Report: Nigerian Witch-Finder Suing Channel 4 and Sophie Okonedo

ukpabio

The Nigeria This Day has the latest from evangelist Helen Ukpabio, who has endured global opprobrium since a British television documentary suggested in November that her campaign against child witches had led to children being abused in the Nigerian state of Akwa Ibom. Her film End of the Wicked was named as having contributed to the hysteria. However:

“There was no place in the film where children were branded witches rather, we saw greedy children initiated into witchcraft by other children who were witches in the school,” Ukpabio explained.

She’s taken this line before, as I blogged here, but it remains an incoherent objection. We’re also told that Ukpabio:

  • is suing Channel 4 and the documentary’s narrator, the actress Sophie Okonedo (mis-spelt as “Sophie Okowedo”).
  • has complained to OFCOM, the British television regulator, about the programme.
  • has demanded that a home for children stigmatized as witches be shut down as a “419” and its operators – Gary Foxcroft (mis-spelt as “Gary Fox Croft”) and Sam Ikpe-Itauma (mis-spelt as “Sam Ikpe-Itauman”) be arrested. She has previously suggested that Ikpe-Itauma is a “wizard”.

She also makes the claim that End of the Wicked is actually “radically different from the pirated film wherein our ministries was wickedly libeled  thereof”.

I’ve blogged on Ukpabio a few times in the past; feedback from her supporters and family includes the suggestions that I am a “cyber murderer”, as well as being “wicked, crooked, crafty, poisonous, and dangerous to women in general”.

(Hat tip: Bulldada Newsblog)

9 Responses

  1. Might be a good thing if it attracts intention to Ukpabio et al.

    xD.

  2. Horrifying how Ukpabio talks all about devils and deceivers trying to harm people and turn family against one another – And that is just what she is doing herself.

  3. There is a very special place reserved in the afterlife fotr the likes who traffic fears and mental ,physical, torture of innocent children..I beleive this preacher lady has a VIP pass..

  4. David I do believe you are right.

  5. Libelling children as witch is a medieval practise that should have been eradicated in this 21st century but, coming to think of it these pple from the Niger/Delta area of Nigeria up the 19th century use to slaughter twin babies or multiple birth babies because they believed they were from the ‘devi’l and this was a practice way before Christianity or Slavery came to Africa. This was a practise back when the only religion was traditional animism. Some of them have just continued on a so-called ‘christianize’ version. Thankfully, Mary Slessor advocated against mothers/families killing their twin babies back then and it was made illegal eventually after the pple were educated. Their belief of withcraft in children has been a mediaval belief and it crept into their new religion of Christianity. The problem is that it is the uneducated, less-fortunate, ignorant sect of the people who still believe in this sigmatization. The religious xtian leaders continue to plant this evil seed so that the people would still be submissive to their so-called ‘powers’ and they drum up fear in these people devasting the family stronghold. No matter what, this program by stepping Stone has began an end to this inhumane behaviour. Helen Ukpabio and her supporters are fighting it because it spells the end of their power reign and the wealth income generated from this brainwashing tactics. Helen Ukpabio and anyone advocating cruelty to children are coming down in disgrace!!!

    Oh! and for those who intend to curse at me,it will be terminated at your mouths and any weapon fashioned against me shall be destroyed by the power of the God I serve. Whoever loves children should never ever harm them.

  6. […] again by force (the man who runs it is “a wizard”, she insists), and she has fired off lawsuits in all directions – although one against Leo was dismissed just recently. She has […]

  7. […] and she launched a number of lawsuits against those involved in making the documentary (including the narrator). She also denounced Itauma as a “wizard”, and her lawyer Victor Ukutt arranged for […]

  8. […] notes that she also uses lawyers against her opponents, and I’ve blogged on how she has fired off lawsuits in all […]

  9. […] whom she warned to “remember what happened to Saddam Hussein”; and the British actress Sophie Okonedo, who narrated the Channel 4 documentary. Members of Ukpabio’s church have created an abusive […]

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