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Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry - Religion - Nairaland

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Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Nobody: 6:00am On Nov 08, 2013
http://saharareporters.com/article/ukpabio-unrepentant-witch-hunter-re-launches-her-ministry-leo-igwe

Nigeria’s notorious witch hunter, ‘Lady Apostle’ Helen Ukpabio is at it again. She has just announced a witch finding and witch delivering session tagged “Ember Months Special 2013”. The program is taking place this month (November 11-17, 2013) at the headquarters of the Liberty Gospel Church in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.

The theme of the event is ‘Witches on the Run”. Ukpabio is inviting people to come for "free deliverance". She qualified the deliverance as free just to create the impression that she won’t be charging any fee, and she would not generate income from it!



The poster has an image of a cat at the background. A cat is locally believed to be a witch’s familiar in the region. The image of this familiar invokes fears and fantasies of impending danger or misfortune in the minds of the local population.


The poster further states “Is your family sold out to witches? Are you oppressed or tormented by the witches? Are you a victim/prey/slave/servant in witchcraft coven? Are you a witch or wizard? There is a special deliverance for the possessed and the oppressed.”

In a region where people often spiritualize the cause of their problems or attribute the misfortune they suffer to malevolent supernatural and occult forces, many can easily connect and link their problems and tragic experiences to these questions.


Ukpabio has literally re-launched her witch hunting ministry which is blamed for the menace of child witchcraft allegations and human rights abuses in the region.

For some time now her ministry has been criticized locally and international because of its role in fueling witchcraft accusation and related abuses in Nigeria and beyond.

But she appears unrepentant, and unfazed by the criticisms.

Ukpabio claims to be an ex-witch with a divine mandate and power to exorcize the spirit of witchcraft. She made witchcraft deliverance the primary mission of her Liberty Gospel Church. This time, her goal is to exploit popular fears- of accidents and deaths- often entertained by Nigerians during the ‘ember months’ using witchcraft images and imaginaries.

At this event Ukpabio will instigate witchcraft insinuations and suspicion, incite hatred and violence against children and other vulnerable members of the population often scape-goated as witches. She will spread the meme and sham of witchcraft deliverance. Deliverance may be free as advertised by Ukpabio. But the process can lead to death or permanent health damage of the person being delivered. More disturbing is that Ukpabio’s witch hunting mission is set to erode the gains made so far by state and non-state actors in combating witchcraft related abuse in the region. Witch hunting will not end in Africa as long as witchcraft entrepreneurs like Ukpabio continue to act with impunity and the authorities refuse to bring them to justice.

In Cameroon, the government has ordered the closure of around 100 Pentecostal churches following the death of a 9-year old girl in a local church. The girl reportedly collapsed and died during a prayer session to cast out the 'numerous demons' that controlled the girl’s life.

I urge the government of Cross River to take action against the witch hunting activities of Helen Ukpabio. The Nigerian government should act now to stop this notorious woman from re-infecting the region with her virus of witch belief and deliverance.
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Nobody: 6:02am On Nov 08, 2013
It's high time we stopped this nonsense. Leave witches and wizards alone.
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by pendusky(m): 6:07am On Nov 08, 2013
Prof Corruption: It's high time we stopped this nonsense. Leave witches and wizards alone.
ur post ur reply, lol, make she kill them, even the bible said so, suffer not a witch to live...

1 Like

Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Nobody: 6:14am On Nov 08, 2013
pendusky:
ur post ur reply, lol, make she kill them, even the bible said so, suffer not a witch to live...
So you can kill witches?
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Henrypraise: 6:28am On Nov 08, 2013
Prof Corruption: It's high time we stopped this nonsense. Leave witches and wizards alone.

How can we leave dem all actors of harry porter, twilight, vampire diaries shud be directed to dis program including my math lecturer. They shud go n be exorcise.
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by pendusky(m): 11:16am On Nov 08, 2013
aManFromMars:
So you can kill witches?
no but amanfrommarsplanet, matchew
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Nobody: 6:08am On Nov 10, 2013
pendusky:
ur post ur reply, lol, make she kill them, even the bible said so, suffer not a witch to live...

Stop witch hunting witches!
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by feb242: 7:52am On Nov 10, 2013
This is a human rights violation. False accusations of witchcraft are soon going to bring international condemnation and sanctions on Nigeria if the government doesn't begin to hold these superstitious criminals accountable for libel, slander & defamation of character. If I was a lawyer in Nigeria, I would team up with an international NGO like UNICEF or Amnesty International. Stepping Stones Nigeria is already taking up the cause of protecting victims of these terrible accusations. Nigerians need to unite & demand their elected officials condemn this foolish belief as not only a national embarrassment, but an illegal form of defamation of character. People who promote witchcraft accusations should be subject to lawsuits & criminal charges.
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Nobody: 8:10am On Nov 10, 2013
In a sane society,this 'hansel and gretel' wannabe would've been committed to jail for her crimes yet she roams free and is set to embark on yet another spree of violence against children in the name of her imaginary god.....I do hope the relevant human right organizations are watching this time
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by mazaje(m): 8:18am On Nov 10, 2013
feb242: This is a human rights violation. False accusations of witchcraft are soon going to bring international condemnation and sanctions on Nigeria if the government doesn't begin to hold these superstitious criminals accountable for libel, slander & defamation of character. If I was a lawyer in Nigeria, I would team up with an international NGO like UNICEF or Amnesty International. Stepping Stones Nigeria is already taking up the cause of protecting victims of these terrible accusations. Nigerians need to unite & demand their elected officials condemn this foolish belief as not only a national embarrassment, but an illegal form of defamation of character. People who promote witchcraft accusations should be subject to lawsuits & criminal charges.

Those in authority also share the same superstitious belief in witches and wizards. . .So its just a hopeless case. . .Is this not the same woman whose brothers were unjustly killed recently?. . .Now she wants to go around killing the kids of other ignorant and foolish people using the "word of god". . . .
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by feb242: 8:50am On Nov 10, 2013
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/return-to-africas-witch-children/

This documentary has a politician that was willing to speak out against her. Also stepping stones Nigeria was able to get a Nigerian soccer player to visit children accused of witchcraft. The western world is looking at this level of ignorance & having second thoughts about investing in development & infrastructure because the leaders can't be trusted to make reasonable decisions about something as foolish & childish as witchcraft, how is Bill Gates going to feel giving millions of dollars to these politicians to cure Malaria. The answer is no reasonable person would entrust their money with a politicians & leaders that believe in witchcraft. This is truly an embarrassing scourge that we need stand up, & hold our politician's accountable to eliminating


http://www.crarn.net

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nigeria_50153.html

http://www.steppingstonesnigeria.org
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Nobody: 9:59am On Nov 10, 2013
Here's a 2010 New York Times article on the witch hunter
HOUSTON — At home in Nigeria, the Pentecostal
preacher Helen Ukpabio draws thousands to her
revival meetings. Last August, when she had herself
consecrated Christendom’s first “lady apostle,”
Nigerian politicians and Nollywood actors attended
the ceremony. Her books and DVDs, which explain
how Satan possesses children, are widely known.
So well-known, in fact, that Ms. Ukpabio’s critics say
her teachings have contributed to the torture or
abandonment of thousands of Nigerian children —
including infants and toddlers — suspected of being
witches and warlocks. Her culpability is a central
contention of “ Saving Africa’s Witch Children,” a
documentary that will make its American debut
Wednesday on HBO2.
Those disturbed by the needless immiseration of
innocent children should beware. “Saving Africa’s
Witch Children” follows Gary Foxcroft, founder of
the charity Stepping Stones Nigeria, as he travels
the rural state of Akwa Ibom, rescuing children
abused during horrific “exorcisms” — splashed with
acid, buried alive, dipped in fire — or abandoned
roadside, cast out of their villages because some
itinerant preacher called them possessed.
Their fellow villagers have often seen DVDs of “End
of the Wicked,” Ms. Ukpabio’s bloody 1999 movie
purporting to show how the devil captures children’s
souls. And some have read her book “Unveiling the
Mysteries of Witchcraft,” where she confidently
writes that “if a child under the age of 2 screams in
the night, cries and is always feverish with
deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan.”
Visiting Houston last week to lead a four-night
revival for a local church, Ms. Ukpabio, 41, had no
idea that “Saving Africa’s Witch Children,” which
brought protesters out to greet her in London, was
about to be shown in the United States. But she was
eager to defend herself.
“Do you think Harry Potter is real?” Ms. Ukpabio
asked me angrily, in the lobby of the Holiday Inn
Express where she was staying. “It is only because I
am African,” she said, that people who understand
that J. K. Rowling writes fiction would take literally
Ms. Ukpabio’s filmic depictions of possessed
children, gathering by moonlight to devour human
flesh.
Still, “Saving Africa’s Witch Children” makes clear
that many rural Nigerians do take her film seriously.
And in her sermons, Ms. Ukpabio is emphatic that
children can be possessed, and that with her God-
given “powers of discernment,” she can spot such a
child. Belief in possession is especially common
among Pentecostals in Nigeria, where it reinforces
native traditions that spirits are real and intervene in
human affairs.
In Nigeria, many preachers not only identify
possessed children but charge dearly to perform
exorcisms. To redeem their children’s souls — and to
keep the child from being killed or banished by
neighbors — parents scrimp or borrow to pay the
preacher.
Ms. Ukpabio argued that “Saving Africa’s Witch
Children” exaggerates or invents the problem of
child abandonment. Asked how she could be so sure,
she said, “because I am an African!” In Africa, she
said, “family ties are too strong to have a child on
the street.”
The Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network, a
school for abandoned children run by Sam Itauma
and featured in Mr. Foxcroft’s documentary, is “a
419 scam,” Ms. Ukpabio said, referring to the
section in Nigeria’s criminal code that deals with
fraud.
She said the children’s gruesome scars and wounds,
shown in the documentary, are not real — or
perhaps they are real, “but there are many ways
children can get maimed.” And if the injuries are the
result of witchcraft accusations against the children,
she said, those accusations could not have been
made by Pentecostal Christian preachers, but by
charlatans.
Since “Saving Africa’s Witch Children” was first
shown in Britain, in 2008, Mr. Itauma’s home state
has adopted a law against accusing children of
witchcraft. But Ms. Ukpabio went on the offensive
by suing the state government, Mr. Foxcroft, Mr.
Itauma and Leo Igwe, a Nigerian antisuperstition
activist.
In the lawsuit, Ms. Ukpabio alleges that the state law
infringes on her freedom of religion. She seeks 2
billion naira (about $13 million) in damages, as well
as “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the
respondents” from interfering with or otherwise
denouncing her church’s “right to practice their
religion and the Christian religious belief in the
existence of God, Jesus Christ, Satan, sin,
witchcraft, heaven and hellfire.”
In other words, in the name of religious freedom, Ms.
Ukpabio seeks a gag order on anyone who disagrees
with her.
The lawsuit also reiterates Ms. Ukpabio’s contention
that Stepping Stones Nigeria and Mr. Itauma’s
school are not charities but extortionate front
organizations. According to Ms. Ukpabio, Mr.
Foxcroft and Mr. Itauma aim not to educate
abandoned children but “to use the said funds to
blackmail.”
“We’re a registered charity in the U. K., so we
publish our accounts,” said Mr. Foxcroft by phone in
England. “She can come in and see how much
money we raised and where we spend it.”
In Houston, Ms. Ukpabio reiterated that the state
should close Mr. Itauma’s school. To the children
living there — who, according to her, may be actors
or witches, but if witches, they were not abused, and
if abused, then certainly not by Christians — Ms.
Ukpabio offered the services of her own church.
The school “does not understand demonic
possession,” she said. “If they understood, they
would take the children to Liberty Gospel.
“We would deliver them!”
Mark.Oppenheimer@nytimes.com, markopp1 on
Twitter
www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22beliefs.html
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by feb242: 11:46am On Nov 10, 2013
Many people took offense with the NY Times for giving this woman a platform to defend the indefensible by comparing it to giving Kony an editorial piece. If Nigerian courts grant her any judicial victories the rest of the world will take note and direct their time, money & talent elsewhere. Nobody wants to enable a wayward backwards society that promotes & defends belief in witchcraft as freedom of religion. If that's the case then Kony should hire the same lawyers and file a similar appeal to justify the lords resistance army & appeal that he is also a victim of religious discrimination from the west. This is really an important opportunity for Nigeria to tell the international community that we condemn destructive superstion
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by nora544: 12:20pm On Nov 10, 2013
Witchcraft beliefs pre-date Christianity in Africa, African people have been engaging in witchcraft accusations and witch findings before Christian missionaries arrived the shores of the region. Christian missionaries condemned witch beliefs and practices and coerced Africans to abandoned the ‘pagan’ beliefs and embraced the Christian faith. ‘Witchcraft entrepreneurship’ has been the business of witch doctors, not Christian clerics and churches. But today things have changed. Witch finding is now the business of Christian clerics and churches, particularly Pentecostal charismatic churches. Recent cases of witchcraft related abuse in the United Kingdom have been traced to the activities of African evangelical pastors and churches.

Evangelical pastors, like Enoch Adeboye, are the ‘modern day’ African witch doctors. They bind,'cleanse' and cast away the demonic spirit of witchcraft.
Many African priests and pastors have, in the quest for spiritual relevance, material wealth and prosperity, competition for members appropriated the roles of witch doctors and turned their churches into witch hunting spiritual movements. They have made witch finding and deliverance part of their spiritual business and industry.

Pastor Enoch Adeboye is a stakeholder in this business. He is one of the clerical gladiators in the imaginary warfare of witchcraft and sorcery in Africa. Adeboye is a witch believing pastor, and his church- the Redeemed Christian Church of God- is a witch delivering spiritual movement.


Adeboye devotes his sermons to denouncing the ‘witches and wizards’ in the families and communities. He organizes ministrations and gives prophecies against witchcraft and other imaginary diabolical agents threatening the lives and estate of the church members. Pastor Adeboye delivers sermons proclaiming God’s ‘superiority over all witches, occultic and diabolical agents’ in the communities.

These sermons are literally misguided and inciteful. They are evangelical propaganda crafted to poison family and social relations. Adeboye’s sermons contain gospel narratives that reinforce witchcraft mentality and enchantment in the minds of the people. The activities of Pastor Adeboye and his Redeemed Christian Church of God instil witchcraft fears and anxieties. Their evangelism nourishes witchcraft suspicions and insinuations. Adeboye’s ministry recharges witchcraft images and imaginaries, and spreads witch frenzy, panic and hysteria. His sermons drive church members to attribute their problems to evil spirits or to evil magic and machinations of ‘enemies’ within the families and communities.

http://saharareporters.com/article/witch-hunting-and-adeboye%E2%80%99s-evangelical-tour-pacific-leo-igwe

That is a big problem in nigeria with this new churches and the witchhunting but it is not only adeboye and Helen Ukpabio it is also a man who belong to the group intercessor for nigeria he is the coordinator for west africa who write in his new letters about witches and when the people should be carfully because it is witchtime so all this brings fear to the people.

Most of the penecostal pastors preach about witchcraft and that has nothing to to with the bible and the christian religion and i know very soon the hole world will see what this so called great man of god make in Nigeria.
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by feb242: 1:03pm On Nov 10, 2013
Enoch Adeboye is another embarrassment. we need international assistance in addressing this. Education really is the only cure to supernatural superstition. We need some Nigerian celebrity support too
Re: Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch Hunter Re- Launches Her Ministry by Nobody: 7:28pm On Nov 10, 2013
emk4lif: In a sane society,this 'hansel and gretel' wannabe would've been committed to jail for her crimes yet she roams free and is set to embark on yet another spree of violence against children in the name of her imaginary god.....I do hope the relevant human right organizations are watching this time

That woman should be questioned by the Police. She should stop the vilification of hapless folks in the name of fighting witches.

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