"Victim Is My Girlfriend" - Accused Pastor Tells Police

A 29-year-old pastor Anthony Arogunmasa has been accused of raping a 19-year-old lady (name withheld) in Araromi Street, Ikere-Ekiti community of Ekiti State.

Daily Sun reports that the suspect Arogunmasa, had lured his alleged victim into his home under the pretex of carrying out spiritual cleansing before sexually abusing her.

Describing how the incident happened, the victim in tears, said: “I was just meeting the pastor for the first time in my life. He approached me and told me that I needed some spiritual cleansing. He said that God instructed him to ensure that the spiritual cleansing was done for me. I fell for him because I saw people calling him pastor. He took me to his house and gave me a candle and soap and asked me to start praying. He also brought out certain objects which he said were prayer items for the spiritual cleansing. In the course of the prayers, he asked me to remove my clothing and just tie a wrapper and I obliged. It wasn’t long after that he suddenly jumped on me and eventually had carnal knowledge of me forcefully.”

It was gathered that though pastor Arogunmasa confessed to having carnal knowledge of the victim, he said the she is his girlfriend.

” It is true that I slept with her on September 23, but I didn’t do it forcefully because she has always been my girlfriend”, the cleric confessed.

While confirming the incident, Ekiti State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Victor Babayemi said that it has been proved beyond any doubt that the victim wasn’t the pastor’s girlfriend.

The PPRO said: “We have proved that it is a clear case of rape. We have a medical proof and during our investigation, we discovered that the victim couldn’t have been a girlfriend to the suspect as he (pastor) claims. You can imagine that he doesn’t know the names of the lady, nor where she lives or any of her friends or relations and he claims to be the lady’s boyfriend. How is that possible?”

The police spokesman added: “The suspect, who confessed to committing the crime, accosted the victim on September 23 at about 20:00 hours and lured her to his house to perform spiritual cleansing because he perceived that the victim was under a spiritual spell. On getting to his room, the victim was threatened and put under fear of harm before being raped. Medical report confirmed that the victim was actually raped by the suspect while preliminary investigation revealed that he is a serial rapist who lures hapless women with ‘spiritual cleansing’ to have unlawful canal knowledge of them. He will be charged to court as soon as investigation into the case in concluded.”