is that when such persons go back to the village, they will go to the native doctors or
spiritual churches. They are all using witchcraft or familiar spirits to see prophecy. They can never see in the realm of God because they are not possessed with the spirit of God. So they
see in the realm of Beelzebub. This Beelzebub tells them lies. My own is that I help those who come to me and I don't go out to look for witches. I can't deliver a witch and send you out because it will not take long they will contaminate you or invoke you. We teach them the word of God and cause them to start
worshipping God in the church. Our members merely contribute in case we go for a crusade or any other major program and that is how we have been able to reach out to many people. But to say that you are a witch you pay me, no. If I want to collect money I will be so rich because thousands of witches come to me
and sometimes I ignore them; yet they come on their knees begging. So if I want to collect money, nobody will see my back. So I have delivered over 10,000 witches (children and adults) from the spell of witchcraft. Infact, it is more and I don't want to exaggerate. If I just say this year we are doing witchcraft, you will not see any space. The whole church will be crowded. Infact, because of that, I am going to do this witchcraft program next year. The year 2003 was the last time I did it in Calabar".
+*chicken. He kept me there without food and water and every morning he will come beating me and tie me the
* This is the story of 12 year old Miss Ekemini Okon Samuel stigmatized as a witch and abandoned before she was rescued last month by the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) at No. 1 Abat Road, Ikot*
Afaha, in Ikot Odiong, Eket Local Government Council of Akwa Ibom State.
* Another victim, Master Udo Etim Nkankanta, 12 year old from Ikot Ekpene*
Udo in Nsit Ubiom in tears, in his Ibibio dialect said, "I have never been to school before, my father never sent me to school. The local
church in my area said I am a witch and my father and people in the community abandoned me. My father tied me to a pillar and beat me
mercilessly until my left arm got broken and the borne shot out. He would even put fire in my mouth and torture me saying that I am the
devil causing all his problems. One day, some primary school children came around stigmatizing me that I am a witch and they took me to the nearby primary school at Ikot Akpene Udo, beat me and tried to burn me alive, but they ran away when an adult Samaritan came by". Eventually, CRARN rescued Udo in a bush where the injury on his arm was decaying and
the bone was sticking out and the sore covered with flies. He was extremely malnourished and dying gradually before he was taken to the
hospital for treatment.
* Narrating her own story to The Guardian on Saturday, Miss Mary Sunday Udo, 11 years old with a rough acid scare on her forehead, from Mbo in Mbo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State said, "I was not in school, but in CRARN, I am in Primary 2. My mother poured acid on me saying I am a witch because they said so at Qua Iboe Church in Oron. My mother and father who are now living in Efoi, in Eket Local Government Council threw me out of the house and left me to suffer and fend for myself. My father's name is Emman Sunday Udo and my mother, Esther Sunday Udo. We are 3 children in the family, no one took me to the hospital and I roamed the streets of Eket like that until the wound healed naturally. Sometimes, other children will flog me and chase me away saying I am a witch. I had no house to stay; hence, I joined other stigmatized*
children at the tent in the bush by marina road. Sometimes we dump refuse for people to get money to cook and eat or we get food from
refuse or the bush. Adult men sometimes come around at night and want to make love
to us (the girls) but we will run away. The small boys with us sometimes go to steal for us to eat. It was hell for us until we were rescued".
* Master Michael Ita Isang about 9 years old from Oyoabasi in Oron, in Akwa Ibom State, apparently shy and nervous could not speak but the President of CRARN, Mr. Sam Ikpe-Itauma narrated his (Michael) story.*
"On August 15, 2007, one of my coordinators met Michael along the Eket-Oron Road at Ikot Ubo lying down in the flood. He stopped and tried to wake him up, but Michael would not and my Coordinator presumed he must have been killed by unknown persons, so he left. But the following day, we went back to the scene but we did not find him. After some search, we spotted him inside the bush eating palm fruits. We took him, dressed him up and brought him to the centre and gave him first aid. He was dirty, malnourished and like a skeleton. He (Michael) told us that his father took him to one Prophet's church, Jesus Divine Ministry in
Oron and the Pastor said he and his sister were witches. Michael resisted but Esther his sister accepted under torture and they claimed
they carried deliverance on her. At a point, their father was ill and later died and everyone suspected Michael to have killed the father with his witchcraft spirit. His step mother and father went for findings yet they saw nothing. But they were always beating him up until Michael then J SS 1 student, found himself in the bush at Ikot Ubo".
* In Calabar the story is almost the same. Master Gideon Edet Okon, age 13, disclosed that "for the past 3 years I have lived in the park (Etim Edem Motor Park) and I earn my living by loading and running errand. On a good day I make N200 to N400 a day. We live and rise up with the big boys thieves but I don't steal. When they asked us to go for robbery,*
they will beat us when we resist. My father is sick and diabetic and my mother has since run away. I now fend for myself and my father. In most cases, I go to places of ceremonies to get remnants of food especially at the State Library Complex. Sometimes I squat with my kid friends at a big building along the Highway near an abandoned filling station. One big man, a soldier, very fat and dark is in charge of the house as the security man. We helped him to cut the grass in the big compound occupied by nobody except us and the security man. The man all the time will take one person to a room and make love to us through the anus. He did it to me once and after that I ran away but he does it to other kids who continued to stay with him. Occasionally, I sleep in the park or my father's house at 29 Calabar Road, Calabar".
* Inemesit Ekanem, from Obioikot Ita (10 years), Effiong Victor Okon (10 years), Ubong Asuquo Nyong from Akpabuyo Council of Cross River State suffer similar fate. For close to 3 years they have lived in the park and sometimes with the Unknown Soldier security man at Highway in Calabar. They don't have where to sleep or eat and they are not in school but carry load at the park to survive and go to places of*
ceremonies.
* Inemesit claims his father is alive and he stays at 6 Academy Street, but several visits there, The Guardian on Saturday could not trace him. Ubong who claims to worship with the Deeper Life Church at Musaha Street*
does not know anything about his parents, lives a destitute in the streets of Calabar, Cross River State.
* This is the fate of these children and they are commonly found in Eket, Esit Eket, Mbo and Oron in Akwa Ibom State stigmatized as witches and wizards and abandoned. In other parts of Akwa Ibom like Uyo, Ikot Ekpene and Oron; and Calabar, Ikom, Ugep, Yala, Ogoja and others, they abound the streets as destitute and hawkers. Some of them are easily taken away to other parts of the country on child trafficking and forced labour. Today, 125 0f them have been rescued by CRARN and are currently being rehabilitated in Eket, Akwa Ibom State.*
* Convention on the Rights of the child of 20th November, 1989, that came to focus on September 2, 1990 declares: "States parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians or family members".*
* In addition, the 4 core principles of the convention are, "non discrimination, devotion to the best interests of the child, the right of life, survival and development, and respect for the*
views of the child".
* Again, the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924, Declaration of the Rights of the Child adopted by the General*
Assembly on November 20, 1959 and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights have all stated the need to give particular care to the child.
* In furtherance of this, the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) had recently in a conference,*
advocated for more progress towards the domestication of Child Rights Act and Convention on the elimination of all forms of
discrimination Against Women in all the states of the Federation.
* In spite of all these, the story is the same as the fate of the child in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States is dangerously threatened.*
* Worried by this decaying social problem where children are dehumanized, stigmatized and abandoned by their parents, churches, their communities, the government and the society, in the name of witches and wizards in*
Akwa Ibom State, CRARN in collaboration with Stepping Stones Nigeria (SSN) moved to retrieve and rescue these children. As at today, CRARN according to its president has about 125 stigmatized children rescued from the streets and they are going through formal education and rehabilitation as normal children at CRARN headquarters in Ikot Afaha.
* At the CRARN office, which is a rented room and a parlour bungalow, the kids were seen crowded at the sitting room (parlour) watching television donated by SSN for the children's recreation. These stigmatized children are between the ages of 3 and 13 years. There, the kids mix up with one another, play and watch television while the one room is the poorly*
furnished office of Mr. Itauma. Apart from the television, the recreation centre has nothing else for the kids. Besides the office building and recreation centre, there is the un-plastered 6 rooms building as hostel for the boys. Double bunk beds and mosquito nets are just the best and only furniture the 65 boys (inmates) enjoy, while the rented girls hostel has 4 rooms with same furniture.
* "Ironically, when some churches brand these kids witches and wizards and ostracize them to the streets, the Catholic Church, Eket Parish, the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint, and Akwa Ibom State Government under the Obong Victor Attah's regime assisted in putting down a permanent structure for CRARN. This is the boys' hostel and the school block, which has 4 classrooms", Itauma said adding that the Latter Day Saint Church built the borehole, which now serves the kids and the Ikot Odiong Community of villages.*
* Behind the girls' hostel, CRARN runs a small 3 snail banks, rabbitory with 14 rabbits, goat ranch (2 goats) and poultry to provide nutrition*
and little income for the kids and the school.
* One of the Volunteers, Mr. David Emmanuel Umoren, who go about searchingand picking those kids from the streets, gave an experience and encounter with the kids saying, "In the bush we see them suffering to eat. They build little huts or tents in the bush to live and eat. These huts are just barely 3 feet high and they used water proofs and abandoned rusty zincs to build. To eat, they go to people's farmland to steal cassava to survive or sometimes you see them around dustbins*
picking garbage to eat in the name of food. The bad boys and okada riders go raping the girls at late night yet some people turn around to say they are witches.
* He explained that at the initial stage, we experienced by resistance because the never knew what we are doing. Sometimes you go to pick 2 out of 3 and one is left; later the one left*
will naturally follow. We have experience cases of a few of them running away from the camp because they are used to street life for years and they feel uncomfortable with a place like this.
* Equally narrating the story of the abandoned kids, Itauma, the President of CRARN said, "I started this project in June 2003 when some abandoned children in Eket were attacked by some people. In other places, scores of children were found everywhere, so I felt bad about it. I tried to cry out with some friends to see how we can set up an NGO to protect*
these children. At a point, we realized that protecting them alone was not enough so in 2004 we came together to see how we can rehabilitate them since no other organization in the State then was into rehabilitating the streets of abandoned children so that is why you have CRARN today".
* On how he copes with them, "children like this, we are putting up acquisition for the children and some of them are even up to 13 years now and they are into training like sowing and sometimes we want to put*
them into hair dressing and computer training. But for now, it is only sowing the girls are into. For the boys, we are trying to get into carpentry, spraying, painting and other skill acquisition, while still going to school at the CRARN children Academy".
* Itauma who is from the Eket community and is very familiar with the stories of witchcraft reeled out his experience with the stigmatized*
kids laughed excitedly saying, I have never heard any funny sound of witchcraft and undoubtedly, my association with the kids has not had any effect on me and I don't believe anything can happen to me. My belief as far as witchcraft is concerned, is very different. The belief that people turn into birds or other animals in the name of witchcraft is not true, it's a myth. I will say it is an antithesis of our general belief here in Akwa Ibom State and I will say in simple terms that I don't believe in the witchcraft concept of Akwa Ibom State. What the Bible says about witches I do believe but what the Akwa Ibom people are saying, I don't believe. There is a big variation from what the Bible is saying. The Bible is talking about somebody to be a witch when you have
other gods, believing in other gods, believing in foreign gods and practicing magic, deceiving people and all sorts of sorcery and divinations. That is what the Bible is talking about witchcraft. But in our case, witchcraft is seen as a particular place where people go out in
the night, dance, suck blood, kill people, because all sorts of diseases, madness, disorganize or ruin peoples' economy and all sort of things. They also believe that people can metamorphose into cats, animals, which
is absolutely impossible and I don't believe in that.
* "I have been working with this children for the past 4 years, no child has metamorphose into a cat, no child has hurt me and all of them are*
very lovely children, except that they are normal children as you see some of them exhibit the threats of normal human beings like
stubbornness and may be very intelligent or low witty. The believe system is that if you are so intelligent or stubborn, you are suspected.
If you are equally low witty you are suspected to be a witch.
* "Coping with their daily routine, sometimes I wake up in the morning as my phone alarm will wake me up by 4:00am to see how I can arrange some files and always prepare for the day to day duty. As the day breaks, the normal responsibility coming to us is trying to get the small children, trying to reconcile children with parents, trying to enlighten people not to believe about witchcraft, get the food for the children, get medical assistance and also trying to open new links and partners to see*
how people can assist these children. Apparently, I and other volunteers have not been resting and it is very difficult to get many people to support this situation so we have to work round the clock to make sure that these children exist. If you look at our records, since we began this project, we have reconciled more than 40 children with their parents. Though there are very few of them that when we reconcile, about 1% of the total, they still have some problems. For instance, a
* girl whose father poured fuel on and lit her up is still here with us, in spite of our effort to talk to the mother and father, they still believe that the girl is still a witch. The father having been pardoned by the Magistrate when he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, still believe that child is a witch. So the child ran away because of being starved and not given food, water and other things. But few other children we have talked to reconcile with their parents, they are living very well. You can see other children like Daniel, James and Ekemini and others are living very happily with their parents doing no harm and the parents very*
happy too. At a point, such parents equally say the witchcraft thing is not true".
* Itauma and other volunteers have worked hard to sensitize the communities and churches on this matter saying, "when we get to the community, even some churches, we do talk about the witchcraft issue a lot, we have made it upon ourselves together with the SSN and the Akwa Ibom State Government to put up our PAC campaign, which was launched last year as a kind of an enlightenment to stop the attack on children, to stop the abandonment of children, which is paying off very well. Since we launched the campaign for 3 months, we have had the reduction of children coming in even though the problem is still going on. We*
still hope to put up another campaign this November in Esit Eket because of the serious effect of child abandonment and child attack there, because we have identified Esit Eket and Mbo Local Government to be an endemic area for child stigmatization, child assault and child killing. The violence crime against children is very rife in those two areas, though it's every where in Akwa Ibom State but those two areas are very endemic".
* In the CRARN centre, Itauma disclosed that "almost everyday at least a child or two would be brought to the centre, what we do is to see how we can reconcile these children with their parents immediately. At a point, we had to may be go against our own principle, sometimes calling some of our members when we see that the only belief of the parents is that this child is a witch and we need to pray. Some parents believe that this center we have power which we can pray and excise the spirit of witchcraft from the children, so when a father maltreats the child for that reason, actually we don't hesitate to get one of our CRARN members*
to go and pray for the child and tell the father that this child is not a witch. Actually, a good number of them believe us and the child goes
back to the parents and they still come back and give us testimonies. Occasionally, we go back and counsel them because a good number of them need counseling".
* CRARN has a rented apartment for recreation, a hostel for the girls and the twain site where you have the school is the boys hostel. "The space is not enough because the whole place is cramped and overcrowded and*
right now some children happen to sleep on the floor. We are working very hard to see how we can put at least two blocks for the children so
that they can have more space otherwise there can be a kind of disease breaking out. So right now, we don't have enough space for the children. Right now there are enough mattresses for them as SSN has provided for
them and the Latter Day Saint charity also provided some beds and mattresses but we don't have space to keep them. We have 40 double bunk bed right now and mattresses, but no space. We have a permanent structure for the children; the State Government supported us through the joint effort of SSN and CRARN to build those structures in 2006. The boys' hostel and the school block for the children and that is a permanent structure for CRARN. The rent of the girls' hostel which was rented by the Latter Day Saint which of Port Harcourt will expire this year.
* Equally, commenting on the stigmatized children, the Programme Director of SSN, Mr. Gary Foxcroft decried the role of churches in the fate of these children thrown into the streets as witches and wizards saying, "we were carrying a research on street children in Akwa Ibom State and by God's grace we stumbled on CRARN and found out that the reason for so many street children in this particular area is because there is a very*
strong believe in child witches and this leads to children being stigmatized by parents and pastors and then abandoned on the streets,
they are incarcerated, abused, tortured, hot oil poured on them and some are taken to the bush buried alive or butchered. Some are even given local poison. When we discovered these problems and the fantastic work these volunteers are CRARN are doing, we felt morally and ethnically obliged to do as much as humanly possible to help support the work. I am trying to find some money here in Nigeria and England to help train these children so that we can ultimately help serve the lives of many of these children that we work with".
* Foxcroft blamed the churches and pastors for the torture and killing of such children noting that "child stigmatization and the resulting*
abandonment, torture and killing of such children is initiated and propagated by churches in order to make money purely and simple. There are a number of churches operating in Akwa Ibom and Cross River State
and they are making vast amount of money on the back of wide spread suffering and gross violation of children's rights. Our believe is that
this cannot and must not continue any longer. I am here today to stand up and face the lies and deceits and gang right evil that is being propagated by a number of these churches. In my opinion, the church in this region that is leading to children being stigmatized as witches and wizards and abused is the Full Liberty Gospel Church, which is owned by
Helen Ukpabio. I have done my research and I know that she is a capitalist ultimately; she has managed to combine setting up this Liberty Film Production Company, which propagates this myth about child witches, demonization and all of these things. She used this as a means of taking out of the minds of her congregation, and while she is shipping in her
congregation on the back of these cattle trucks, she drives in a car. She has a mansion in Calabar which is just sickening. If you compare the wealth that this woman has with the property of the women that attend services, it's just sickening. It makes me sick to the core, she calls herself a Christian yet a Christian will not have that. Jesus Christ believed in giving, helping others, loving and helping the less
fortunate. I see quite the opposite of that of one making a lot of money on the back of other people suffering and if the belief in witchcraft and completely eradicated, it is the role of civil society in the form of NGOs, charities, women groups, elders, chiefs and the government to
challenge this terrible belief and to challenge the abuses being brought about by churches such as the Full Liberty Gospel Church".
* Itauma on his part said about 8 or 9 years ago a home made video was put up by Liberty Foundation Spearheaded by Mrs. Ukpabio portraying children in the film "End of the Wicked" as possessing witchcraft spell. It is*
very sorrowful showing how children are initiated into witchcraft world and as strong agents who destroy families, kill parents, run down the economy of the society, and even destroy churches. It showed how children are actually initiated and getting other children into the witchcraft world. Since the film was put up the belief in witchcraft came to stay and since then, people became afraid of children especially poor children, children from poverty stricken home, children from broken families, children whose parents must have died of HIV/AIDS or other terminal diseases, accidents or any kind of death. Since then, children who are taken as house boys and house girls are often suspected, taken to either Pastors or Evangelists for a kind of test or probation to
* know whether they are witches or wizards. When these children are taken there for the test, they are hardly going to come back without being stigmatized as a witch. If you don't accept of being a witch, they are*
being beaten, tortured and put through all kinds of excruciating test and at the end of it you accept to be a witch. The moment you accept to be a witch, everything about you has changed. You will be deprived of going to
school, love, support, even food, water and you face constant torture here and there. At the back of it the issue of this child witchcraft is
strong by the Akwa Ibom, Efik speaking community of Cross River State and I will go by saying that with these belief, if a child is stigmatized, sometimes incarcerated for years or taken into church, some of the Pastors and Prophets make a lot of money and become very popular. It has become an easy way if a pastor wants to become popular, he or she make it easy by stigmatizing a child that he or she is a witch and in the process, they will say, I will excise this child or the child has not accepted deliverance and at the end of the day you see them abandoned in the streets and you see that child and the girl is raped and put in the family way and form another circle of destitute children. Some of them like in the Oron areas are thrown into the water, some in other places like in Uyo, we discovered some of these children were stoned to death or a hot rod forced into their anus. We are getting to a stage
where everything is against the children, the child Right Act is being swept under the carpet and the House of Assembly men do not look at
anything about passing this child Right Bill into law because it doesn't border them, but only concerned about laws that will enrich them yet
tomorrow they will say Akwa Ibom State is full of armed robbers, but where do they come from? In this state, the children are to be attackedand allowed to die".
* For Akwa Ibom State to change current trend, Foxcroft said for the Nigerian community, "there is a long way to go, locally the main thing*
that needs to happen is the need for a change in the belief that such children are witches or wizards. That is the first change that needs to
happen.
* "Secondly, so many churches around this area are preaching and stigmatizing the children as witches and wizards saying that is why you have had some form of misfortune or the other. We really need to sensitize the local community to show that in our opinion these problem does not really exist and none of these children are witches and wizards.*
* "At the state level, we need the Akwa Ibom State Government desperately to enact the child Right Act. At the moments, these children don't have any right in the eyes of the law; there is no way of achieving justice. But in the national level, we need to start regulating some of the churches that are springing up in Nigeria. Anybody can set up a church at the moment, but there need to be some form of regulation whereby the government has a process in place whereby new churches have to register,*
have to be monitored, they have to provide some forms of annual report and annual account so that these new churches springing up left, right and center are accountable to somebody some how".
* "Internationally, there is need to create more awareness rights about this particular issue of child witchcraft because at the moment I have*
carried out a lot of research in the last one year and the belief in strongly held in the Congo and parts of Angola. But the main worry is that SSN and especially CRARN have is that at the moment the belief thing seems to be particularly isolated in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States. I have certain passages of certain churches that are growing rapidly on the basis of preaching and get lots of money from it. The
more they grow and spread round Nigeria, the more that we will find these problems not just in Akwa Ibom but throughout Nigeria and
throughout the world. Infact the belief in child witchcraft is not just here in Nigeria, but in London you have members of the Congolese and the Nigerian community are doing exactly the same thing they are doing here, beating, torturing and abusing children. But the international community needs to first get the knowledge of what is going on here in terms of all the gross violation against the child Rights and after all provide assistance and pressure on the governments to regulate these churches and stop these abuses from taking place.
* "From my personal belief and from my studies have shown that of the 125 children currently in the CRARN children camp that have been branded as a witch or wizards, none of them is a witch or wizard. I have been working with them, eating with them, playing with them, drinking water, touching them, laughing, sometimes kissing them on their chick yet I am*
okay. I am not dying, I don't have any problems, and I am healthy, happy. So if they are witches why can't they harm me? Or probably they
are saying locally, he is Whiteman and he has his own witchcraft spell, thats all nonsense!"
* According to him, "in England, we had the belief in witchcraft around 300 to 400 years ago. It was a similar situation here and a lot of*
people were killed and all sorts of atrocities were taking place. Eventually with economic development and industrial revolution, its
(witchcraft) beliefs slowly went and disappeared, so I am hoping that in future, that will equally happen in Akwa Ibom State because the children are suffering.
* For Itauma, If the state is peaceful, then the children must live in peace. This is a serious phenomenon and danger for tomorrow. Some of them are growing up and in next 4 or 5 years, if nothing is done now, they will form serious gangs of armed robbers as the children are being recruited from the streets. When it comes to child trafficking, Akwa Ibom State is number one Africa. In all our researches, we have discovered that Nigeria out of every 4 children trafficked out of Nigeria, one is from Akwa Ibom State. "This is very sad".*
* Evangelist Helen Ukpabio is a multi-gifted and anointed woman of God. Founder and President of the Liberty Foundation Gospel*
Ministries of many years standing. Ukpabio who is also the Executive Director of Child Rescue International was at first instance very reluctant to react on allegations against her or
the church saying "write what they say, I will not contribute. However, she later opened up pointing out that those accusing her of stigmatizing children as witches or extorting from their parents are completely ignorant of her religious activities.
* "I will not say anything since already I stand as an accused, I like it. Which church again will they accuse? If they accuse any*
church and mention my church just because I deliver their children of witchcraft and their mothers and parents free of charge, so if they accuse my church, then write what they said, I
don't want to defend, my scriptural faith is that I should not defend myself when I am accused.... she even declined to defend other churches saying, "why should I, am I mad to go and defend other churches? Do I know what spirit
they are using there. I am so stupid when you know that "Mammy water" and witchcraft churches are more than the genuine one, on
what basis of spiritual standing do I have to defend churches; God forbid!
* According to her, "you must teach the witches the truth, and what they are practicing. Our people only stigmatize you and then*
throw you outside and destroy homes. People are accused by prophesies that they are witches to destroy homes and I don't use
prophesies for that. When I came to Eket, over 3,000 that were driven out by their children stranded, just living in streets and sometimes they help people in the market to carry loads. Now when those children on their own heard I came, they came. I don't give vision on witchcraft because witchcraft is something that if you are a witch, you are a witch and if you are not, you are not. I have never stigmatized anybody that you are a witch. The only time we say you are a witch is when you come to spy on me or you are boasting … and I will just tell you 2-3 things to prove.
* If I am teaching on witchcraft, I screen people using 7 days. I use 5 out of the 7 days for counseling. I use the counseling to*
let them to know what witchcraft is all about, because some that are accused as witches are not".
* On the stigmatized children in Eket, she said, "I delivered them and I was forced to add another one week, and at a point I told*
them even if it is 2 months, I can't finish the witchcraft of Eket. They came following me and crying and the children were more. Adult witches would be pleading, please help me, I am killing all my children. If I don't counsel, I don't handle witchcraft matters. The Eket program was not on witchcraft, but
large number of witches turned up, confessing and pleading for deliverance saying, "Please, Mma (mummy) help me, I am a witch…"
so you must do something to accommodate that person for deliverance. When I announced that all witches should come out, people rushed out in large number and the whole place was filled. Even when I went to Jos, the same thing. Witchcraft is everywhere. Witches look for me, but I don't look for them. if I say let me stop preaching and do witchcraft, everywhere will be jam-packed. On Mondays, you will see
* parents from different churches flooding this place. My God reveal witches to me and remove or heal them of the spell. Some parents even beat their children, but when they come here, I don't go by the testimonies of the mothers, I counsel and conduct deliverance. A special deliverance will soon be conducted by the church.*
* What I teach here can't be gotten outside. Witchcraft is not in the blood or flesh, it is Beelzebub spirit living in human spirit*
carrying out hyper activities in the night. When the witchcraft spirit begins its work, it peels out the human spirit. It is not in the soul or flesh, so as it peels out, the person lies down
there sleeping. I have so much to correct the society so that they can have genuine deliverance. Hear I am , I don't have much
money to project me out and do bigger things.
* On allegation that she makes so much money to deliver witches, Ukpabio screamed and called group of her Pastors (about 50 of*
them) who were meeting in her garden to come and hear the allegation. The pastors, in unison said Ukpabio or the Liberty Church do not collect money to perform deliverance on witches. According to her, "there is a woman in Calabar and some place in Uyo that collect as much as N20,000 per child. But there we don't
collect anything. Infact, some of those people that say we collect money are wizards themselves. They are just trying to hinder others from coming. Ask anybody, we don't collect money, Oh the blood of Jesus, how can they say I collect money from witch deliverance to build my house and drive my car? Like the programs I finished in Eket, Jos and Makurdi, I collected no money or special offering as other pastors do. The only thing is
that they are jealous. I have a gift from God that the world must go. If those people really mean it, let them come, they cannot even come because when they hear the name, Helen, it's like their witchcraft will end today. Some even see me on the street, throw their bags away and run.
* "I don't have any other program on the witches outside the church, I don't just conduct deliverance for the children like that, I look for the parents and I don't accept sentiments. If it*
is the wife, let the husband accompany, or the aged, let the adult children accompany. The reason is that when such persons go back to the village, they will go to the native doctors or
spiritual churches. They are all using witchcraft or familiar spirits to see prophecy. They can never see in the realm of God because they are not possessed with the spirit of God. So they
see in the realm of Beelzebub. This Beelzebub tells them lies. My own is that I help those who come to me and I don't go out to look for witches. I can't deliver a witch and send you out because it will not take long they will contaminate you or invoke you. We teach them the word of God and cause them to start
worshipping God in the church. Our members merely contribute in case we go for a crusade or any other major program and that is how we have been able to reach out to many people. But to say that you are a witch you pay me, no. If I want to collect money I will be so rich because thousands of witches come to me
and sometimes I ignore them; yet they come on their knees begging. So if I want to collect money, nobody will see my back. So I have delivered over 10,000 witches (children and adults) from the spell of witchcraft. Infact, it is more and I don't want to exaggerate. If I just say this year we are doing witchcraft, you will not see any space. The whole church will be crowded. Infact, because of that, I am going to do this witchcraft program next year. The year 2003 was the last time I did it in Calabar".
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