Hours after he was viciously brutalised by an angry Hausa mob over the death of a labourer, the Senior Shepherd of Celestial Church of Christ (CCC) Overcomers Parish Ajah, Lagos James Aso has spoken from the hospital bed.
Aso, as he is popularly called, was brutalised at the weekend by an Hausa mob over the death of a labourer Dogo in the church premises while trying to clean up a soakaway.
He was seen in a viral video naked and matcheted after he was beaten to a pulp by the mob, which also looted and razed the church.
The mob accused the popular preacher of using Dogo, who was pulled out dead from the soakaway, for money rituals.
But Aso debunked the allegation in an exclusive with The Nation. He also recounted events leading to the mob attack, which left him almost dead.
The cleric with bandaged head and hands said: “I am feeling better, God is taking control, and I am alive. I thank God, the truth shall prevail.
“I have never engaged in such rubbish people are saying, I am an apostle of God and I will remain one for life. This is a tribulation not only for me but for the body of the church which I believe by the name of God Almighty and Papa Oshoffa, we shall overcome it.”
On what trigged the mob attack, he said: “The first Thursday of every month is the Celestial Church New Moon Service. I was the service conductor staying in the altar, after hearing the noise, everybody was running out of the church, so I was forced to stop the service and attend to what was happening.
“I was hearing Dogo, Dogo, Dogo, I had to call the assistant Shepherd to rescue the man. He put off his cloth and jumped inside too, it was the assistant shepherd that confirmed Dogo was dead and he couldn’t talk again inside the soakaway.
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“The Assistant Shepherd also got stuck in the soakaway and he was also struggling to talk. I had to rescue both of them. We pressed his stomach to flush the water out and over 20 people were there that very moment seeing everything that happened, I had to call out to some people to help us.”
He added: “Dogo is a guy everybody knew in that area. He worked for people in the community. He carried out errand work for people. He came to me for help and as a matter of fact, we related together.
“We had paid Dogo three days before that day and he came to drop off his equipment. He had even done some parts of the job because he was the one that broke the cover of the soakaway. He first packed the toilet and still suggested we need to clear the water chamber, everything he did there was based on his recommendation. He brought his pumping machine and tools and he said he was coming back; all these were three days before he came at midnight.
“Even Dogo himself knew that I will never be allowed to come and do such in the night not to talk of midnight. People are just taking advantage of what happened. I never asked him to come and do any work at midnight, for what? We didn’t believe the guy had died until we got to the hospital.
“We went to a particular station in which they directed us to Langbasa Police Station and it was there that they asked us to call his people, and the police told us to wait till morning so that they can follow us to the place and they saw everything, they saw Dogo on the floor after returning him from mortuary, police took photographs of everything.
The police were not armed, they were not expecting such drama, the boys were too much and they had already concluded what they wanted to do, even when I was talking to them.”