One of the most trying periods in the life of Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio, founder of Liberty Gospel Church with headquarters in Calabar and a Nollywood film producer, was the seven years of 2007 to 2013, when the social media became awash with insults, abuses and curses on the woman of God for allegedly branding some children in Akwa Ibom State witch and maiming, torturing and even killing some of them brought by their parents to her church for deliverance.
Peddling the story was the United Kingdom-registered Stepping Stones Nigeria, SSN, in partnership with an Esit Eket, Akwa Ibom State-based Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network, CRARN. Sam Itauma, proprietor of the children centre claimed that the children were 200 in number and that most of them were thrown into the street by their parents who accused them of witchcraft.
Gary Foxcroft, the British director of SSN, who came to Nigeria on an academic exchange programme, and later came in contact with Itauma’s centre had with some of his friends in the global Humanist Movement, gone to town to tell how the children were dubbed witches and tortured in churches with Ukpabio and her church leading the pack.
The story whipped a lot of sympathy, with governments, companies and individuals donating a lot of money for the upkeep of the said kids. Those who knew Ukpabio and her church well did not believe that she would do harm to any child. The others were forced to exonerate her from all the accusations when the Akwa Ibom State government, which earlier went with her accusers, concluded its investigation and declared the allegations as fabricated lies. Thereafter, the government withdrew all its moral and other support for Stepping Stones Nigeria and shut down Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network and handed over its about 50 inmates to UNICEF.
Ukpabio’s latest book – a 250-page hard cover, entitled Akwa Ibom State Child-witch Scam, the Wholesome Truth, is her version of the seven-year story of stigmatization, brutalisation, torture and killing of children labelled witches by churches in Akwa Ibom State that portrayed the state government and her people in terrible bad light and earned Ukpabio and her church, a world of enemies.
In his foreword to the book, Professor Ita Ewa-Oboho of the Institute of Oceanography, Akwa Ibom State University, Ikot Akpaden, describes it as a “simple narrative of how two NGOs go into partnership to raise huge amount of money from government, companies and individuals (local and foreign) to fight a non-existing cause in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. The NGOs claimed to be working in the interest of abandoned children accused of witchcraft by churches but in reality, they are atheist organizations trying to have a foothold in Nigeria as a springboard to penetrate and get rooted in Africa.” He called on Nigerians to examine the hidden motives of NGOs that they work for, contribute to and receive aids from.
In the well-crafted book, Ukpabio has provided details on how people around the world, mostly United Kingdom, United States of America, Austrialia, Austria, Portugal and Canada who abused her on social media got to know about her.
She says Foxcroft brought Mags Gavan, a former British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, staff and chief executive officer of Red Rebel Films, U.K. to Nigeria to shoot the films for him. When she returned to the U.K. Gavan, alongside boyfriend, Boost Van der Valk produced the documentary, Despatches: Saving Africa’s Witch Children, which was first aired by BBC Channel 04 on 11th and 12th November 2008. She says some scenes in the documentary were imaginary claims from her pirated film, ‘End of the Wicked’ while her image was transposed on the documentary which has pictures of some children. Gavan’s documentary depicted Ukpabio as wicked and cruel to children. Foxcroft and Gavan, according to Ukpabio’s book, did not only ask those who watched the film to abuse her on the Internet but also gave them sample language. For example, in a chapter of the book tagged ‘Counting the Losses’, eight letters were sent by pupils of a certain Sacred Heart School in Australia, all having the same content but different handwritings.
The documentary, Despatches: Saving Africa’s Witch Children also opened an account for people to donate money for the ‘witch’ children. Gavan, said to have profited much from the documentary, has also received many awards, having widely shown it across the world. But Ukpabio says she should not only repent from her lies but also apologise to Africa.
Part of the films shows a bishop, who Foxcroft and Itauma were said to have asked to accept that he killed 210 witch children. The bishop was to be paid N400, 000 for the job, but he was paid N6,000 by Foxcroft. However, the bishop was arrested by the police after acting the script, but released by the court which after establishing that he did not kill any child or adult.
The events narrated in the book, have been spread into 11 chapters excluding the two appendixes that Ukpabio uses to write about her life and work. It begins with the church hooking onto the Internet in April 2008 and being greeted with criticism of Ukpabio’s films, especially End of the Wicked, and calls on Akwa Ibom and the Nigerian governments to stop Ukpabio from preaching and close down her church. Governments around the world were asked to deny her entry into their territories. Some of the posts read, “Stop Helen Ukpabio from killing innocent children”, “Stop Liberty Foundation Ministries from labelling children as witches.” “Helen you are wicked. You will die.”
The book says at the time of the discovery of the posts, 2,417 of the targeted 5,000 signatories of hatred for Ukpabio, had been collected on Facebook, Twitter, Email and Widget. It was not only Gavan that published the falsehood but also the London Guardian and The Observer. Ukpabio says her shock that such globally respected newspapers could write about her without crosschecking their facts with her is still fresh. She said the only journalist who spoke with her in Houston, United States, decided to side with her accusers rather than be objective.
The Guardian and the Observer published that Ukpabio collected some $2,800 or 170 U.K. pounds from parents to perform deliverance for their children, which she said she had no idea of. One of the newspapers carried pictures of the Esit Eket branch of Liberty Gospel Church and the pastor of the church. The book says that the picture must have been taken the day the two white men – Kelly Stowe, a journalist and Foxcroft walked into their Sunday service and stayed through, carefully guarding their hidden agenda
Ukpabio said aside making money out of Africa, Foxcroft and his friends are members of the Humanist Movement which latest strategy is to fight back Christianity in Africa and to stop Nigeria’s frontline effort in global evangelization. “They pretend to fight for the rights of the women and children, the poor and underprivileged as well as animals of Africa. But they are looking for money and opportunity to establish their cults”, the book says. Ukpabio said she found out that the attack from the British atheists came after they had convened a meeting and agreed to attack her because according to them, her wealth came from stigmatisation of children.
Akpaekong wrote in from Calabar
