EFCC sues Lagos pastor who defrauds his victims by hypnotising them before asking them to hand over money

POWER of the Holy Ghost Evangelical Ministry pastor Cletus Ilongwo has been charged to court with fraud after it emerged that he hypnotises his members and then proceeds to defraud them of their money while they are in a trance.

Across Nigeria, evangelical churches are highly popular, attracting millions of followers, who follow their clergymen with fanatical zeal, doing whatever they are asked to do. This includes them offering their life savings to these pastors, buying them private jets, getting undressed in church and even having sex with them when asked to.

Last week, fraud victim, Obinna Ezenwaka, told the Lagos State Special Offences Court how a Lagos-based prophet, Cletus Ilongwo, hypnotised and defrauded him. Prophet Ilongwo, the presiding pastor of the Power of the Holy Ghost Evangelical Ministry, is facing 11 counts bordering on fraud.

He was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission before the court for allegedly defrauding Mr Ezenwaka, a former member of his congregation, of the sum of N59.7m. According to the EFCC, the prophet received the said amount from Mr Ezenwaka on different occasions in 2016 on the pretext of helping him to purchase a property located at Diamond Estate, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos.

While being led in evidence by the prosecutor, Ahmed Yerima, Mr Ezenwaka said the prophet hypnotised him with various items ranging from the blood of a ram, a cross-like chain, oil and spiritual perfumes, to successfully defraud him. He added that the prophet poured oil on him, sprinkled a spiritual perfume on him and gave him a stick tied with a red cloth and a padlock.

Mr Ezenwaka said: “Sometime in April 2015, a neighbour took me to the prophet’s church and after a particular Sunday, he gave me an appointment to see him because he wanted to know the reason why I came to the church. I told him that some people owed me and they were not willing to pay and that I wanted him to help me pray so that I could recover my money.

“In the third week of January 2016, the prophet asked me to come to the church that God had a message for me and when I got there, he took me to where they were selling rams and said God asked him to make a sacrifice on my behalf and he paid for the ram. He asked me to take the remains of the ram to my landed property in Lagos and also asked the two members to follow me to bury the torso of the ram and that I should come back two weeks later.”

According to Mr Ezenwaka, after two weeks, he went back to the prophet, who brought out a landed property document and asked him to help him to get a loan from the bank where he worked. He added that he told the prophet that he was not qualified for a loan in the bank but e eventually found the money and gave it to the clergyman.

“When I went back to the office, I started transferring money to the account number he provided and whenever I called the prophet that my customers were asking for their money, he would tell me to look for the money elsewhere to pay them. The prophet kept promising to refund the money and he kept borrowing from me and I kept giving him.

"Whenever I told him about how my customers were disturbing me for their money, he would ask me to come and do sacrifices so that they would not disturb me again. He told me to write their names and that I should not tell anybody about it, not even my wife and when he noticed that I was gradually regaining my consciousness, he threatened that I was going to die if I told anyone, claiming that was the message from God,” Mr Ezenwaka added.

He testified that when he did not get any refund from the prophet and his customers kept disturbing him for their money, he reported the matter to the Special Fraud Unit of the police and the prophet was arrested. Mr Ezenwaka, who noted that when the prophet was granted bail by the police, he kept threatening him, adding that when the police refused to do anything about the case, he approached the EFCC and Prophet Ilongwo was invited for questioning.