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ANAMBRA PASTOR ARRESTED FOR ALLEGEDLY RAPING AND IMPREGNATING 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL. Nigeria’s religious space has been rocked again by a scandal that should make every decent person’s blood boil. Evangelist Dozie Ezani, the General Overseer of Jesus Is Ontop Ministry, based in Amichi, Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State, is currently sitting in police custody at the State Criminal Investigation Department in Awka — arrested for the alleged serial rape and impregnation of a 16-year-old girl.Let that sink in. A man who stood at a pulpit, called on the name of Jesus, and collected tithes and offerings from trusting congregants, allegedly used that same position of spiritual authority to destroy the innocence of a child.
This is not a mistake. This is not a moment of weakness. Serial rape is a deliberate, sustained, calculated act of predation. And when it happens inside a church — the one place society tells the vulnerable to run to for safety — the betrayal is total.The victim is 16 years old. She is a child under both Nigerian law and international standards. The Child Rights Act is unambiguous: sexual intercourse with a child under 18 is rape, regardless of consent, regardless of what the perpetrator wears, regardless of what title he carries. Evangelist, pastor, bishop, apostle — none of it changes the law. None of it changes the crime.
What makes this case even more damning is the word allegedly attached to serial. This was not reportedly a single incident. This was a pattern. A repeated violation of the same child, over and over, by a man she and her family likely trusted with their spiritual lives. That is not just criminality — that is a calculated abuse of sacred trust.Anambra State Police deserve credit for taking this seriously enough to remand him at the SCID in Awka. But credit alone is not enough. Nigerians have watched too many of these cases disappear into the system — settlements reached in the shadows, families pressured to forgive and move on in the name of God, perpetrators walking free while victims carry trauma for life.That must not happen here.
The full weight of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act and the Child Rights Act must be brought to bear on this case. Prosecution must be swift, thorough, and public. The young girl at the centre of this horror deserves justice — not a quiet resolution, not a church apology, not a prayer session. Justice. In a court of law.
To every Nigerian who has handed their child over to a pastor for spiritual guidance, let this be a sobering reminder: religious titles are not background checks. Wolves do not always come in wolf’s clothing. Sometimes they come in white garments, holding microphones, speaking in tongues.
The church must also answer. Who knew? Who saw? Who stayed silent? An abuser rarely operates in a complete vacuum, and if anyone within that ministry watched this happen and said nothing, they are complicit.
Dozie Ezani has been arrested. Now let the law finish what it started — without interference, without compromise, and without mercy for the crime allegedly committed against that child.
