…four year old twins beaten for not writing well
When men who are expected to lead by example do the opposite, people feel disappointed. When men of God act out the opposite of God’s nature, shock and disillusionment set in.
And so it was that an Anglican priest was left in utter confusion when some pastors of the popular Living Faith Church (Winners Chapel) Madalla (a border town between Abuja and Niger State) attacked and nearly lynched him for daring to report an incident regarding his four year old twins to the police.
A badly shaken Rev. Kingsley Nwachukwu of the Anglican Communion would not stop thanking God for sparing his life while recounting his escape from death in the hands of a senior pastor (Victor Greatman) and over 20 student pastors when he arrived a school owned by the church with a cop. The school is located within the church premises.
A police report on the occurrence obtained by Law & Society established Rev. Nwachukwu’s story, even putting the number of his attackers at over 30. On being alerted about the incident, the police said a team of operatives was detailed to arrest the head teacher, senior pastor and others involved in the assault.
However, when Law & Society visited Kingdom Heritage Model Schools, Madalla to ascertain these allegations, an assistant pastor, Chriswealth Onwuzuruike said the head teacher, Mrs Bolarinwa was busy and would not see us. He, however, took one of our editor’s telephone numbers assuring she would call.
His story:
“This is a report on child abuse. The abuse of our children. We have three children attending the Kingdom Heritage Model Schools, Madalla. Two of the three are twins and this abuse climaxed into my very person being assaulted physically.
“It all started at the beginning of 2018/2019 academic session, precisely around November. The girl twin in nursery one came home reporting that one of her teachers, Miss Jennifer, was not allowing her to sit on her seat and that she had to stand throughout the day. We didn’t take that complaint seriously initially but the complaint continued.
“She kept complaining that Miss Jennifer doesn’t allow her to sit on her seat. That other people sit on her seat. I had to go to the headmistress and request that the girl be moved to another class. The request was based on these issues which my baby kept complaining about. I saw that the child was no longer happy being in that class and what I thought about was solution, since there was another nursery one class where the brother is. I demanded that she be moved to that class. She was moved reluctantly.
“Shortly after that, series of complaints began to come in through the children again. There’s another teacher there, Miss Rejoice who, we later understood is a very close friend to the Miss Jennifer. The children began to complain that each time they don’t write well, Miss Rejoice flogs them with a long class board ruler. And that, each time they don’t write well, she’ll not allow them to eat the lunch we packaged for them while other children were eating. Often times they’ll carry the lunch back home. She goes on to threaten that after school, they’ll not go home. They’re little children, four year olds. They won’t understand that once I come for them, they must go home, so they became jittery and began to develop cold feet about going to school. Every morning we have to cajole and encourage them to go to school.
“It continued for a long time that we now began to take several visits to the head teacher again. My wife went up to four times; even explaining to them that beating a child or hitting children on the head is not a teaching method and could cause damage. After she had gone up to four times and nothing happened, I went myself.
“On one occasion my wife demanded to meet with the teacher, she (head teacher) said, it won’t happen again. I went four times myself after which, I wrote a formal letter indicating that should this abuse continue, I’ll have to take legal steps.
“Thereafter, nothing happened. That was January 2019. Sometime in March; on a Friday, my son came back and said he was having headache. I asked why and he said ‘Miss Rejoice slapped me on the head.’ I tried to downplay it but on Saturday, he complained again. On Sunday when he complained after church service, I rushed him to University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH) Gwagwalada, where we have NHIS services. Unfortunately, the GOPD closed at 8.00 a.m. so we went to the emergency section where doctors attended to him, prescribed drugs and asked us to come back the next day (Monday) for proper prescription.
“We went back on Monday 25th of March and saw a doctor. On our way back, I branched into Madalla Police Station to lodge a complaint. Afterwards, the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) detailed a policeman to go with me to the school to invite the teacher.”
The story now takes a different turn…
“The moment we got into the school premises, I told the policeman, as if I had a premonition – ‘I don’t need to go with you, let me stay outside.’ He said: ‘No, you need to go and show me the headmistress’s office.’ I wish I refused. This whole problem would have been averted. However, I went in with him and met headmistress. The policeman explained he was sent from Madalla Police Station to invite Miss Rejoice who has been reported to have been abusing a particular child.
“The headmistress said: ‘It has not gotten to this.’ I said, Madam, how can you say it has not gotten to this? How many times have I been to you to report? To be fair and sincere, the last time I brought a letter to you and copied the Inspector Crime, you knelt down in your office, asking me not to worry that this thing will not happen again. Nothing changed. So, you cannot say it has not gotten to that. She got up and said: ‘Ok, let me go and tell the senior pastor. Pastor Victor Greatman is the Senior Pastor in Living Faith Madalla. I never met him before. I only bring my children to school there and pay fees. I do not owe them anything.
“The next thing, I saw was two men that walked in together and some other young men that came out with them from the church. One of them who turned out to be Pastor Greatman said, ‘where is the man’ and I was pointed out to him. He immediately turned to me and shouted: ‘Are you the only person that has children in this school? Are you the only parent that has children in this school?’ Meanwhile, the policeman, Joseph Achabe was there in uniform. Again, he repeated: ‘Are you the only parent that has children in this school? Did anybody force you to bring your children to the school?’ So, I began to feel that the head teacher must have made certain insinuations. He then added: ‘Why should you bring a policeman into this compound?’
“I tried to say – is that what you are asking me? And said ‘Yes! In fact you are mad’ I responded – you cannot say that. These things you are saying do not justify these children being abused. The next thing I heard was ‘get this man out of this compound.’ Suddenly, the man with him whom I later understood to be the assistant pastor, head butted me on my eyes. It felt like a stone hit my eyes. I wasn’t seeing. I was receiving blows from all corners all over my body. I was even wearing a clerical shirt. I was dragged by my clerical shirt. I could not see anything. They broke my right hand. The muscles dislocated. I was beaten even with chairs. When they were going to carry iron somewhere, I heard the senior pastor say, ‘block the gate, I’ll kill this man here.’ It was then I heard the policeman say ‘run out of the compound.’ Blindly, I managed to run out of the compound and we rushed back to the station.
“When we got to the station, the policeman reported to his DPO what happened. When the DPO looked at me he was angry. He ordered his surveillance team to move down to the school and arrest everyone they can find. That was how they arrested the head teacher, Miss Rejoice and some of the men. Meanwhile the man that gave the orders to beat me was at large. Throughout this case they have not caught him. He has been hiding but his assistant pastor was also arrested.
“They were detained for two days; after which the police arraigned them in court on FIR for criminal charges. The magistrate after the hearing ordered that they be remanded in prison custody until Monday. They were remanded for two days after which the magistrate started receiving pressure and had to write a note to the court registrar to release them. The case is still in court.
Meanwhile, the headmistress, Mrs Bolarinwa in a recorded telephone chat claimed that it was Rev. Nwachukwu who assaulted the senior pastor. She, nonetheless, confirmed that she, the assistant pastor, Miss Rejoice and one other person were detained for two days at the Madalla Police Station and remanded for one day at the Suleja prison on the orders of a magistrate. But, she could not explain why they were detained while Rev. Nwachukwu who she claimed assaulted her pastor was spared.
Head teacher’s account:
“Rev. Nwachukwu, is one of my parents. He has been coming to the school to come and disturb. The man has twins in our school. They are in different classes. We have Nursery 1 Grace, and Nursery 1 Glory. The man came to school one day and told me that his girl twin came back and told him that the class teacher told her to stand up from 8 am to 2pm. I told him that this is not true. But the man believed his child. He came to make trouble with the school. He asked that the girl’s class should be changed. We changed the class in order to make peace. But since they have been together, it’s from one problem to another. No parent has come to me to say this is what this teacher did to my child except this man.
“He wrote a letter to the school. He stated there that his child complained to him that her teacher told her she would not go home after school. Another one was he wrote to complain that his child complained that the teacher said she would not eat her lunch if she did not write well in the class. These children are lagging behind in class. What others are doing, they couldn’t do it. And we don’t use cane in this class; whether small or big. You cannot come to the class and find cane.
“This last one that even happened that made him to come to my office was that he came one day and said the child came home and said the class teacher slapped him. This child came and broke one of our key to the door. We had to call a carpenter to come and remove the key and fixed another one. And this child went home and told the father that the class teacher beat him and the father was like, he took the child to Gwagwalada General Hospital for a check-up. The wife came in the morning and I begged her that we’re very sorry for everything. That it will not happen again.
“Before you know it, the husband came in the afternoon towards closing time, with a policeman to the school premises, when the children were learning. And he now said he wants to take the teacher to the police station. I told them that you cannot take her away, that, this thing has not gotten to this area that you are going to; this teacher is trying to help your child and when you say you don’t need it we’ll leave your child alone. You can’t just take the teacher to police station. But he insisted that he must take the teacher away.
“I now told him that I didn’t employ myself; let me inform the people that put me here. I ran to the pastor’s office, called him and on his way out he called his assistant. All of us, we went to the school premises. When my oga was trying to make peace with him, he was just insulting the man of God. I could remember one of the things that my oga asked him that – ‘but you are not the only parent here, why are you doing like this now?’ He was like, telling my oga that you are very stupid for asking me that question, he said all manner of things. Before you know it, he was coming to my oga to beat my oga up. His assistant came in between them just to separate them.
“Before you know it, he began to remove his shoes, remove his shirt on his body. That’s how he held my assistant pastor’s tie trying to strangle the assistant pastor. That was all. That was all. We didn’t do anything bad to this man. Just to make peace with him while he was here with a policeman. The policeman was there. The police cannot do anything. The only thing the man did was to run to the police station to lie that we beat him up. That was all.”
Responding to why a team of policemen came to the school to arrest her and the pastors, she said it was because they were trying to solve the problem. We reminded her that the policeman who accompanied Rev. Nwachukwu to the school reported to his superiors that nearly 30 persons beat up the Reverend before he narrowly escaped. Her reply was: “Everything is a lie. The police will not tell you what happened.”
In their remand, her response was: “Yes, four of us were taken to the police station and detained in the police station for two days, the third day was spent in prison.”