Abuja pastor in wedding drama - Wife’s family says he eloped with their daughter

Clement Idoko, Abuja - 26.11.2007

The police in Abuja at the weekend cordoned off the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) in Wuse 2, Abuja, preventing members of a family from Kogi State from gaining entry into the church where they had planned to halt the wedding between a senior pastor of the church and one of their daughters.

The family alleged that the wedding between the pastor and their daughter did not enjoy their blessing, accusing the pastor of eloping with their daughter and surfacing later in Abuja for the wedding.

The mother of the bride, who led her other children to the church, told newsmen at the premises of the church that she and her other children neither had knowledge of the wedding nor were privy to it.

She said the family had every reason to suspect foul in the union between the said pastor and her daughter as the latter could not have agreed to such a wedding without the knowledge and support of any member of her family.

The woman, who was in her 80s, said she single-handedly brought up her children having lost her husband in the 1970s, adding that she was convinced the groom knew nothing about God who he claimed to profess and repeatedly called on God to intervene.

“How on earth could somebody who calls himself a pastor take somebody’s daughter to the altar for wedding without paying the traditional dowry on her as well as obtaining the consent of her family?” she queried.