An Akure High Court in Ondo State capital Tuesday, handed a life imprisonment to a popular Nigerian Pastor and six others over a missing child in his church last year.
Prophet Babatunde Alfa (Sotitobire), founder of Sotitobire Praising Chapel alongside five others was found guilty on two-count charge bordering on kidnapping, aiding and abetting to kidnapping preferred against them.
Justice Olusegun Odusola who presided over the case of a one-year-old child, Gold Kolawole who disappeared from the prophet’s church in 2019, found the accused guilty of charges preferred against them.
Other defendants jailed alongside the clergyman were Omodara Olayinka, Margaret Oyebola, Grace Ogunjobi, Egunjobi Motunrayo, and Esther Kayode.
The parents of the missing child had accused the prophet of complexity in the matter and dragged him before a law court.
Gold disappeared on November 10 last year during the Sunday after his mother, Mrs Modupe Kolawole dropped him at the children’s department of the church located at the Oshinle Quarters area of Akure, the Ondo State capital.
The mother alleged that Prophet Alfa was behind the disappearance of her son and that was the reason he was using his contacts to harass them from getting justice.
After the child could not be found, the parents of the boy petitioned the Department of State Services over their missing child.
After the security operatives took over the case of the missing child, a report emerged that the body of the missing child has been found buried in the church premises, prompting angry youths in the area to burn down the church.
However, the police later stated that the child’s body was not exhumed from the church premises.
In December 2019, Prophet Alfa was arraigned before the Magistrate’s Court in Oke-Eda, for felony and kidnapping.
The pastor and six others were arraigned by the officials of the Department of State Service on two counts.
