Ghanaian Loses N4.4m To Fake Prophetess

A fake prophetess who allegedly dupes unsuspecting members of the public at her make-shift shrine at Iganmu/Orile under bridge, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, has been arrested.

According to the police, Miss Christiana Esther Onuwe a.k.a Messiah, pretends to cast out evil spirits from her victims but ends up fleeing them.

Her mode of operation, according to the police, is that she buys unpainted cabs for drivers to pick people on Victoria Island and Ikoyi and bring them to her shrine. On getting there, they tell the victims that they have millions of dollars stolen from their boss to share with them.

They hypnotise such victims with powdery substances till they get to the shrine where they dupe them of millions of naira.

The suspect was arrested following a complaint lodged by Juliet, a Ghanaian who alleged that the fake prophetess defrauded her of N4.4 million.

The suspect, it was learnt, confessed to the crime that she duped the woman through false claims and misrepresentation.

Narrating her ordeal to P.M.NEWS, Juliet said: “I boarded a cab from Ikoyi to Obalende and I met two men with the driver inside the cab. At the next bus stop, the man at the back alighted and gave the driver N2,000 for his fare.

The driver protested that how could the man who was carrying huge sums of money in his car boot pay him only N2,000 and that if he refused to pay him N3,000 he would hand him over to the police.

“The owner of the said money in the boot who identified himself as Calabar boy later turned to me to help him beg the driver not to hand him over to the police. I then asked him what the problem was. He said he stole the money in dollars from a dead Alhaji in Kano State and that he later discovered his boss placed a powerful juju on the money.

“He said that was why he came to Ikoyi to see one of his sisters to help him look for a pastor or juju man to exorcise the evil spell on the money before it would be spent.

“The moment I told the driver to help him, that was all I could remember until I found myself under the bridge at Iganmu/Orile railway line in front of the fake prophetess.

“After the woman opened the box and found dollars inside with black liquid, she took oath with us with a Bible that anybody that revealed the secret would vomit blood and die within seven days. She bought malt drink for me to drink before she started commanding me to go look for money to pay and remove the evil placed on the money and I was obeying her and borrowing money even from my enemies.

“I strongly believe I was hypnotised by her and her group.”

She said a total of N4.4 million was paid to her from January 2010 till sometime last year, adding “I thank the Nigeria Police for arresting her after one year. I am now begging the police to help me recover the money because I did not give them with clear eyes,” she appealed.

—Paul Iyoghojie