By Obong Akpaekong
It is unfortunate and worrisome, that some 12 years after Leo Igwe, said to be the leader of the humanists in Africa lost a hatred-induced battle against Calabar-based preacher and founder of Liberty Gospel Church, Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio. The same Leo Igwe has started a fresh battle that he knows he will always lose.
On September 28, while applying his usual tactics of venting hatred and spreading falsehood, this Leo Igwe published a piece in Sahara Reporters that said: “The Advocacy for Alleged Witches, AfAW, is concerned over a recent move by Helen Ukpabio and her Liberty Gospel Church to relaunch their witch-hunting ministry in Calabar in Southern Nigeria. “Advocates have spotted a billboard in Calabar announcing a program, “Rescuing Families from Witchcraft Markets.”
The programme was to hold from October 5 to 9, 2022 at the church headquarters in Calabar, Cross River State. The theme of this program is disturbing …….” Leo Igwe went further: “AfAW is concerned that this event will provide another forum for Ukpabio to brand children witches, and incite violence and hatred against family members. Ukpabio will use this event to spread occult fears and anxieties and add to the growing problem of child and adult witch persecutions in the region.”
Two days after, September 30, Leo Igwe petitioned the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, through the Cross River State coordinator of the commission to stop the event. The same accusations were peddled by Leo Igwe and his cohorts in the earlier years (up till 2011) when he worked assiduously to distract Ukpabio from her divine calling and to bring down Liberty Gospel Church.
During those years, what really stood for unprintable lies were unfortunately printed, mostly by foreign media including the US-based The Guardian and The Observer newspaper in the United Kingdom. Leo Igwe, working in tandem with Sam Itauma, executive director of the now defunct Child Rights and Rehabilitation Centre, CRARN, in Esit Eket and the U.K-based charity, Stepping Stone Nigeria, with offices in Lancaster; poured out baskets of lies against the Calabar-based preacher all in an effort to shut down her church. The lies? That Ukpabio was torturing children to force them to confess that they were witches. Children were starved for days in Ukpabio’s church until they confessed of being witches. Ukpabio would push a giant nail into the head of an alleged child-witch until he or she confessed of being a witch or died. The woman of God and film producer had become stingy rich after collecting fat sums of money to conduct deliverance for witches. The build-up of the hate lies reached a crescendo in the decade of 2001 to 2010, when the global community was filled with spiteful hatred for Ukpabio.
Humanist groups in Australia, United States of America and many countries of Europe including the United Kingdom and Spain called on countries of the world to ban Ukpabio from visiting their land. She suffered large-scale embarrassment and persecution at home and abroad because of the basket of lies, which Leo Igwe, Itauma and Gary Foxcroft, the Stepping Stone Nigeria director were trading within the public marketplace.
It is sad to note that Akwa Ibom State government was deceived into joining in persecuting Ukpabio and her church until a panel of inquiry then Governor Godswill Akpabio set up to investigate the involvement of Liberty Gospel Church, CRARN, Stepping Stone and individuals like Leo Igwe in the Akwa Ibom child-witch saga came up with its findings. I used to attend the inquiry sessions in Uyo. And the truth was to emerge. It was discovered that the global humanist groups, CRARN and Stepping Stone Nigeria had come together to form a common front to feed fat on Akwa Ibom State government subventions to CRARN and donations from organisations and individuals across the world in support of the children. It was discovered that the ‘child-witch home’ at Esit Eket that had been christened CRARN, was a scam.
Consequently, the state government sacked CRARN and Stepping Stone Nigeria for their lies against Ukpabio, the scam that they were into and the child witch stigma that they gave to the state. Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio was exonerated. I was present at the thanksgivings service which Liberty Gospel Church held at its Palace Temple headquarters in Calabar in 2011. Akwa Ibom State government sent a member of its executive council (commissioner) to the occasion. Mr. Aniekan Umanah, then commissioner for Information and Social Re-Orientation, described activities of Stepping Stone Nigeria as a scam.
“All the money they have used Akwa Ibom children to make are not commensurate with what they claimed to have done for the children; they have nothing to show for it,” he said. “Two million pounds is not a small sum of money. Stepping Stone Nigeria and its blackmailers should not use tar brush to paint Akwa Ibom black in the eyes of the world. They should stop advertising our children to the global media to make money. It is a ruse and we are tired of them,” said Umanah. It was from that time that Ukpabio and her church began to enjoy peace. The peace that the woman of God and her church members had reminds of the woman that was caught in adultery and taken to Jesus. Her accusers left the spot one after the other after an encounter with Jesus. When Jesus later asked her about her accusers, she answered that none was around.
However, it appears that Leo Igwe remembered Liberty Gospel Church after learning about the celebration of the church’s 30th anniversary in August. It was such a glorious outing that those who did not wish the church well would, like Leo Igwe would be offended and want to mark her with fresh accusations.
Some 12 years after, Leo Igwe stopped attacking Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio, he learnt about the recent 30th anniversary celebrations and soon after, Ukpabio’s programme for deliverance of witches. The man became restless and started his evil attacks again. In his desperation, Leo Igwe asked the Cross River State authorities to take urgent legal and administrative measures to restrain Ukpabio and her “witch-finding church. “Poor Leo! He is telling the authorities that have been witnessing Ukpabio’s deliverance programmes for 30 years now what to do. I will add that his humanist group, AfAW, is not current and does not know that Ukpabio has been holding this type of crusade with the same brand name for over three years now.
Leo does not know that she has been going from one Nigerian city to another praying for and conducting deliverance for people who believe that they are witches. He describes Liberty Gospel Church as witch-hunting ministry. The church does not hunt for witches. It is people who believe that they are witches that go to her programme and request to be set free. Leo says delivering witches from the art is costing Cross River State much. Let him say what the state gains from keeping witches on her landscape. He says witchcraft is superstition and witchcraft markets are imaginary. How can Leo Igwe believe in the existence of witchcraft when he does not believe that there is God. Leo Igwe is the director of AfAW, which campaigns to end witch persecution in Africa. But is he not confused? Or how does he explain his campaign to end persecution of witches when he does not believe there are witches?
I need answers to these questions. What does Leo Igwe really wants from Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio. Is it to stop her from preaching the gospel? Does he want her head in a plate like Herodias had the head of John the Baptist? What does Leo Igwe really stand to gain by spending some 30 good years trying to create so much hatred for another person? Can he really stop the woman of God or her Liberty Gospel Church from accomplishing God-given mandate? You will understand where I am coming from if you go to the Internet to type “Leo Igwe and Helen Ukpabio.” All manners of write-ups will pop up that are authored by Igwe and, all of them attacking Helen Ukpabio and her work as a preacher.
I did not hear about Albert Camus, the renowned French philosopher until I became a student in the Department of Foreign Languages in the university. Camus wrote many articles to promote his views that there was no God and that he did not believe in God. Unlike Camus, Igwe does not do much to promote his views as an atheist. In fact, he does not want to go by that identity. He prefers to be identified as a humanist not an atheist. Jeaneane D. Fowler in his book, Humanism: Beliefs & Practices, page 66, published in 1999, says that “the term “humanism” stands in contradiction of theism, which in its widest sense, means belief in a personal god, goddess, gods and/or goddesses.” If a humanist is an atheist, then Ukpabio and Igwe are miles apart. Ukpabio is called of God to do His work. Igwe does not understand the calling of God and cannot do so because he does not believe in the existence of God.
In the Bible, which I believe Igwe does not have a copy, it is stated:”Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Eccl. 12:13-14, KJV. Igwe does not believe in the existence of God and so cannot fear Him or keep His commandments. This makes him therefore, to live his life in disobedience to God’s commandment. Disobedience is rebellion. And God’s word says that rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. There may be many definitions of witchcraft, just as there are many ways to operate under its influence or apply its power in society.
But the one many African societies, including my village know of, which most people dread is “the power of humans to intervene in the flow of life events and to harm others by supernatural means.” I think it is this harming of others that makes human society to dread the witch. There is no dispute that it is the witches’ ability to inflict suffering on others and to cause their death that makes society to dread them and most times want to kill them by lynching, across the world. But Helen Ukpabio’s work does not in anyway associate her with the killing of the witch. Her work in these 30 years has been the opposite – the deliverance through prayer, of people who believe that they are witches.
How does Ukpabio deliver witches? It begins with much prayer and personal consecration. Then she would stand on the altar and ask those who know they are witches and would love to be delivered from the art to come out to meet her at the altar for deliverance prayer. They always come out in large numbers including children, who are always led by their parents. She would ask them to look at her as she prays. There is no touching of anybody. There is no hitting of someone with stick. There is no falling down. It is a simple process, a mystery of God. Leo Igwe needs to witness Ukpabio deliver witches. Thereafter, he will begin to appreciate God for gifted hands. I believe that if he does that he will weep, go and apologise to Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio for whipping so much global hatred for her and her work over the years.
Akpaekong worked with Newswatch as a senior associate editor
