IS THIS MAN A FAITH HEALER OR SADISTIC PRETENDER?

"I think his calling was from God, but along the line, I think he has allowed his own personal interest to clash with the work of God. Instead of doing the work for the glory of God, his desire and love for money has taken over…In the years that I was there, at least, there were people who were perfectly healed and later left the camp. When most of the people realized that they had been healed, they would want to leave. But he would not allow them to go. A few, however, managed to eventually escape. Among those who were healed, those that left couldn’t have been more than five”

Is Pastor Ifeanyi Iheanacho a kind-hearted deliverance minister genuinely called by God to deliver psychiatric patients from the spirit of madness? Or is the man a pathological sadist who delights in subjecting mentally retarded patients to physical abuse and psychological trauma?These are the puzzles now agitating the minds of the inhabitants of Sabon Gidan Kanar, a community in Jos South Local Government area of Plateau State, even as men and officers of the Plateau State Police Command will be attempting to unravel the mysteries in the days and weeks ahead.In October, last year, Pastor Iheanacho, proprietor of the Holy Ghost Psychiatric Home at Sabon Gidan Kanar was arrested, docked and later released on bail after being accused of inhuman treatment of the mentally challenged patients in the home. The pastor, who allegedly tags himself, “Reverend Doctor,” was even alleged to have caused the deaths of several inmates, while claiming to be curing them of insanity.Following such complaints, the state government ordered the closure of the home, while the inmates were ordered to be moved to the Vom Christian Hospital for rehabilitation. Just before the end of last year, the state Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Sarah Yusuf, handed a cheque for N3.3 million to the officials of the Vom Christian Hospital to facilitate the inmates’ rehabilitation. Many had thought that the government’s action would quieten the din on the psychiatric home activities in the last few months. Recent events are, however, giving a lie to that assumption.
The pastor’s supporters, mainly staff of the home, are debunking all allegations against Iheanacho. To them, peddlers of the accusations are merely envious of the minister’s achievements and are spreading patently fallacious tales to destroy the man of God.Officials of the facility are also miffed at the government’s alleged exhibition of total ingratitude for their humanitarian efforts. According to them, the least the government could have done for the pastor, who had been ridding the streets of lunatics and curing them of their malady without assistance from any quarters, was to have shown some appreciation.In the beginningDaily Sun investigations revealed that Prophet Ihenacho’s home has been operating in Plateau State for over a decade, having been founded by a certain Emmanuel Shokolo. The home has borne several names since its establishment, including Ekklisiyan Zababu, Deliverance Fellowship Intervention and Holy Ghost Psychiatric Home.Initially, the home was located on Tafawa Balewa Street, close to the Suzy Garden at the centre of the Tin City. When the facility was newly constructed, its founder regularly went round the streets of Jos to pick seemingly insane persons. He would then take such patients to his camp for treatment. Indeed, according to some people, some of those lunatics actually regained their senses. In those days, the pastor was said to have consistently informed everyone that the patients were cured by God through prayers. As the years went by, the mental home was becoming a nuisance in its neighbourhood, because it was attracting a horde of motorists and passersby. To curb the problem, the state government relocated the home to the outskirts of Jos. The former Leprosy Center at Sabon Gidan Kanar in Jos South Local Government area became the inmates’ new abode. AllegationsYears after its relocation, nothing was heard about the home, which has been severally re-christened by its operators until recently when the police announced that the prophet was under arrest. At the time of his arrest, Iheanacho was alleged to have kept no fewer than 60 persons in confinement, all of whom were allegedly forced to live in the home as captives. Whoever is caught while attempting to leave would be whipped mercilessly and made to undergo other forms of physical and mental abuse, according to the story.According to his accusers, the pastor and his aides perennially subjected the inmates to physical assault, while claiming to be forcing the spirit of lunacy out of them. He was also said to have hypnotized not just his patients, but also members of their families in a bid to enslave and extort money from them. It was further alleged that some of the inmates’ family members were forced to permanently relocate to the facility. But such individuals did not just move in, they were said to have sold off all their possessions and surrendered the proceeds to the home. In some instances, the pastor reportedly took over the inmates’ possessions just to stop them from running away from the camp. Children were also alleged to have been made to abandon their education. The pastor was said to have told the people that it was always better for little kids to be tutored first in evangelism. Other things, the pastor allegedly sermonized, would be added unto them.Petition The alleged activities of the prophet were brought to light when some people wrote to Governor Jonah Jang to complain that some members of their family were being held captives and were undergoing torture in the hands of the “Reverend Doctor”. According to the petitioners, members of the Mgbok family, comprising the husband, wife and children from Rechi village in Bachit District of Riyom Local Government area, had abandoned their homes and jobs to permanently live with the ‘Reverend Doctor’.Bizarre talesImmediately after the arrest, Daily Sun spoke to some of the victims who still remained in the home. What you immediately discovered at the place was the glaring poverty, even though the inmates still managed to survive in that apparently communal set-up. While the reporter was there, the patients were served meals. But many still begged the journalist for money. They said that since their leader was arrested, nobody has been catering for them. There was also no sign that they were planning to leave the facility. Those who were not in chains were not in a hurry to leave the place.
After the prophet was picked up, some people who claimed to be victims of his maltreatment spoke on their travails at the home. One of them, Lucy J. Datong is a member of the Mgbok family which had petitioned the state governor. According to Lucy, her elder brother, Iliya, had been taken to the home in 1999 after developing a mental problem. At the home, the pastor reportedly invited all members of the family to the camp. “On getting there, he advised us that since our elder brother has the problem, it shows that there is a problem in the whole family. So he expected all of us in the family to come and be fellowshipping there”, said Lucy.Lucy told Daily Sun that when they started attending fellowship at the centre, the pastor also demanded that they should start paying their tithes to the home. Lucy and other members of the family, however, told him that their tithes were being paid to their local churches. But he reportedly convinced them that his church was the only place where God dwelt in Plateau State. She continued: “He said God would not accept our tithes if we paid to other churches, and, so we began taking our tithes to the place. We believed that everything was being done according to the will of God and that Christ was the foundation of that place.”Fully convinced that Iheneacho’s home was God’s only abode, Lucy said in the year 2000, she relocated to the place alongside her parents and two of her sisters.Before her final relocation, Lucy said she had been teaching at a primary school under Riyom Local Government Council. She was at the same time schooling at the Federal College of Education, Pankshin. But in 2004, she allegedly quit both job and school for the camp, thinking she would be there as a full time minister of the gospel.It took some time for her to know that things at the camp were not as she had thought. It was after seeing some of those changes, she said, that she realized it was time for her to leave the camp.
Said Lucy: “One day in 2005, when other inhabitants were in fellowship, I packed my bags and wanted to leave without the pastor’s knowledge. I knew that nobody in that place would be allowed to leave. The pastor was always saying that whoever came there had been chosen to work for God and if you tried to leave, you would be chained or caned. So, as I had made up my mind to leave, I took my bag quietly and was sneaking out of the place when someone saw me and reported to the pastor. Then some of the people came after me, caught me and took me back. For the first time, I was chained in the camp.”
Lucy disclosed that she was flogged and chained for 12 days, following that attempt to escape. She narrated how she went through psychological trauma while in chains and was also having some strange dreams.That was not the only time she was chained. After that initial experience, Lucy said she was also manacled when her elder sister came to visit the family at the camp on a Sunday and the visitor brought some food along for them. The following day, all members of their family including their aged parents were reportedly flogged because “the pastor said we have polluted the place for receiving visitors on a wrong day. He said we were not supposed to receive visitors or talk to anyone at the camp on Sundays and that we shouldn’t eat food beside what was prepared for us at the camp”. For that ‘offence’, she said she was again chained for 16 days. There were other ‘offences’ that would earn inmates some punishment. For saying what was not agreeable to members, or for receiving visitors at the camp and eating food brought from outside, an inmate was likely to be caned, said Lucy. After the caning, further punishment, including chaining might be prescribed if they thought the punishment was inadequate.
She had more tales to share. “There was a day I had a dream concerning the pastor’s wife and I went to share it with her. She then took our discussion to the fellowship and said they should discuss about the dream I had. The conclusion was that, telling the woman the bad dream that I had about her showed that I did not like her. The woman even said maybe I was planning to kill her, so that I would marry her husband. She concluded that I was not normal, so I should be put in chains for two days. But do you know that they kept me in chains for almost nine months? “The way they chained us was either for the two hands to be chained together (and in that case, one would be unable to eat) or they would chain the legs together. My hands were chained for three days, and for those days, I did not eat and nobody came around to take care of me. I called the prophet after two days and asked him if I could be freed. He said ‘no’, because, according to him, I was not with my normal senses. I said I knew everything that I was doing. I told him that what was disturbing me was that I wanted to leave the camp but that I was being forced to stay. I was being flogged everyday. I received about 100 strokes of the cane at that time when I was chained for the third time. They later moved me to the bush, saying that my staying in the room was not helping me.I was in the bush for almost a month and some days. I stayed for almost three months without taking my bath. They said I wouldn’t be able to take my shower until I became normal. It was only God that freed me from that bondage on the 9th of May, 2007. That day, a boy by name Naiobe, who was put in charge of those of us that had been chained, forgot to lock the chains after he had loosened it for me to have my bath. I even heard when they were asking him if he had locked in those of us in chains and he said he had; not knowing that he didn’t lock me. I covered myself with a blanket because I did not want them to know that the boy didn’t lock the chain. At around 11 pm, after I was sure that everybody was asleep, I escaped from the camp and I ran to meet my sister.”Lucy said she was not sexually harassed at the camp. The reason for that, she said, was because she always spent her time praying. “I always prayed. I did not even get involved in all the activities going on there and so I couldn’t have been sexually harassed,” she said.
On the issue of marriage, Lucy said the prophet and his wife were always advising inmates to seek potential spouses from among the workers or the inmates with whom they could share the word of God. Such people could also end up marrying, they were told. “But I told the pastor that I am not a child and that it is God that gives husband. Moreover, I did not see anyone among them that I could get married to. I told them that I was there to do the work of God.” Lucy revealed that several of the inmates lost their lives, while she remained in that camp. Even though she could not recall the number, she said between 12 and 15 inmates died in her presence. She disclosed that at least, five members of her family were still in the camp. Her elder brother, Iliya, has, however, been taken back home, she said.The lady says she now feels normal after seven years in bondage. “My senses are now normal and, in fact, I feel better. Things are no longer the way they were with me when I was there. But I am normal now. I have gone back to my job and would continue my schooling again”, she said. How will she assess Pastor Iheanacho? “I think his calling was from God, but along the line, I think he has allowed his own personal interest to clash with the work of God. Instead of doing the work for the glory of God, his desire and love for money has taken over.”
She admitted, however, that there were people who got healed at the centre. “In the years that I was there, at least, there were people who were perfectly healed and later left the camp. When most of the people realized that they had been healed, they would want to leave. But he would not allow them to go. A few, however, managed to eventually escape. Among those who were healed, those that left couldn’t have been more than five,” she said.Lucy’s brother-in-law, Daniel Gemang, a Supervisory Councillor for Social Services in Riyom Local Government Council and now a headmaster in one of the primary schools in the local government, added another dimension to the story about Iheanacho. Gemang, who confirmed that his brother-in-law was taken to the prophet’s camp to get healed, disclosed that he had reservations about the pastor the first time he set eyes on him which was when he went to worship at the camp before the family members finally relocated there. He said his fear was confirmed when the pastor collected 10 bundles of zinc from his father-in-law. The bundles of zinc, he said, were actually bought to complete his father-in-law’s house. “But the pastor said that we should bring all the zinc to the camp, that God has told him that my father-in-law should not build his house at that time”.
Gemang also accused the pastor of collecting N57,000 from one of his sisters-in-law on the pretext that he would keep it for her. Asked how Iheanacho knew about the zinc and the money, the teacher explained that the pastor interrogated members of the family to know what their plans were. He said members of the family had severally asked for the money but regretted that the pastor was still holding on to it. He said throughout the time Lucy and some other members of the family were in the camp, their relations were unable to gain access to them. Even people who took their relations to the camp for treatment were denied access to them, he claimed, adding that Lucy had to be rushed to the hospital after her escape to ensure that she regained normalcy.
Gemang, who was one of those that wrote the petition, explained why the family decided to report the pastor to the authorities. “After Lucy left the camp, we sent one of her brothers schooling in Cuba to go and collect her stuff from the camp. But on getting there, he was arrested and chained after he was given 21 strokes of the cane. When we tried to find out why he was chained, we were told it was because the young man refused to go and pack his things and move to the camp. And when I went there, they said I would be chained. I was only allowed to leave after I told them that I was a government worker”. Gemang consequently wrote the governor through the Ministry of Social Welfare and gave a copy of the petition to the Commissioner of Police. He said the family members were able to collect enough information about the man from Lucy and from another boy named Davou Dajuma whose father was still in the camp. Gemang said he was so bitter about what Iheanacho had done to his family that he was prepared to kill himself if the man was released. He accused the man of using religion to get to the people of Plateau State since religion is a major way of hoodwinking people.

Report By MARIAM ALESHINLOYE AGBOOLA, Jos (THE SUN, Monday, February 18, 2008)