A senior pastor of the Christian Charismatic Ministries, Innocent Nwangwu, has told an Enugu Magistrate Court that the General Overseer, Pastor Sabinus Onuigbo, forged documents to change the church’s Board of Trustees, BoT, after he was suspended for alleged misconduct.
The General Overseer is facing trial before the magistrates court for alleged forgery.
Onuigbo and five other senior pastors of the church, their names given as Tony Chukwu, Chukwuma Orji, Nick Nwoye and Tony Ike, were accused of conspiring to commit forgery.
The offence is punishable under Section 495 (a) of the Criminal Code, cap. 30, Vol. 11, Laws of Enugu State of Nigeria 2004.
The charge sheet in the suit numbered CME/56C/2017, stated that Onuigbo and the other accused persons, on or about July 16, 2014, and August 10, 2014, used forged documents to apply to the Corporate Affairs Commission to change the trustees of the church.
Nwangwu testified in the court that Onuigbo and the other accused persons moved to change the church’s trustees after he (Onuigbo) was suspended by the elders of the church over allegations of misconduct.
He said that after investigating the allegations levelled against Onuigbo, the elders of the church, at a meeting in March, 2014, in Enugu, decided to suspend Onuigbo, having found him guilty of the said offences.
He added that the General Overseer and his group also moved to “deal” with those who supported his suspension.
“Immediately the General Overseer was suspended, he planned with the other accused persons to deal with their perceived enemies – those that supported the suspension.
“In July 2014, an acting general overseer was appointed by the elders but the accused persons moved to reconstitute the Board of Trustees, and they held a meeting where they purported to change the membership of the BOT.
“By September 2014, they got the purported certificate of the forged BOT, and after that, they planned to expel all those they perceived as their enemies.
“After they forced out the regional pastor in Jalingo, the police called me saying the accused persons gave them two different certificates of BoT with my name on both certificates.
“They asked me to explain how that came about. I said I didn’t know about the second certificate.”
