There is always a mixed multitude where the people of God gather to worship Him. The Redeem Christian Church of God (RCCG) auditorium is arguably one of the biggest church auditoria in the world. Week in week out, thousands of Christian faithful across the world gather at RCCG camp located along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to seek the face of God.
Manifestation of God’s power, miracles, salvation, deliverance and healing are witnessed by worshippers. But while many come for salvation and other spiritual reasons and leave afterwards, some others take refuge in the camp permanently. Many who fall into the latter group are the unemployed, homeless and victims of broken marriages.
There are yet others who take up residence there for immoral purposes. A 41-year old woman, simply identified as Regina, was squatting at a shadowy corner of the auditorium. She sat motionless, gazing at the empty chairs in the church when Sunday Telegraph visited.
One would think she had come for a programme. Alas, she had been sojourning in the auditorium since last year! Regina is from Akwa Ibom State and was married to an Edo State indigene before their marriage crashed.
She said: “I have been living here since last year because of marital problems. Aside making life unbearable for me, which could have claimed my life, my husband refused to pay my bride price. He is so irresponsible and has no regard for the union. I had to run for my life. Someone introduced me to RCCG camp auditorium.
When I found out that other people are living there, I decided to stay put.” Regina revealed the notorious life of some people staying in the auditorium. “Here, a lot of things are happening, thieves are staying here. Every day, laptops, phones and personal belongings get missing. At the back of the auditorium is where men sleep with women in the night, messing themselves up. Some young girls offer sex for favours.
There was a time rumours of child kidnapping were spreading, because many children were born and raised here,” she said. Regina said that the very chilly nights, mosquito bites and creeping animals in the open auditorium made many ‘residents’ to fall ill. On how she made ends meet, she said she worked as an insurance marketer with AIICO insurance company, but could not cope with the little commission she was making.
“All I need is to get something good doing or start a better business and rent a house. I have started other vocational training like soap and bead making and I pray by the time I am through, I can start the business and have a better life,” she said.
About 20 metres from Regina’s tent, a 20-year-old nursing mother, Victoria, has her own corner. Victoria was delivered of a baby girl eight weeks ago. She has carved out a corner section, like a miniroom. She draped a mosquito net over some of the church’s plastic chairs and tied the tips to them.
Inside the ‘room’ lay her twomonth- old baby. Victoria came around and she wasn’t forthcoming with answers to our correspondent’s questions. He prodded her for a while and told her that talking about her challenges could attract help from the public.
When she finally opened up, it was discovered that the two-month-old baby was Victoria’s second child in the camp from two different men. “I used to hawk soft drinks when I born this one, (pointing at a male child stand- ing there).
My newly born baby is only two months. All I need is assistance from people to relocate or start a business.
They used to give house in the camp, but we have not been lucky,” Victoria said. Asked whether the church authorities are aware she was sleeping in an open auditorium with a two-monthold baby, she said that the task force was only interested in evacuating people from the auditorium and had not assisted in letting the church leaders know about her predicament. Further from Victoria is Mrs. Peace from Imo State who is on the run from a turbulent marriage with her husband from Ogun State. Peace was preparing vegetable soup in a tiny corner of the auditorium. She was there alone but had her cooking utensils almost complete.
She started crying when asked to relate what made her to stay in the open auditorium. Peace had a sixyear old daughter with her called Divine Grace.
The little girl attends a nursery and primary school at Congress Road, outside the camp. Peace narrated how the little girl was almost raped one night in the auditorium. It was her screaming that woke people up that night.
“What brought me here since July last year is both emotional and spiritual. I have a Pastor husband from one of the Pentecostal churches, but the harrowing experience with him made me to run for my life. I lived with a man that was fighting me spiritually, whenever I went for deliverance and prayers, he would be unhappy and become aggressive. When I became pregnant, the child kept shrinking in the womb, this was not normal.
The prayers I attended revealed that my husband was responsible and he wanted me to die with the pregnancy so that he could bring in another woman.
“One day, someone invited me to the RCCG camp for prayers. When the General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, prayed that day, I saw a different thing at home. In the night, I fell into a trance and my husband was standing right in front of me, laughing loudly at me. Simultaneously, I started delivering a long snake from my private part.
After that experience, I got relieved,” Peace said. Peace said her husband became both angry and nice to her the next morning. “He did two things that surprised me; he forced me to eat with him and forced me to have sex with him, which was very unusual, when we were preparing for work that morning. Immediately he did these two things, my body changed and the problem started again.
That was why I ran away for my life,” she added. A resident in the camp said there are many of them living in the auditorium.
According to him, many of them are there because they cannot afford to pay for accommodation, some are there because of broken marriages, and some others stay back after the Holy Ghost congress which holds every first Friday of the month. Many of them are having children and sending them to school from there.
RCCG’s code of conduct department used to evacuate them, but before you know it, they are back. A source from the department, who craved anonymity, said sometimes, they had to be lenient because the auditorium is a church.
They are of the opinion that some people could be staying there to pray. When complaints of missing items and some other reports started coming, ‘we had no choice than to start chasing them away,’ he said.
Sunday Telegraph
