At least 50 children have been rescued by police officers from the basement of a church in Valentino area of Ondo state.
Funmilayo Odunlami, police public relations officer (PPRO) in Ondo state, confirmed the development on Saturday.
Odunlami said the children have been evacuated to the police command in Akure, the capital of Ondo state.
The police spokesperson although an investigation has been launched into the incident, early findings indicate that the children were kept in the basement by a pastor preparing for rapture.
Rapture — according to the Christian doctrine — refers to the period of the second coming of Christ when all believers are expected to be taken to heaven.
“It’s a case of suspected abduction,” the police spokesperson said.
“It’s a church-related issue — a pastor who claims that Jesus is coming soon and rapture will take place by September and he harboured all of them in a house.”
The development comes weeks after the Ekiti police command invited Nuah Abraham, the pastor of Christ High Commission Ministry, Kaduna state, for questioning over allegations of asking church members to pay N310,000 to prepare them for rapture.
According to the police, Abraham had asked his church members to relocate from Kaduna to a camp in Araromi-Ugbesi in Omuo-Oke, Ekiti state.
The pastor was said to have told his church members that the relocation was in order to “prepare for the end of the world”.
