By Mulengera Reporters
Psychological manipulation and financial exploitation, through exciting followers by promising life-changing miracles, has lately been on the increase among so-called pastors in especially the rapidly-urbanizing Kampala Metropolitan districts of Wakiso, Kampala and Mukono.
This is how a lot of people, especially women, have been made gullible and tools for manipulation by wealth-seeking prosperity gospel preachers. Many such victims are made to anticipate miracles through marriage to successful men, luxurious travel and honey moon holidays in some of the world’s best holiday destinations. Such preachers rarely preach hard work, responsibility, prudent decision-making, personal accountability and Godly values like honesty, being exemplary and decency.
This is how several women have been taken advantage of only to end up nursing wounds resulting from sexual, emotional and financial exploitation. A few examples hereunder; Police information shows that some rogue-minded City Pastors have become untouchable while their victims agonize for the rest of their life. That women get so much manipulated by such rogue-minded pastors and they even cease to engage in any critical thinking.
Some such pastors, according to Police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke, operate small town churches which miracle-seeking women (who are supposed to be at their workplaces) frequent for prayer and counseling sessions in search for spiritual breakthroughs. Claire Wanuma was extorted and made to part with her life savings worth Shs40m in return for a miracle a husband a rogue-minded City pastor promised her.
She was told the husband would come from Canada and all she had to do was to sow a mighty seed and leave the rest to God. When nothing came to fruition, the rogue-minded pastor summoned her and suggested that she sows an additional Shs10m to expedite her miracle husband to come her way. Wanuma eventually realized she was duped because no such husband ever came and she now regrets abandoning her father as he battled cancer yet she had money to purchase pain-relieving drugs for him.
Frances Adroa, another victim of this spiritual manipulation, was asked to pay millions in return for a miracle husband and honeymoon in Denmark. When this never happened, her manipulative pastor in Kampala asked her to sow her car. A dispute arose when she confronted the pastor demanding to get back her car and the matter has since been escalated to Court.
Police sources say there are many such victims who have been reporting cases after being manipulated and conned by these tricksters calling themselves pastors. They frighten and sometimes over excite their followers which impairs their ability to think critically on their own.
Some pastors use technology and even ritualistic practices to enhance their miracle performing powers while targeting their followers’ wallets. Years ago, a Ghananian preacher coming to minister at one of Kampala’s big name Born Again churches was caught at the airport trying to smuggle into Uganda an electric torch machine which he intended to use to electrocute worshippers at the crusade he was coming to preside over, in order to create the false impression that he was profoundly possessed with spiritual and miracle working powers.
Those on whom the torch was to be applied would be deceptively made to think they had experienced the power of the Holy Spirit through the visiting big-talking West African pastor. During the same period, another pastor called William Muwanguzi Kiwedde was apprehended in Rakai district where he was holding himself out as a Catholic priest with miracle-working powers.
Acts like these at some point prompted the IGP to order comprehensive investigations which were conducted under GEF/567/2019. The idea was to inquire into several whistle blower claims against so-called men of God whose worship centers serve as churches only during the day and turn into real shrines at night with even ritual murder-related claims being made to implicate some such actors.
Broadly speaking, the IGP’s idea was to have Police investigators inquire into other claims including some of the so-called men of God engaging in ritual murders, defilement, rape and extortion. Some were accused of being associated with mass graves situated not very far from physical locations of their churches.
Several big-name Kampala pastors were even made to make statements but the authorities eventually lost appetite and the investigations somehow stalled. Some of the interrogated pastors back then claimed innocence saying there were victims of witch-hunt and persecution by their more connected adversaries.
Now Police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke says investigations are on to dig deeper and not less than 15 pastors in Kampala are currently being targeted for their conduct to be inquired into. The public too must become vigilant with victims being encouraged to step forward and volunteer extortion-related information to the Police.
Kituuma says arrests and public arraignment will be made once investigations are concluded.
Kituuma adds that victims of such fake divine interventions are many out there and are now helping Police with useful leads corroborating on such fraudulent spiritual practices, which now have to be cracked. Kituuma says that when they discover that victims of their deception have become alert and are beginning to speak out, such fake pastors resort to issuing threats to curse or even kill such hitherto gullible followers once the fallout becomes glaring and irreversible.
Kituuma says there are lots of occult practices inside some Pentecostal churches in Kampala which police wants the public to keep reporting once they detect any form of dubious and suspicious religious practices and teachings. That some churches, at night, are used to perform traditional rituals yet their so-called senior pastors and founders parade them as churches during day time.
That in extreme cases, followers have been manipulated to surrender and order transfer of their land titles and vehicle logbooks in return for miracle prayers by rogue-minded so-called pastors. Kituuma says that this time round, the clean-up exercise is going to be indiscriminate, comprehensive and unrelenting. He also castigated cases were people who are unwell health-wise are duped and encouraged to fast and pray for miracle healing instead of being advised to go to the hospital and seek medical help.
This resolve by police is something many fraudulent pastors and Sheikhs ought to be sleepless about because insiders say that no amount of bribing is going save anyone this time round. Gen Museveni is desperate for reelection come 2026 and the system will be ready to sacrifice anyone in order to appease the clearly angry public opinion to boost reelection chances for the NRM.
In a related development, Uganda Human Rights Commission Chairperson Mariam Wangadya says her UHRC too has been petitioned by many ordinary Ugandans who say they have been victims of manipulation, extortion and sexual abuse by leaders at several born again churches in Kampala. She is also investigating a list of pastors and churches who have caused loss of life by deceptively telling sick people to fast and pray while discouraging them from going to seek medical help.
Gen Museveni too recently denounced pastors who discourage the sick from seeking medical help in favor of prayer and fasting. The President says this is dangerous and those encouraging such irresponsible behavior ought to be severely punished under the law.
Bishop Moses Odongo, who heads Uganda’s National Fellowship of Born Again Churches, says no pastor should be tolerated faking miracles in order to attract followers. He says such acts don’t only dupe churchgoers but also shame God in whose name such rogue-minded pastors claim to act.
In the past, it had always been hard for victims to get any remedy within Uganda’s justice system because pastors and other perpetrators of such fraudulent spiritual practices have a lot of money (they collect hundreds of millions which URA never taxes) which they use to bribe and buy off men and women deployed to investigate them. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
