A forty-year-old man, John Friday Akpan, from Akwa Ibom State but resident in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, is now explaining to the police how he allegedly heeded the advice of a herbalist, one Dr Okokon, and tagged his two children, Elisha Udobong and Esther, as witches.

Akpan, who allegedly subjected the two children, aged 12 and 6 respectively, to harrowing treatment by nailing them to a plank and locking them up without food for days, was said to have told the police the children took his money to their “master in the witchcraft world and therefore deserved no mercy”.

The children, whose emaciated and dirty appearance replicated the images of starving children in famine ravaged Somalia and war torn Sudan following weeks of starvation, said they survived on water supplied by one of the man’s kids by another woman. “Our sister, Peace, usually brought us water inside the hut when our father and our mother had gone out”, Esther said.

The father, the kids said, used to reside in Akpabuyo with the family where he sent them to a private school, Regent Nursery and Primary School, Ikot Nkanda, but when their mother died and the man took another wife, Iquo, the story changed. Elisha, in JSS1, said: “My mother (stepmother ) said the woman who used to live near our house in Akpabuyo gave us food and she put something in the food and when we ate it we changed to birds at night and took out father’s money to our master in the witchcraft world”.

According to the boy, he was alleged to have taken 4 000 naira while Esther took 2000 and that angered their father and step mother who started beating them and denying them food “because they said we took the money to our master”. The maltreatment became worse when they relocated to Calabar and took up residence at 23 Akpandem Street, off Edim Otop Street at the municipality. “He (father) nailed us to one big plank and beat us that we should bring back the money but we had no money to give to him”, Esther said.

Unable to get back his money from the children, Akpan allegedly went for the final onslaught against the kids by locking them up in an abandoned hut where he lived so that they could die. “When the situation became too bad, neighbours, worried that the children may die and the police descend on them, raised the alarm and reported to the police at the Airport Division who swooped on the parents and got them arrested”, Mr James Ibor, a child rights activist, told Sunday Vanguard.

He said the DPO of the Airport Division called him “at about 11 am on Friday, March 8 that there was another case of children stigmatisation as witches and I went to the station and behold, what I saw made me weep”.

Ibori said the children were so hungry and weak that it was apparent that they would have died if they had not, been rescued. “They were so weak that we had to give them water first, then some fruits; even at that the system of the girl could not accommodate the fruits and she had to visit the toilet a few minute after she ate the banana I gave to them”.

DSP John Umoh, the spokesman of the Cross River State Police Command, said efforts were on to arrest Okokon the herbalist so that “he and the parents can appear in court to answer charges on felony”.

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Does God determine the time of a person’s death?

God is at War: The Spiritual Battle – Don’t Blame God series (2 of 4)

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Here are two very significant theological statements that too few Christians understand:

(1) Life is not a giant bakery.
(2) People are not milk cartons.

How many times have you heard people say, when commenting on someone’s untimely death (biblically, all death is untimely), “His number was up.” Huh?

My question is: What number?

Yes, the Bible speaks about “the bread of life,” but life is not a giant bakery, as in “Take a number.” In the bakery scenario, people wait with anticipation for their number to be “up,” so they can enjoy the jelly doughnut or whatever. But in life, no one wants to hear his number called and find a speeding bus inches away from him.

Or what about someone saying that he had a close call with death, but “It wasn’t my time to go.” That could give special meaning to the ordinary question, “What time is it?” Your time. nooo!!!

And I ask, “Who sets that time?”

Yes, the Bible speaks of “the milk of the Word,” but people are not milk cartons. That means that no human being comes from the factory with an expiration date stamped on him or her.

I’m not sure what year it was that expiration dates began to be stamped on food products, but when you see something with a date in the next decade, don’t eat it. The preservatives in it will not preserve you. What does preserve you, or at least give you the best chance of sticking around this life for a while, is learning the will of God from the Word of God, and doing it. God created mankind with genuine free will, and our choices play a major role in determining the quality, and length, of our lives.

If we hold to the Bible as the only source of truth regarding God, Jesus, and all spiritual matters, we will not find ourselves believing that people are milk cartons in a giant bakery, because those ideas are nowhere in Scripture. The Word of God does not say that He determines the time of a person’s death. Legally, that would make Him a murderer.

God makes it clear, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear His Word, that He is love, that death was never part of His original plan, and that He wants all people to live and be blessed by having a personal relationship with Him and His Son, the Lord Jesus. God gave us genuine free will, and our choices in large part determine our quality and quantity of life on this earth.

Georgia Tax Return Preparer Sentenced to Prison
Sentenced to More Than 11 Years in Prison for Preparing False Tax Returns Claiming Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Refunds
Tyrone Thompson was sentenced today to 137 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Hugh Lawson in the Middle District of Georgia for conspiracy and filing fraudulent tax returns in order to receive tax refunds, to which the defendant was not entitled, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced. In addition to Thompson, the scheme involved four others who had already been sentenced. Judge Lawson also ordered Thompson to pay $516,363 in restitution to the IRS. In October 2012, all five defendants pleaded guilty to filing a false claim for tax refunds. In addition, Thompson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file false claims for tax refunds.

According to court documents, Thompson organized a scheme in which he prepared and filed fraudulent federal income tax returns using the names of other individuals. He included with the returns fictitious Schedules C reporting business income and losses and also claimed false First-Time Homebuyer Credits, in order to obtain tax refunds to which he and his co-defendants were not entitled. He directed fraudulently-obtained refunds to be deposited to his co-defendants’ bank accounts. The attempted tax refund fraud exceeded $400,000.

“Today’s lengthy jail sentence sends a strong message that those who would consider committing tax fraud should think carefully about the serious risks involved,” said Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division Kathryn Keneally. “As millions of honest, hard-working taxpayers prepare and file their tax returns, they should be assured that those who would shirk their civic duty or try to ‘game the system’ will be investigated by the IRS and, where appropriate, criminally prosecuted by the Department of Justice.”

“These folks are stealing from every good tax paying citizen, and we won’t tolerate it,” said U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia Michael J. Moore.

“Tyrone Thompson organized a scheme to file fraudulent tax returns using the identities of third parties in order to receive false refunds,” said Richard Weber, Chief, IRS Criminal Investigations. “Mr. Thompson cheated the government by filing false Schedule C and false First-Time Homebuyer Credit forms to increase the fraudulent tax refunds. IRS Criminal Investigation has made investigating refund fraud a top priority and we will vigorously pursue those who undermine the integrity of the U.S. tax system.”

Assistant Attorney General Keneally commended the efforts of Special Agents of IRS – Criminal Investigation, who investigated the case, and Trial Attorneys Charles Edgar and Alexander Effendi of the Tax Division, who prosecuted the case.