Abuja clergyman bags 7 years in prison for defiling minor

An Abuja based clergyman has bagged 7 years in prison for defiling a minor. Pastor Bassey Princewill of the Mountain Mover Ministry International Abuja was arraigned in court on rape allegations. He was accused of having sexual intercourse with a 14 year old girl over a period of four months in 2011.

The clergyman was said to have had sex with her inside his church and at his house in Nyaya several times, without her consent. The girl in question fell pregnant and he attempted to abort the pregnancy using unprescribed drugs. Bassey was charged to court on four counts of rape, impersonation, attempt to cause abortion and abetting miscarriage.

In a judgement delivered yesterday by Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf, the judge described the crime as “shameful and satanic”. He said;

“I must consider the faith of a young girl and the society. It is worrisome when the person involved is a man of God who we should look up to as next to God, those who serve in the society. We have a duty to send signal that this attitude should not be tolerated, it is regrettable that the person who called himself man of a God will be involved in such shameful disgraceful and satanic act. He would face the prison walls like a monastery so that when he comes out, he would have been born again”.

Pastor Princewill was convicted on count one (rape) and count three (attempt to cause abortion). He was subsequently sentenced to seven years in prison on the count of rape and five years for attempt to cause abortion. The two sentences will run concurrently.