About four days after native doctors in Anambra State protested against what they called stigmatisation and witch hunting of their members, there is a looming religious crisis in the area as the native doctors have commenced the compilation of names of alleged fake pastors for submission to the state government.
Recall that the native doctors, led by High Priest Ikele, had accused the state government of harassing their members contending that their constitutional right to freedom of religion is being trampled upon.
They also contended that the state government has not done the needful of liaison with them to help fish out bad eggs among them consequently insisting that it is a calculated attempt at killing traditional religion in Igbo land.
Also speaking one of the members, who gave his name as Mazi Chukwuka Nwankwo, announced that the body has commenced the compilation the name of so-called ‘fake pastors’ in Anambra state alleging that these pastors often frequent their shrines to seek for spiritual assistance aimed at increasing the sizes of their church congregations.
“Our governor is preaching ecumenism which means the union of all religions and we are asking him if traditional religion is not part of ecumenism? “What are we talking about here? Many of those people that hold night vigils and perform miracles are fake.
Most times they come to us to obtain spiritual powers to increase the number of their congregation and we have always turned them down because it is against our religion to be defrauding innocent people,” he said.
Speaking further he said: “There are some that go as far as other parts of the country to obtain powers and so-called holy oil that they use in pushing people down in the name of anointing.
“Governor Charles Soludo should send Agunechemba (the newly set up state security network) to those crusades and night vigils to understudy what they do in their churches and they rip off innocent people by compelling them to buy holy water, holy oil and holy handkerchiefs so that peoples’ businesses would flourish.
People pay huge sums of money to obtain those things and yet pastors are not paying taxes or levies to the state government.”
