Posted on by Richard Bartholomew

Always nice to get a bit of feedback:

I have just taken pains to read your confusion which u conly try to put togetherto deceive the world…you are the number 1 liar in the world… I have no time to waste on cyber murderers like you but i hand you over to god who will judge…GOD BLESS YOU…

And here:

You are wicked, crooked, crafty, poisonous, and dangerous to women in general…If not what connection does it have with your subject matter but just to show your in-depth hatred for God’s vessel, you connected it so as to disgrace her and make your money and gain cheap popularity.

Plus:

This is to inform you that you know you cannot defend what you are insinuating. Your interest is in the money you make out of NGO and your cliques…

And now:

You are trying to delve into what you do not know, so that you will recieve unnecessary applause… Now, you see Richard, only SMALL and FOOLISH minds spend enormous amount of their time talking about what they don’t know about others. But Richie dear, why don’t you grow up? I’d like to talk to you when you do. Ordinarily, I don’t spend prescious time talking with unreasonable minds. Please, on a serious note, GROW UP!

The authors are defenders of Helen Ukpabio, a Nigerian evangelist known for promoting the idea that children can be witches – two of the comments apparently come from members of her faimily. The writers are all upset with my blog entry on Ukpabio from December last year, in which I suggested that Ukpabio’s activities have helped to whip up a hysteria, with unhappy consequences. They assure me:

She preaches the word of God and ministers to people wihout even touching them because they are always too many. Adult’s witches, male and females come to her confessing that they are witches and wizards. Begging her, to please deliver them. Parents bring their self confessed witchcraft children begging her to deliver them. The counselling sessions are free a thing you can never see in UK or Europe. Deliverance is completely free without even collecting offering during such deliverance sessions…Many children have been abandoned in the church, without her knowing the parents she takes them up trains them and makes the church to care for them without attracting the press. She has a child rescue foundation which she does under the church to help restore wandering children who come to her back to their parents.

and:

I have personally come in contact with a child witch in my extended family who publicly made confessions on her witchcraft involvements and why the mother was getting sick to death and equally explained how the mother could be set free. When the conditions she gave were met, the mother was rescued. I was not told. I was there! You are trying to delve into what you do not know, so that you will recieve unnecessary applause. Even when I know that children can be witches, I have never heard that Helen ever labelled a child ‘witch’. I have, on the other hand, heard of several children who were labelled witches by their own parents, and Helen reprimanded the parents for labelling the children witches just because they were stubborn at home. This is in fact, a very little I can tell you about Helen as a publisher. I’ll advice you read our KINGS VIEW WORLD CHANGERS magazine that carried the heading, WHO IS THIS HELEN UKPABIO?

They also connect me with an activist opposed to all this, a certain Kelli Stowe. I’d never heard of her before, although I now see she runs a heartfelt blog, called Children of Nigeria. Stowe put a petition on Care 2 opposing Ukpabio’s “Liberty Foundation”; Ukpabio’s supporters responded with a “STOP KELLI STOWE FROM TRAMPLING ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF AN ENTIRE NATION (NIGERIA), LIBERTY FOUNDATION” counter-petition. Stowe responded to that with a counter-counter-petition.

(Picture from Children of Nigeria)

UPDATE: The Lagos Daily Independent carries an interview with Ukpabio, in which she denounces the work of Sam Ikpe-Itauma, who runs an NGO that looks after children accused of being witches. In a semi-coherent rant, Ukpabio calls on the government to ban such “fake NGOs”, which she claims are under the control of “Europeans” who are “coming to feed on Africa”. She also tells us that those who have made complaints about her to the state govenor of Akwa Ibom are “stupid”, because

…their people shoot Nigerian children on the street, in the shop, in the supermarket, in schools. There is no week that they don’t shoot blacks. The black people that don’t have money to make a case are never heard.

She also explains the nature of witchcraft:

In my own ministry I don’t label people witches, witches look for me. They come because they want to be delivered, adult, very old, young, married, lecturers, even doctors… A witch is anybody that can practice any of these acts voodoo, sorcery and magic. It is broad. But in Africa you can practice it without knowing that it is a craft because it is a spirit. When this spirit enters a human spirit, the spirit reacts at night. It is not the human being that willingly wants it, but you see yourself doing that, and people come and say please ma, I attended witchcraft meeting. Now, these are not babies…God anointed me specifically because of the works of witchcraft, how the craft penetrated the church and were killing pastors.

UPDATE: More today.

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