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Fake Catholic Priest nabbed at Onitsha hospital

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By Phil Okose Onitsha

A fake catholic priest, (names withheld) was nabbed at St. Charles Boromeow Specialist hospital Onitsha, Anambra State, Wednesday.

He was reported to be defrauding a patient in pretence that he was offering prayer to her when luck ran out on him.

The culprit who said he was a catholic priest and a native of Amaihe village, Ukpor, Nnewi South Local Government Area, confessed how he defrauded a woman who was looking after her sick husband at the male ward of the hospital.

Confessing further when arrested and was being interrogated he also confessed that he tricked a security man at the mini entrance gate of the Hospital by telling him that he was a Catholic priest to allow him entry.

“I lied to the gateman that I am a Reverend father so that he could allow me to enter inside the hospital premises because; people were not allowed to go inside the hospital anyhow.  When I went into the hospital I prayed to people and prophesized to a woman that she should book for ‘Novena mass’ and offer sacrifice. She told me that she would not be able to do it because she is in the Hospital and rather gave me N1000 for novena mass and N5,000 cash for me to perform the sacrifice.”

“I bought biscuits, mineral drinks and groundnut for children.

Later, I attended mass and prayed in the chapel and received another revelation and called her to buy goat worth of N20,000 in order to exchange death on her husband who she was nursing at the hospital but she said she has only N10,000. I told her to put it in the glotto or Blessed Sacrament. She later called me to come and collect the N20,000″

The fake priest claimed later that he runs a prayer ministry at Nnewi and also an accountancy student of Federal polythecnic Nekede, Owerri, Imo state.

He confessed that for six years he has been in this business of duping unsuspecting patients and always got away with it unoticed.

“There was a time I was arrested and handed over to police at Nnewi sometime ago, when I defrauded a patient at Okolo hospital Nnewi, but I was bailed by Rev. Fr. Dan Ileka of Catholic diocese of Nnewi who tortured me and advised me to repent”.

He listed the hospitals he had touched to include, Divine hospital Oba, Okolo hospital Nnewi, St.  Joseph hospital, Amaihe Ukpor Nnewi, St. Mary’s hospital Awka Etiti, Our Lord’s Hospital Nnewi,  St. Benedict’s hospital Ozubulu and St. Charles Boromeo hospital Onitsha.

In his reaction, Mr. Casmier Nwanna, who is an ex seminarian and among those who nabbed the suspect stated that the woman who fell prey to the suspect was his mother in-law.

“My mother in-law called us on phone and informed me that a Rev. Father. Prayed for her husband in the hospital and he told her that she will buy a fat Hausa goat to offer as sacrifice  which made me to doubt him but I later relaxed my mind and said,  there is nothing wrong in prayer hence the person is a Rev. Father. Then, I told my mother in-law that I would come to the hospital to see the Rev. Father.”

“When I came to the hospital I enquired for the Rev. Father., my mother in-law told me that he has not come. We were waiting until he came, claiming to be a Rev.  Father.

When he was asked by a seminarian who stood with me to clarify himself more as a Rev  Father, he said he was ordained a Catholic priest last year but was unable to provide evidence to prove himself, I realised that all his explanation was false which made me to tell the seminarian to disregard him”.

“What annoyed me most was that he started forming at me insisting that he is a Rev. Father. And then we alerted the security”

Also, Mr. Abua Peter, the Chief security officer of the hospital who was at the main entrance gate disclosed that the suspect identified himself as a seminarian which prompted him to open the gate for him,

People who clustered at the scene of the incident helped in calling those at Nnewi as directed by the suspect that those people knew him and would exenorate him but rather those called confirmed that he was a fraudstar.

Manager of the St Charles Boromeo Hospital, Rev Father.  Izunna Okonkwo who expressed dismay over the nefarious acts of the suspect stated that, “in recent times, people move about as imposters, impersonating priest and other vocations vowing to hand over the suspect to the police.

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