ABUJA—APART from his daughter, Miss Charity (Aisha)
Uzoechina, Pastor Raymond Uzoechina has called on
security agencies to investigate activities at the palace
of the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, to ensure
that many people there had not been forced to convert
to Islam and held against their will.
“Apart from my daughter, there are so many people at
the palace. There is need for the police to investigate
and ensure that the people are not suffering the fate of
my daughter,” Pastor Uzoechina told Vanguard on
phone, yesterday.
He spoke ahead of the August 1, 2013 expected ruling
of the Bida Sharia Court 1 on whether or not 24-year-old
Charity (Aisha) Uzoechina should be released to her
parents.
Charity left their Abuja home to further her studies at the
Federal Polytechnic, Bida, Niger State recently.
According to reports, she has not returned home since
March. She has allegedly been at the palace of the Etsu
Nupe on her own volition after converting to Islam and
changing her name to Aisha.
Pastor Uzoechina is claiming that his daughter was
kidnapped and hypnotised and could never abandon
the Christian faith for Islam. But the Etsu Nupe argued
otherwise and produced legal documents where his
daughter said she had converted to Islam and alleged
that his father could kill her for the action hence the
need to seek protection from the Palace and the Sharia
Court, which the court granted.
Consequently, the Etsu Nupe refused to release the
lady to Uzoechina, a pastor with the Redeemed
Christian Church of God, RCCG, citing the sharia court
ruling.
Asked how far the matter had gone, the pastor said:
“They (sharia court) have fixed Thursday, August 1 for
ruling on our appeal that they don’t have jurisdiction.
You can’t judge a Christian in a Muslim court. I am
appealing to them to vacate the judgment because they
don’t have jurisdiction.”
How can I kill my daughter?
On allegations that he could kill his daughter over
conversion from Christianity to Islam, he said: That is not
true. My daughter cannot make that allegation. Why
should I kill her? We asked them to bring her to the court
so that my lawyer can cross-examine her but they
refused.
“If she has converted to Islam, must she practice at the
Etsu Nupe’s palace? Is Etsu Nupe the chief security
officer now? They should not separate me from my
daughter. She has stayed in the palace for six months. If
they say I will harm her, let them release her to the
Inspector General of Police, leader of the Christian
Association of Nigeria, CAN or ask me to write an
undertaking. Why is my daughter still under Etsu Nupe’s
enclave? I am only talking about my daughter; there are
so many people at the palace. There is need for the
police to investigate and ensure that other people are
not suffering the fate of my daughter. They did not allow
my wife to see my daughter when she visited the
palace.”
Genesis of the matter
Pastor Uzoechina said the matter, which is now causing
a big row among the Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor-led CAN,
the Bida Emirate and the Nigerian Supreme Council for
Islamic Affairs, NSCIA, started on March 1 and 2 when
he got a call from an aide of the emir, asking him to
come to the palace.
At the palace in Bida, he said he met his daughter with
two other women. “The man said these women brought
my daughter to the palace that she has embraced Islam
and she has also been withdrawn from school. Those
women even claimed they have taken her through the
rudiments of Islam and have started looking for a school
for her. At this juncture, I demanded that I am going
home with her. But the man declined, saying only the
emir has the power to allow the girl go with me. They
took me to the emir but the emir refused my plea, saying
I should come back next week.”
On March 4, he said two people who claimed to be from
the Bida Sharia Court emerged with his daughter with a
folded paper and asked him to sign but he refused. He
tried to take his daughter but was told that she was now
under the custody of the Sharia Court.
The Sharia Court 1 said it arrived at the decision
because the girl claimed her father could kill her
following her change of faith. It also said that the
defendant (Pastor Uzoechina) shunned an invitation to
appear before it to defend himself, adding: “At this
juncture, this honourable court hereby orders that the
custody of the plaintiff be entrusted in the hand of Etsu
Nupe for the time being and the Etsu Nupe should
employ a qualified Islamic scholar who will be teaching
her and showing her what the Islamic customs is all
about and the plaintiff can even be watching and
selecting a man of her choice whom she will want to
marry as her partner.”
Appeal
Consequently, Uzoechina got his lawyer, Anthony
Agbonlahor, to appeal the ruling. The lawyer also
petitioned the Chief Judge of Niger State, complaining
about the conduct of the judge of the Sharia Court 1,
Justice Abdulkadir Idris, saying that the court had no
right to take custody of the girl.
He said: “Contrary to the principle of natural justice vis-
a-vis fair hearing, our client was not served either with
the court summons/processes or hearing notice. The
case was filed on March 4; the case was heard March 4
and judgment delivered on the same day. In fact,
judgment was also executed on the same date. The
question is: why the urgency?”
Responding to the allegations, the Bida Emirate
reportedly accused Uzoechina of distorting facts and
insisted that the Etsu Nupe should not be blamed for the
girl’s voluntary decision.
It said in a statement that Miss Uzoechina approached
the monarch for protection over her change of faith from
Christianity to Islam on February 15.
“The royal father invited the father of the girl for talks,
with the hope of reconciling them. On March 2, the
father came to the palace and was taken before His
Royal Highness. It was at His Royal Highness chamber
that the father came face to face with his daughter. After
discussions with the girl and her father, the Etsu Nupe
asked the girl to go back home with her father to resolve
the matter as a family.
“The girl refused to go home with her father fearing that
the father may harm her going by the encounter at the
Etsu Nupe’s palace. The girl left the palace and
approached a court in Bida for protection, a request
which the court granted the girl. The girl has since been
in the custody of the court in Bida. Her reason was that
her father insulted her and she was scared that he may
harm her because of his utterances during their short
meeting.”

source:
www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/forced-conversion-to-islam-my-daughter-not-the-only-one-at-etsu-nupes-palace-uzoechina/

Please can you try and re-frame your topic to suit what is really happening in the story. Thanks.
Please moderator kindly in your infinite mercy let this go to the front page so people can see the level things has really gone in Nigeria.
thanks.

I don't know how this people do it, but no
one is free from their brain-washing.

They must have hypnotized the poor girl
into believing that she's on the right path
to heaven. She should be on constant guard all the time, cuz that's a potential suicide bomber in the making. It's a proven fact that it's the newly converts that are most radicalized.

#MyTwoKobo

I really don't know who to feel sorry for,the girl or her dad.
I stay in the north.kano precisely.iv seen issues like this.most times Christians convert for selfish reasons.they promise money,husband,wife,house etc just for you to deny your faith.but there has been cases of charms been used on believers.beautiful girls have been at the receiving end of this ploy.especially those that go out with Muslims..
but then there is a slight chance that the girl converted genuinely...
what the father needs to do is pray for her,not fight the sharia court.they are powerful in the north.he is likely to loose the case.but he will never loose this case in a prayer court.at least not while HE is the presiding judge...

Dazl: I really don't know who to feel sorry for,the girl or her dad.
I stay in the north.kano precisely.iv seen issues like this.most times Christians convert for selfish reasons.they promise money,husband,wife,house etc just for you to deny your faith.but there has been cases of charms been used on believers.beautiful girls have been at the receiving end of this ploy.especially those that go out with Muslims..
but then there is a slight chance that the girl converted genuinely...
what the father needs to do is pray for her,not fight the sharia court.they are powerful in the north.he is likely to loose the case.but he will never loose this case in a prayer court.at least not while HE is the presiding judge...

yes, he just has to pray.

Its very risky sending young impressionable girls to new environments which they're not familiar with. In hindsight, maybe she should have gone to a school in the south, although that would entail the risk of hanging out with boys who are up to no good. But at least they would be southern, if that helps.

although there's a sizeable Igbo community in Niger state, but they might not be able to do anything in this case i guess.

@op how do you force someone to convert to another religion? kindly explain

Honestly why would any sane Christian, who knows the level of things in Nigeria, still convert to the Islamic faith? Islam all over the world is now associated with terrorism and gruesome barbaric killings, amputation, stoning to death, practices of the stone ages. So I won't believe that a sensible Christian would ever convert to such religion. But if the girl converted genuinely, then maybe she is not sensible. What I believe however is that she was brainwashed and made to sign papers she didn't understand. Afterall women can be so easily brainwashed.