In May 2022, Nigerian newspapers were awash with the charity Omega Power Ministry’s Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere bestowed upon the immediate family of the slain Deborah Emmanuel, formally recognised as Deborah Samuel Yakubu. The gifts supposedly included landed property, a ‘new’ car, a restaurant business and shiny scholarships, for all Deborah’s siblings. That was all we were supposed to know and the celebrated benefactors made it stay that way. When FIJ’s Joseph Adeiye visited Deborah’s family in the first week of June, his findings were shocking.
Most Nigerians have heard about Deborah Samuel, but they mostly know very little about her family. Deborah was an undergraduate student of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto State when her schoolmates lynched her on the school’s premises on May 12, 2022. The act was recorded. Those who had a hand in her murder were many. None has shown remorse. None has been convicted of the crime.
“She told us that she had bad dreams and felt that she was targeted. We know that they were envious of her and used that opportunity to carry out their evil intentions against her,” Alheri Emmanuel, Deborah’s mother, told FIJ as she recalled the events leading to her daughter’s gruesome murder.
Deborah’s lynching rocked Nigeria and there was outrage from millions, but there was also a family reeling with pains too great to recover from. Emmanuel Garba, Deborah’s father, told reporters that he was not going to allow his children attend school anymore. The earliest reaction to this vow came from Chibuzor Chinyere, the general overseer of Omega Power Ministries in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
“I just watched a video clip where the parents of Deborah Samuel said they will not be sending there[sic] children to school again. GOD FORBID,” Chinyere wrote on Facebook on May 16, 2022.
“Anyone with their contacts should inform them immediately that I, Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere the general overseer of OPM Church, am relocating them to Port Harcourt. They would be staying in one of the OPM free estates where they will never pay rent forever. All their children are given automatic scholarships in OPM Free schools. I will get the father a job and I also open a shop for the mother. Please get in touch with them immediately.”
Chinyere did reach out to Deborah’s family shortly after this public promise. He relocated the family to Port Harcourt, welcoming them under the lenses of cameras and video recorders.
A January 5 newspaper story used Deborah’s family as material for an OPM hagiography. According to the newspaper article, Deborah’s family “was abandoned by government, rich Nigerians and the International community to wallow in their grief and trauma”.
The report claimed that Chinyere singlehandedly gave Deborah’s family a new life and they lived happily ever after. FIJ did not meet happy faces on its first visit to Deborah’s family on June 9.
READ ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: How Boko Haram Jihadist Snatched 25 Communities From Niger State Gov’t
THE CHARITY THAT BECAME A CURSE
Emmanuel and Alheri told FIJ that life has not been rosy ever since Chinyere brought them to Port Harcourt.
Chinyere invited Deborah’s parents and all her siblings. Emmanuel told FIJ that he, his wife and six children came to Port Harcourt after the May 2022 invitation. He said that Chinyere got him a car alongside a mini estate containing 14 apartments.
This all seems right and the family ought to be in a better position, one would think.
“People think that we are living well but we are not. OPM took us from where we were in Niger State to Port Harcourt City last year. The OPM pastor gave us a mini estate with about 14 self-contained apartments. After that, OPM rented this bedroom flat for us,” Emmanuel told FIJ on Friday.
“He said we should be staying here because we are a family and those self-contained apartments cannot be enough for the family. He furnished the apartment with the appliances.
“The first time we got here, OPM got me a car. It was a Toyota Corolla but it wasn’t new. It was a fairly used vehicle and the car has developed some faults. I was using it as a taxi before but it has some challenges and I have parked it. The first time OPM brought us to Port Harcourt they brought food items to us. After that first time, we have been struggling on our own. Right from the day OPM gave me this car, the car has been developing faults. On the first day I tried to take my children to school the car broke down on its way back. We towed the car back.
“I even went to the OPM pastor to speak with him in person. I let him know that the car has been developing a fault all this while. He called the person who bought the car on behalf of OPM and that person said that I did not know how to drive the vehicle properly. I have been a driver before now; this is not the first vehicle I’ve driven. The engine of the car is bad and I don’t have the money to fix it. I am looking for money to feed myself and my family. All the money people gave me for my upkeep, I used it on this car. Whenever I complained, the PA to the OPM pastor told me to stop complaining about the car but to fix it myself.”
FIJ had seen the deep green Corolla in the compound when entering the apartment sheltering Emmanuel and his family. FIJ inspected the car and saw scars and scratches on the vehicle’s exterior.
These scratches and peels were not the result of collisions. The Corolla was a secondhand car with some fantastic years of use behind its wheels.
“I either get a new car to work with or sell this one to offset my debts,” Emmanuel mused while this reporter took a few pictures.
READ ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: Bandits Received N200m Ransom to Free Latest Abuja-Kaduna Train Abductees
HOUSE NOT FREE, MINI-ESTATE MISMANAGED BY ABSENTEE LAWYER
“They would be staying in one of the OPM free estates where they will never pay rent forever,” Chinyere said in his Facebook post on May 16, 2022.
Looking through the OPM Facebook page Chinyere used, grand charitable gestures has been posted almost every day. A church member FIJ met at the OPM headquarters on Friday said it was all possible through a foundation run by the church.
Chinyere and OPM told newspapers that Deborah’s family got an apartment as soon as they arrived in Port Harcourt. It was the same apartment FIJ visited between Friday and Sunday. FIJ found that this apartment was not free of charge.
OPM paid the rent for one year.
“From time to time, the OPM leader used to call to check on us. He paid the rent. Right now, the rent for this apartment has expired. The landlord has told us to renew the rent or leave,” Emmanuel told FIJ on its second visit on Saturday.
“All the appliances and the equipment in this apartment belong to OPM, we don’t own it.”
FIJ saw that the receipt for the apartment was signed in the name of Chinyere. The rent expired in May 2023 and the landlord did not go to OPM. The landlord is harassing Deborah’s family instead.
The property that OPM really handed to Deborah’s family for free was the mini-estate.
When FIJ asked about the mini-estate and the prospective revenue it could generate for the family, Emmanuel’s explanation was another unpleasant revelation.
“They gave us the documents of the mini-estate and everyone has signed, and it is approved that the house is our own. The first tenants paid the money to the lawyer and the lawyer did not give me the money as they were meant to,” Emmanuel told FIJ.
“The mini-estate is a compound of about 14 self-contained apartments. OPM gave me a lawyer who helped with the documents and interfaced with the tenants. The lawyer told me that each tenant paid rent, but their rent came at different rates for the same apartments. This lawyer did not send the rent money to me until I went to meet OPM’s pastor in person.
“The day I met with the pastor to inform him that I hadn’t received the rent money he called the lawyer and she responded immediately. She sent me N800,000 for the first year and told me that she had used the balance to fix some things in the apartments. She had been telling me that she wasn’t around or she was unavailable until I went to see the OPM pastor that day.
“They have told me that the second one will come to me directly. I really need help with a job or something it is not easy to have children like this in Port Harcourt with no means of livelihood. There was a time my wife wanted to return to the village, she wanted to go back. I had to plead with her to stay.”
Emmanuel told FIJ that he had already been knee-deep in debt by the time the lawyer managed to send him the rent money.
Queeneth Okezie, the lawyer who Emmanuel referred to, told FIJ that all was well with Emmanuel and his family.
“I can just say that everything is fine. The rent received so far has been remitted to him (Emmanuel) and his family and they are alright,” Okezie told FIJ on Tuesday.
“The tenants paid for one year. Most of them rented around June 2022, and a few others rented the remaining apartments later. They will renew their rents from next month.
“I cannot give out more confidential information about Mr Garba’s business without his consent.”
‘NOT THE SCHOLARSHIP WE THOUGHT’
FIJ spoke with Deborah’s younger siblings at their rent-overdue apartment.
Eleven-year-old Sarah bore a strong semblance to Deborah that is hard to shake off. She was the only child who spoke comfortably. The younger David, Mariam and James were either too shy or uncomfortable to answer questions.
Even Sarah gave short and simple answers in English when this reporter asked what she felt about her education. Sarah told FIJ that she was in Basic Four. She loved her school, she said.
“I will like to go on to higher education and become a working-class lady,” Sarah beamed. That was the most confident statement she made while she spoke with FIJ.
All four siblings attended the OPM Free school.
“We came here with six of our children,” Alheri told FIJ. “My husband and I had to make the decision to let Matthew and Joseph, the two elderly ones, return to our village”.
“In February this year, the Central Bank policy which forced the cash crunch made things a lot worse for us and I sent two of the children back to our village. Only four are with us right now,” Emmanuel corroborated his wife’s statement.
“We relied a lot on garri during those months. I was in serious financial challenges and feeding was a problem for us. We sent those two elderly ones back so that we can look after these four.
“OPM gave Deborah’s siblings a scholarship each. They are schooling here in the church’s free school. However, the scholarships were not all what we thought they were. They promised to send one of my boys to school abroad. We were told it was going to be a European country. I was surprised when my son turned the offer down because they sent him to Cotonou instead.”
One Kenneth Nwachi told The Sun that Apostle Chinyere “offered international undergraduate scholarship to one of Deborah’s brothers to study in Cyprus”. Nwachi had waxed lyrical about how Chinyere had changed the story of Deborah’s family.
“…it is imperative that Nigerian government should honour and appreciate his magnanimity and benevolence towards the poor and the needy in the country,” Nwachi said.
Nwachi served as Chinyere’s Special Assistant for Special Duties.
THE RESTAURANT WITHOUT CUSTOMERS
A couple of kilometres from her family’s apartment led FIJ to the shop that OPM gave to Alheri along UNIPORT Road.
Alheri’s shop was empty, bar the plastic chairs and tables. There were no customers within the full hour FIJ spent there on Saturday.
Deborah’s mother narrated the challenges that have plagued her business for months in Port Harcourt.
“Glory be to GOD. I really thank the OPM pastor for extending love towards our family and for the hand of fellowship he has shown us. Running a restaurant was my business before what happened to Deborah, and I was doing great at it. I used to make over N100,000 in income before now,” Alheri told this reporter.
“This was my first time coming to Rivers State so I have little experience operating a restaurant here. I don’t know the food Port Harcourt residents eat so I have struggled with understanding the kinds of meals customers want in the restaurant. OPM brought some ladies to assist me so that I can learn from them as they run the restaurant. When they came, I handed over the restaurant to them. They ran the restaurant for some time and the returns were not consistent. They didn’t sell up to N10,000 in a day. They would bring N7,000, N8,000 or N10,000 in a day. I wondered that if these people who can run restaurants well can only average N10,000 in a day how would I who don’t know Rivers State do?
“So one day I decided to join them to work but I became very sick. I fainted at a point. I spent some time at the hospital when I became ill. I tried to return to working at the restaurant but I got ill again, so I left the restaurant in the hands of those helping me to manage it. The ladies who were supposed to help me in the first instance left the restaurant when I came to work there. After my illness, I went to OPM Welfare to let them know and they brought another lady to help out. This lady and I had an agreement on how much she would return. After some time, she stopped sending returns from the restaurant.
“I took the matter to the Welfare Department at OPM to let them know what was happening. The head of the Welfare Department took me to the OPM pastor and told him all that I said. The OPM pastor then asked the Welfare leader to determine how much the restaurant manager had failed to return and promised to pay me the money. They paid me the money and the shop became dormant.
“The Welfare leader was angry at us for taking our complaints to the OPM pastor. They said that we ought not to complain with the house and car we were given. This behaviour made me feel bad and it affected the way I felt towards managing the restaurant. Now I have nothing to do, even my husband has no source of income. Even the money OPM gave me to offset what the manager owed, the Welfare leader later claimed that it was a loan and they were going to hand the restaurant over to someone else to recover the money, but OPM said that he was giving that money to me.”
The landlord is still expecting Deborah’s family to renew its rent by next month. OPM paid a year’s rent for the shop.
FIJ sent a mail to OPM’s official email address but the mail delivery subsystem said the address wasn’t found.
OPM’s listed official Twitter account did not exist. Its Facebook account told FIJ to call an office line.
Calls and messages from FIJ to OPM’s official phone line failed to go through; the phone number was inoperable.
‘WE WERE SURROUNDED BY LOVE BEFORE HERE, NOW WE HAVE BEEN LEFT ALONE‘
Alheri voiced her doubts about the support of OPM members or those closest to Chinyere.
According to Alheri, Chinyere meant well in his own way but those around him have made life unbearable for them.
“The pastor tried for us, we will always be grateful to him even if some things aren’t working out fine. OPM’s pastor reached out to us a couple of times, but those around him don’t show empathy,” Alheri said.
“I really wanted to return to Niger State because there is no support here. It isn’t about money, no member of OPM comes here to pay us a visit. Since we’ve been in Port Harcourt, none of OPM’s members cared enough to visit us here. While we were in Niger we were surrounded by loved ones and Christians from different churches.
“We just leave everything in the hands of God. I thank everyone who has tried to help us. There was a white man who came from the United States. He said that he wanted to take us to the US. OPM was coming then and the man was making propositions too. OPM came first and we had concerns about going to the United States without the benefit of formal education so we followed OPM. I have seen all the reactions on social media and I am grateful. I thank everyone.”
Emmanuel added: “When my wife fell ill last year, they didn’t even come around; they don’t come around to see us. No follow-up and she was in the hospital for a whole month.”
“I had to borrow the money I used to pay my wife’s hospital bill. I haven’t repaid the person who lent me that money. Only the ECWA in Port Harcourt came around to see us a couple of times, not members of the church that brought us to Port Harcourt. Back in Niger, we had more emotional support, even if it is just to have people around us.
“Of course, the OPM pastor has tried for us and we recognise that. We appreciate all he has done for us, but less can be said about those who surround him. We are feeling lonely and we need proper support. I don’t even need money as much as I need a job. We are not lazy people; we can do just fine with a source of livelihood.”
The drive back to Deborah’s family’s apartment was longer than the trip to the shop along UNIPORT Road, even though it was the same distance.
In FIJ’s last moments with Deborah’s family, both parents spoke about justice. They said that they expected succour from God only.
“Since the death of my daughter, I have not recovered. I have not been feeling okay. It is as if there is no justice on the matter. I am just living without any other way to react. As a Christian, I leave it all to God. The way she took her Christian life, we were very proud of her. They were eight in her classroom who were Christians and they all renounced their faith except Deborah. Only Deborah stood firm. They killed her on her faith. It is a lot of hurt to deal with,” Emmanuel said.
Alheri thanked FIJ multiple times per minute for the company. She lamented her family’s inability to entertain the journalist a couple of times too.
“Thank you very much for coming to see us. I’m not happy that we can’t even show you hospitality; there is nothing.”
Our Stories
FG Proposes N54,000, but Organised Labour Insists on N615,000 Minimum Wage
4 Months on, Customer’s N125,000 Still Hangs Between Arik Air and GTB
JUST IN: CBN Increases Interest Rate to 26.25%
Alert: NAFDAC Says Caro White Lotion Puts Users at Risk of Endocrine Disruption
Nigerian High Commission, 160 Others Owe UK £143m in Congestion Charges
NAPTIP: 6 Pregnant Girls Rescued From Baby Factory in Abia
UK Aviation Regulator Reports Air Peace to Nigeria Over Alleged Safety Rule Violations
BREAKING: Court dismisses Landwey’s N100m Libel Suit Against FIJ
After FIJ’s Story, Polaris Reverses Lagos Woman’s Money Held for Months
VIDEO: Ekiti Schoolgirl Who Lost Leg in Road Crash Ready to Resume Schooling, but One Open Bone Won’t Let Her
Subscribe
Be the first to receive special investigative reports and features in your inbox.
