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Summary
Helen Ukpabio was a popular apostle in Calabar in the late 90s and early 2000s whose ministry was based on child witchcraft. Her ministry exemplifies religious doctrine that leaves trails of harm. Helen declared many children to be possessed by the “demon of witchcraft,” resulting in many parents abandoning their children and adults with unresolved trauma.
Since the missionaries brought religion (Christianity) to Nigeria back in the 15th century, the Christian faith has greatly evolved in terms of sects, ideologies, beliefs, doctrines, principles and more.
Religious psychosis or delusion is one of the aspects that has greatly grown in the Christian faith in Nigeria. People blindly trust their pastors and shepherds, believing they can do no wrong and that their word is bond, even though these people are mere humans as well and are liable to make mistakes, even more often than the average church member.
According to research, a delusion is a strong, deeply embedded conviction in something that is not real. Beliefs about religious personalities or ideas are examples of religious illusions.
Religious delusions differ from religious and spiritual beliefs or faith. They are associated with certain psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or other conditions that alter a person’s mental state.
Helen Ukpabio: Religious Leader in Calabar
Helen Ukpabio is an example of a lady apostle who had—and still has—her followers hold the belief that a lot of children are witches, forcing them to go under gruesome deliverance or even burning them alive, among other things.
“If a child under the age of two screams in the night, cries, and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan,” Helen told her congregation.
Religious Leader cum Notorious Witch Hunter
Branding herself as a Lady Apostle, Helen Ukpabio was born in Imo state, Nigeria, in 1969. Married to Dr Elijah Ukpabio with three children, she is the founder and current head of Liberty Gospel Church—a Pentecostal church in Calabar, Nigeria, with multiple branches worldwide.
In 1999, Helen released a horror drama movie titled “End of the Wicked,” which was based on child witchcraft and depicted how children get possessed by witchcraft and “eat the souls” of other people and plot to murder their parents.
The 1999 film, which was produced by the Liberty Gospel Church, starred Helen Ukpabio as the pastor who valiantly exposes and destroys the witches, stirred up a lot of controversy and was initially held responsible for the rise in accusations of witchcraft against children in the 1990s and 2000s. According to critics, the movie blurred the line between truth and fiction.
In July 2009, 150 individuals reported as members of Helen’s church disrupted a “Child Rights and Witchcraft” conference organised by Human Rights activists in Calabar.
“I was to attend this child rights conference in Calabar 2009. Child witch branding was a concern. Helen Ukpabio’s church members attacked it, broke chairs and scattered the event. This was pre social media,” Twitter user @pdbraide tweeted.
In an investigative feature story by Al-Jazeera in 2018, the media also revealed that many children in Calabar and its vicinity suffered abuse, including beatings, tying up, starvation, and abandonment, among others, after being branded as witches by Pentecostal churches, including Helen’s church.
According to research, 85% were accused of witchcraft in the early 2000s and were subject to all forms of abuse, especially in the states of Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers, Nigeria. However, her ministry continues. In May 2024, Helen organised a conference on “freedom from witchcraft.”
Consequently, humanitarian activism sometimes interceded by caring for children cast out of their family homes after being branded “witches.”
Helen Ukpabio’s Legal Wars
In 2009, Helen Ukpabio sued an Anti Witchcraft Accusation Activist, Leo Igwe, for N20 billion for alleged “unlawful and unconstitutional infringement of her right to believe in God, Satan, Heaven and Hell Fire.” The case was dismissed.
However, in April 2014, Helen Ukpabio was banned and deported from the United Kingdom as her sermons and claims—of being able to disconnect witches from witchcraft—were deemed harmful to young children and the general public.
In November 2024, Helen Ukpabio and her daughter, identified as Ima Elijah, filed court documents to sue popular artist Bloody Civilian for N200 billion in damages and a public apology from the artist. This happened a day after Bloody Civilian quoted a tweet that was celebrating Helen Ukpabio clocking 60 on Nov. 22, 2024, with the caption, “She literally made people burn their children alive.”
Her daughter Ima responded, giving her five hours to take the tweet down. “I give you the next five hours to take this down, or I will educate you in court!” she quote-tweeted.
As Bloody Civilian’s refused to do so, she was served with the court documents hours later.
Nigerians’ Reaction to Turn of Events
Bloody Civilian’s tweet, which currently has 21k likes and 4.4m views, has sparked a wide discussion and outrage among Nigerians, with many sharing their experiences of being branded witches as children.
“The first time I ran away from home was because of what her mother told my mum. They were going to flog me that night while I tried to ‘fly.’ Traumatizsd me like mad!” —Rare Blessing on X.
“Me too. Not just me but my cousins also. Three of my cousins were killed because they were ‘witches’, and this whole witch-hunting thing opened the gate to child trafficking in Oron, Akwa Ibom State. I know how my entire childhood was stolen from me because of her.
“My Twitter handle, ‘The Witch,’ is even a result of my experiences. I hope I’ll be brave enough to write about this someday. So many children were killed and rendered homeless,” The Witch tweeted.
“We also felt Helen’s grip in the North. This just brought back a lot of bad memories for me. Children raised in the late 90’s/2000’s, I pray we heal from some of the trauma we went through in the name of “home training,” Muzzings also said.
From the experiences of people and research, it has been proven that witch-hunting children leaves lasting and traumatising damage on them, which is hard to shake even after years.
Unclenching the Grasp of Religion from Doing Harm
While the victims of Helen’s church witch-hunt are too many to be sorted out into the “poor” or “rich” category, it is clear that a number of these children were already from homes where their parents were not rich or well-educated. This corroborates the infamous saying that “religion is the opium of the poor.” The underprivileged turn to a higher being to save them and often end up being psychotic and deluded, a situation that does more harm than good.
In the words of Utibe Effiong, there is an urgent need for legislative reform to deter future incidents of abuse due to child witchcraft stigmatisation. Nigeria needs laws that prohibit discrimination based on witchcraft beliefs. Even more importantly, the laws need to be effectively enforced so that religious leaders and community members who choose to continue down this treacherous path are brought to book.
There is also a need to educate the older generation, the parents, and the guardians. There is a need to try and free them from poverty and, in turn, religious psychosis. Even though Helen was popular back then, a quick glance online reveals that witch hunts are still very much in action from diverse pentecostal churches.
Many humanitarianism scomes to help for children that have been abandoned and branded as witches.
And although it is much easier to get help with the help of the internet now, a lot more children are still out there, suffering and struggling because some religious leaders decided that they saw witchcraft in a child that cries. Naturally, humanitarians, advocates, activists, journalists, writers, etc, will try their best to bring these issues to the attention of the public, but we must all be committed to safeguarding children from the harm religious doctrine does.
