POLICE authorities in the oil-rich Rivers State in Nigeria say they have arrested a man titled as a ‘bishop’ for allegedly
raping a 15-year old girl.
Bishop Chibuike Nwabueze, who is the Chairman of All Bishops in Rivers State, was paraded on Thursday by the state police command.
The bishop’s actual church affiliation is not available as at press time. Mr. Nwabueze reportedly confessed to the crime before journalists, claiming that he was hypnotized by a pastor at the church where the incident occurred. The bishop denied raping the underage girl.
He said instead that the girl took off her clothes after he finished praying for her in the church office. According to him, before he could shout ‘the blood of Jesus,’ he was already engaged in sexual molestation of the underage girl. Nwabueze also denied that he had encouraged the 15-year old girl to undergo abortion after a previous pregnancy.
He however fingered the girl’s unnamed father for initiating the procedure, adding that he only took care of the bill. “We have different Colleges of Bishops. I am the Chairman of Communion of Bishops in Rivers State…what actually happened was a set up,” Nwabueze, who was paraded at the Rivers State Criminal Investigation department in Port Harcourt, told the press.
“It was set-up by my enemies. The man who is in-charge of where I went to minister is my enemy. He is the person that set me up,” he insisted. Mr. Nwabueze said that the unnamed fellow clergyman whom he claimed had set him up extended repeated invitations for him to come and minister at his church, which he accepted. He claims the invitations were part of a scheme to get frame him up.
“We are dragging the chairmanship of the communion and that was why he set me up,” Nwabueze said in barely literate street language which meant there was tussle between him and his colleagues in his church over the ‘chairmanship of the communion’.