•Bandits
The Founder and General Overseer of Word Assembly Ministries, Ilorin, Rev Isaac Omolehin, has raised the alarm over a threat by bandits to attack his church camp at Idofian village in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State.
The cleric said the threat forced him and his family to go into hiding for safety, reports Sunday PUNCH.
•Rev Isaac Omolehin
Omolehin disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists yesterday by his spokesperson, Grace Edema.
According to him, the police arrived at the camp at midnight between May 30 and 31 and ordered an immediate evacuation following a threat of a bandit attack.
The cleric, known for his criticism of denominational divisions in the Nigerian Church, lamented that the threat forced him, his family and more than 100 residents of the facility to flee the camp.
He noted that the camp had remained deserted since the evacuation, rendering the residents homeless.
“The police came to my camp in the middle of the night and asked everybody to run because kidnappers were coming to attack me. The whole camp was deserted, and it has remained deserted,” he said.
He disclosed that although he was away when the evacuation took place, the kidnappers eventually came to the camp but met an empty facility.
“They came, the bandits, but they didn’t meet anybody,” he added.
He said the security threat had forced him to move from one location to another with his wife and children.
“I have a house I can’t enter. I have a car I can’t ride. I have to hide myself from the public. If I sleep here today, I’ll sleep somewhere else tomorrow. I’m homeless with my wife and children,” Omolehin said.
The facility, he said, catered for orphaned children and housed a primary school, secondary school, hospital, old people’s home and a rehabilitation centre for mentally challenged women rescued from the streets, alongside their children.
“Bandits chased us out of that place. The school cannot open, the hospital is not functioning, and the patients and nurses all ran for their lives,” he added.
Omolehin said more than 100 residents of the camp are now scattered across different locations because authorities have yet to declare the area safe for their return.
“We wrote to the police because they were the ones who asked us to leave. We asked if it was safe for us to return because schools had resumed and we have over a hundred children that need to go to school. There has been no response,” the cleric stated.
He added that reports were also submitted to the Department of State Services and the Kwara State Ministry of Social Welfare, which supervises orphanages and rehabilitation centres, but he said no official response had been received.
“Three days after the attack on my camp here in Kwara, my village in Kogi State was also attacked, and my people were killed. When they missed me here in Kwara, they went to my village and attacked my people.
“The kidnappers did not destroy our buildings; the structures in the camp are still intact. However, a few days after we evacuated, thieves began breaking into the camp and carting away our belongings.
“Those were different criminals. The kidnappers did not come to steal refrigerators, fans or mattresses. They came for human beings. The people who looted our property are not the same as the kidnappers.”
Reflecting on his continued public advocacy despite criticism, Omolehin said attacks against him have ranged from social media abuse to restrictions on his ministry.
“The attacks are still going on, but they don’t affect me. Jesus already told us that our preaching may be resisted.”
He revealed that he was recently barred from preaching in Baptist churches, saying, “Baptists banned me from preaching in Baptist churches just about a month ago.”
Omolehin appealed to the Federal and Kwara State governments to strengthen security around the camp to enable displaced residents to return, noting that some of the orphaned children in his care were referred to the facility by government authorities.
“I want to appeal to the government to improve security so that I can return to the camp with my family and all the people I look after. Some of the children in the orphanage were brought to us by the government. Even if they say they don’t care about the rest of us, what about the children they entrusted to us?” he said.
Efforts to get the reaction of the state police command were unsuccessful, as the Police Public Relations Officer, Adetoun Ejire-Adeyemi, did not respond to calls or messages as of the time of filing this report.
