Kamogelo Muvhenzhe
Pastor Bafomba Willy Emeka of the God Is Love Ministries was sentenced to 37 years behind bars last Wednesday after being found guilty of raping five women between 2015 and 2018.
He was found guilty of 19 counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, being in the country illegally and using a falsified permanent residence permit.
The 48-year-old pastor of the church in Bronkhorstspruit, outside Pretoria told his victims if they had problems he would help and bless them.
The sexual assaults continued for years until the women stopped attending Emeka’s church and one of Emeka’s victims fell pregnant.
He was arrested in 2018 after his victims reported him to another pastor in the church who encouraged them to report their cases to the police.
North Gauteng regional spokesperson for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Lumka Mahanjana said: “Emeka told his victims if they had problems that he needed to pray for them and bless them in order for him to help them.”
Mahanjana said the pastor told one of his victims, who was also assisting with baby-sitting his children, that by sleeping with him he was helping her to remove evil things out of her body and until those things came out, she would not be able to conceive.
State advocate Dorah Ngobeni submitted to the court that South Africa is plagued with two pandemics, the Covid-19 pandemic and abuse against women and children.
“Pastor Emeka was in a position of trust. The congregants trusted and confided in him and he used that information to prey on them in order to perform those offences,” said Ngobeni.
