‘Pastor raped me countless times’- Victim tells court

Pastor Princewill Basil who is standing trial before an FCT High Court over alleged rape of two girls was on Tuesday confronted by a second victim who claimed he raped her countless times.

Basil, the General Overseer, Mountain Movers Fire Ministry Church, Nyanya, was arraigned in 2012 for allegedly having unlawful carnal knowledge and impregnating two student-members of his church, aged 14 and 15 years. Giving evidence under cross-examination by the defence counsel, Mr. Sunday Kekere, the victim said the pastor rape her to “cleanse her spirit of dirt’’. 

“I cannot remember the number of times he raped me. “Papa told me it was a continuous deliverance, and he had to sleep with me to clean all the dirt inside me and also cleanse my future,’’’ she told court. When asked if in her statement to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Person (NAPTIP), she admitted living with the accused, she answered `no’. “I never told them (NAPTIP) that. I told them that I always go there to assist Papa’s former fiancée Cynthia, with household chores. “There are days that I sleep over to finish my chores,’’ she said. When asked if the pastor had paid her school fees before, she said: “Papa had once told me during deliverance that he gave my mum N40, 000 for my school fees.’’ “When I asked my mum, she said it was not true,’’ she testified. The victim alleged that the accused had on some occasions, threatened her with a knife to force her to sleep with him.

After her testimony, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf adjourned the case for continuation of testimony. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that at the last sitting of the case in July , the first victim told the court that Basil allegedly told her that her father’s wife was trying to kill her and that the Lord told him to perform a quick deliverance on her. “I agreed for the deliverance to be carried out on me. During the deliverance, he carried a white handkerchief and a bottle of oil and asked me to remove my clothes. “He also asked me if I was menstruating and I told him no.

“He told me that I was possessed with many evil spirits that had stained my blood, and it will only take my husband to deliver me and I was not married.“He said that he will carry out the cleansing on me,’’ she said. The victim testified that the accused led her into his bedroom and asked her to close her eyes, brought his handkerchief and placed it over her head and she became very weak. The victim alleged that the accused raped her.

If convicted, he is liable to 14 years in prison.The accused had pleaded not guilty to the charges.