- He’s safe, not to worry, say NCoS officials in Maiduguri
- He’s Joseph of our time; nobody can hurt him – church members…
By MUSA DANJUMA, Special Correspondent
(With additional reporting by Thelma Anwatu, Lagos)
REVEREND King is safe, an official of the National Correctional Service (NCoS), told Daily Query last week in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. His evacuation was successful and without any troubles, once he was moved out of the surroundings of Maiduguri, he enthused.
“We were all relieved. We were happy that the anxiety of managing Rev King has moved to another place,” the official in Maiduguri said. “Once he was out of Maiduguri, he was no longer our responsibility.”
Reactions have been coming in since Daily Query broke the story of his evacuation from the floods in Maiduguri, where 281 inmates escaped as the water overwhelmed the prison walls. Only seven, including King, were in custody after officials recovered from the mayhem of the flood.
“That Rev King is from my hometown. In fact, one of my first cousins was once his Bishop for Brazil,” said a reader who would not want his name to be mentioned.
Many Nigerians knew Reverend King’s church had international operations but they did not know that Brazil had a branch. Anambra businessmen who lived in Brazil were his target.
“The church has all types of practices. My cousin passed on a couple of years ago. He was sick and King told him not to go to hospital that his prayers will do the job. And that was it.”
The reader continued: “King is a product of the Ufuma Prayer House led by a woman since the early 70s. The man said to have fathered him illegitimately, is one Charles Ezeude, now gone.
“Ezeude established a branch of that prayer ministry in my hometown in the early 70s.
“That’s where King started out as a visioner in his teenage years. They are deadly people.”
In prison, King was dreaded, another official who knew him in Kano said. “There were fears that he had mystical powers. There were tales of his abilities to disappear. Officials who guarded him were often tensed during their shifts.
“Nothing extraordinary happened, at least none that I know of. The fears persisted. It hasn’t happened but it could happen,” he expressed the feelings of his colleagues. “I wasn’t in a shift that involved him, but I knew him well.
The official said he was not sure where King was. What is certain, he said, is that Rev King was evacuated to safety. “He is safe otherwise you would have heard.”
Daily Query’s persistence through other contacts produced results.
“I can tell you that King is in Keffi Custodial Centre. That is where he was moved to and was still there by Wednesday 18 September 2024,” the official said. Other officials confirmed that King was in Keffi, saying that would be his home until the authorities reach another decision on his matter.
When the Supreme Court confirmed King’s death sentence in 2016, Babatunde Fashola, was barely nine months in office as Governor of Lagos State. He completed his tenure without acting on King. In Akinwunmi Ambode’s four years, he continued the indecision. Babajide Sanwo-Olu is the third Lagos State Governor since the King verdict. He too seems headed in the same direction as his predecessors.
If the Governor of Lagos State, where the offence was committed, does not sign the death sentence or pardon the condemned, King would continue his journey of prisons until he expires.
‘His Holiness the G.O? Ah, he is safe and certainly will be back’
Daily Query correspondent’s visit Sunday (September 22) this week to the headquarters of Christian Praying Assembly (CPA) at 30 Ugo Nnabuife Street, Ajao Estate, Isolo, Lagos, was deliberate. First, we wanted to find out whether the church was still intact, years after King’s arrest in 2006. The second, and perhaps even more importantly, was to see, if the church was still intact, what had changed.
Those who were conversant with the early days of the church would recall that it was more like a Christian sect whose members exhibited anti-social behaviours, were almost always aggressive and tended to make enemies of non-members of the Church. And almost all the males grew and wore beards, just like Rev. King whose trademark was a long and, admittedly, luxuriant beard.
Many residents of Ajao Estate in those days were witnesses to how members of the Church – male and female, young and old, Church Council or ordinary member – would all kneel down and bow their heads wherever in the Estate or anywhere else in Lagos they saw Rev. King’s car coming. And woe betide any motorist who had the bad luck to be using the road at the same time as Rev. King and dared not to stop and park well for the G.O’s convoy to pass. At such an encounter, the motorist or motorists would simply have their car(s) lifted out of the way by huge, bearded muscle-men and casually dropped by the roadside while King would drive past unperturbed. Simply put, CPA, King and his church members were dreaded in the neighbourhood.
on the other, it is just possible that the church members themselves were taking out their pent-up anger and self-loathing on members of the public. Some residents who lived on streets adjacent to CPA recalled, in chats with Daily Query, how Church members were shabbily treated by bouncer-like church wardens who would not let anyone move out of the building, even to pee, once King was inside and preaching (singing most of the time, actually). When eventually they were allowed to take a break, practically every member would come out at the same time and pour out their hot urines on walls, inside gutters and just about any place in the neighbourhood, thereby polluting the environment as no other agent could ever have done.
“Not any longer,” Daily Query correspondent, Thelma Anwatu, said. “When I visited the CPA on Sunday, I saw a rather decent place where a normal church service was being celebrated with people moving in and out at their own convenience. I did not notice any sign or practically witness any act of coercion in the relationship between church members and wardens or guards, as the case may be, there at all. More importantly, the church, as attested to by interviewees, now lives in peace with itself and neighbours. From what I could see, the environment is neither polluted by indiscriminate disposal of human waste, as was reportedly the case before, nor by the oft-deafening noise from loud speakers mounted on walls and roofs of the church building, as was reportedly the case in those days.”
Ms. Anwatu was driven to the church by another lady who was coming with her from the Catholic nearby. As the benevolent woman made to reverse and go back, a tall, lanky, clean-shaven an sprang to his feet at the church gate and walked up to the woman to direct her driving as she tried to maneuver out of the street with a lot of other parked cars belonging members of the CPA.
“He looked decent and friendly. That was my first surprise, if stories baout the place were anything to go. Even my sister who took me to the place in her car was asking ‘is this not CPA? Didn’t they say they were unruly people?’ Needless to say that the man who later identified himself simply as PraiseGod became the natural place for me to discuss with.”
And so, shortly after the lady drove out, the following conversation took place between the Daily Query correspondent and CPA’s PraiseGod.
DQ: Hello, I am a journalist and just came over from the Catholic Church. I would like to have a chat with you.
CPA: Ok, you are welcome. I am PraiseGod. Please, what would you like to talk about?
DQ: You people are still here? I can see the church is bigger and obviously better organized. Everything seems normal here and neighbours have even testified that they have no problem with your presence, unlike before. What’s the secret?
CPA: Hahahaha. We have always been here; to tell you the truth, we have never skipped our church programme even for a day since the incident about 17 years ago. In fact, we now have about 25 branches in Lagos alone, apart from other branches in other parts of Nigeria and our international branches in Brazil, US, UK and other parts of the world. There is no secret; we are and have always been guided by our G.O’s vision of a big church that will preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far-ends of the world.
DQ: Talking about your G.O, I read something recently on social media (in fact, the story was broken by us) about the uncertainty and fretting about his safety after the devastating Maiduguri flood. What do you…(cuts in)
CPA: Ah, His Holiness the G.O is safe; he has since been moved out of the place. He is in Kebbi now (Daily Query sources in Maiduguri said Keffi). As we speak now, some members and leaders of the Church have travelled to Kebbi to visit him.
DQ: Is this a regular thing?
CPA: Of course it is a regular. We are always with him. And every Sunday, he sends a message which is read in all the branches of the Church as the G.O’s message, which becomes the talking point for the pastors in the Sunday service.
DQ: Which means he runs the church from prison…
CPA: Not physically, as is obvious. But he is our spiritual director forever.
DQ: What is the church’s prayer point for him?
CPA: The Church is not praying for him because he predicted what’s happening to him and knew in advance the enemies that would be used against him. What is happening is the usual persecution that every true man of God may suffer from time to time. But he will be back, no doubt about that.
DQ: I thought the church would be organizing prayer sessions for him, asking God to show him mercy so he can be released.
CPA: As individuals, we do pray for him but as a church, no. Because, as I said, the end of this tribulation had been predicted from the very beginning and we are just waiting for the time to come. I know what your fears are; thank you for your concern but nothing will happen to him. This (points two-finger gun-nuzzle sign to his neck)? Naw, nobody will shoot him.
DQ: You can’t sure about this…(cuts).
CPA: It’s been 17 years now. Look, he is the Joseph of our time -from prison to presidency. He is the one God has appointed to redeem Nigeria. You will see.
