Following an earlier publication by this newspaper, about the death of a boy whose dad, Pastor Samuel Chinedu Uzor, the General Overseer of “Jesus for all Revival Outreach”, Owerri, claimed died during immersion baptism at Ota mmri river, Umuoma Nekede, in Owerri West LGA of Imo State, recently, and a petition written to the Imo State Commissioner of Police, by the late boy’s mother, Mrs. Joy Uzor, reports reaching our news desk indicate that the embattled pastor and one Prophetess Ijeoma were arrested last Friday.
The duo are presently detained at the Criminal Investigation Department of the Imo State police command. However, as at the time of going to press, it was not clear if the suspects have confessed to the crime.
It will be recalled that the Community Watchdog Newspaper, on the front page of its Tuesday 24th October edition, published the story of 12 year old Caleb, whose father, Pastor Samuel Chinedu Uzor, an indigene of Ihitte Uboma, in Imo State claimed drowned at the river, in the course of immersion baptism, few weeks after the boy’s mother was sent packing from the matrimonial home.
The publication also alluded that Pastor Uzor started having problems with his wife, a mother of six children, when he allegedly started having an affair with Prophetess Ijeoma who also owns a church, at Nekede.
It was also reported that after sending his wife away and barred her from seeing the children, he abandoned his own church and partnered with Prophetess Ijeoma in running and administering her own church, to the consternation of people.
Some people in the area, who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity, expressed various insinuations about the circumstances surrounding the 12 year old boy’s controversial death. They wondered why Pastor Uzor who took the son’s corpse to his village for burial told his kinsmen that the boy drowned while playing with his mates in the river while he told his wife and others that he drowned during immersion baptism. They are also wondering why the 12 year old boy, who was still a minor was taken to the river for immersion baptism that is only administered on adults in line with the Christian doctrine.
