Angry Christians drag pastor to the police station

A self-proclaimed pastor by name Lawson Lateh, accused by his followers of committing adultery, has been detained at the Bamenda Judicial Police.

Police arrested Lateh of the Mount of Hope Ministry after his followers complained that he is using the church to date married women and widows.

Members of the church say Lateh has put most marriages asunder including that of his followers.

According to one Joseph Nih, the pastor has fallen short of expectation.

“We have noticed that as soon as the pastor sees that a church member is quarrelling with the wife, he will pass through the guise of marital counselling and start sleeping with the man’s wife. We are annoyed by the case of a woman who has run away with her three children and is now living with the pastor,” said Nih.

According to Nih, the pastor does this to most church salaried female members or are doing business.

“He will say the husband is in a cult and ask her to come for deliverance, just to end up in his bed,” the disgruntled Pentecostal Christian alleged.

Nih said he almost lost his wife to the pastor recently when he travelled to his village.

He said the pastor visited his home and told his wife that he was in a cult and wanted to offer her and their son as sacrifice.

“When this news reached me, some of the afflicted members and I wrote a complaint to the Judicial Police,” Nih said.

In their complaint, the Mount of Hope Ministry worshippers accused their pastor of manipulating their wives through false accusations.

Asked to present his certificate as a pastor and as church owner at the judicial police, Lateh said he did not any and was thus detained for his own safety.

Meanwhile, one of Lateh’s victims, who preferred not to be named, admitted her affair with the pastor but said the marriage she is being accused of abandoning never existed.

“I believe that I and the man of god will be set free from all these false accusations by some of our frustrated members. I have told the man concerned to take the matter to court. We were never married. We were into concubinage and now I have found true love in the pastor. The so-called marriage broke up four years ago and it is just one year that I joined the Mount of Hope Ministry. I do not know how they can link the separation of the marriage to the church,” she said.

The matter, which the police is still investigating, is expected to determine the fate of Lawson Lateh and the legality of his practice as well as his church.