Police Parade Pastor, Student, 23 Other Suspects In Cross River

Pastor Hossana Okoi has been paraded by the Cross River State Police command for allegedly raping a lady and threatening to kill her with a gun if she revealed what happened.

The police also paraded on Thursday after he was arrested with arms and army uniform was a 400-level student of Medicine and Surgery, University of Calabar, Nnamdi Kingsley Ikezue.

He confessed to being a member of a cult and using a locally made pistol to protect himself.

The other twenty-three suspects were arrested for various crimes. Nine of them were arrested for alleged robbery attacks in various locations across the state.

Mr. Austin Agbonlahor, the Commissioner of Police, said Okoi, who claimed that his church was located in Sierra Leone, was arrested after a lady reported to the police that a pastor who was supposed to pray for her allegedly raped her and threatened her with a gun, to stop her from reporting the incident.

Okoi however, said he only took the lady, who he claimed was unknown to him, to a wedding and later to a drinking joint.

“I am a Nigerian but I am the Pastor of Gate of Testimony based in Sierra Leone. I came to Nigeria and I met the lady who said she was going to a wedding. I did not know her from Adam but I offered to take her there and gave her N500 to drink water.

“Later, we met at a joint and we drank and that is all that happened. I did not take her to anywhere and I don’t know why she decided to frame me up,” Okoi said.

The other suspect, Nnamdi Kingsley Ikezue, the 400-level student of Medicine and Surgery, University of Calabar, confessed that he was a cultist and was using a locally made pistol to protect himself.

“I have the army uniform because I was at the Nigerian Military School, Zaria before I got admission into the University of Calabar to study Medicine and Surgery in 2014. I’m a cultist and I still use the military uniform and my gun which I acquired to protect myself,” Ikezue said.

Agbonlahor appealed to parents to monitor their children, saying the police will do everything to ensure that the society was rid of criminals.

“We will continue to ensure that we take out criminals from society. This command has declared zero-tolerance for crime and since I came in, we have been doing everything to make sure that the state is crime-free. I want parents to monitor their children and wards in order to know what they are doing at every point in time,” the Commissioner said.