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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Calabar, Cross River, Nigeria · 2025

Nigeria: general overseer given life for raping his sixteen-year-old 'spiritual daughter'

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

general overseer of an assembly, religious guardian of a 'spiritual daughter'

Organization

Refiners Fire Global Assembly

Spiritual nexus

The 'spiritual daughter' designation formalised religious guardianship: the girl was placed under the overseer's direct spiritual authority, which is the relationship the offences ran through.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2025-06-01 · conviction and sentence

    Cross River State court, Calabar, Nigeria. Pastor Favour Maxy Okoise, general overseer of Refiners Fire Global Assembly, was convicted of raping his 16-year-old 'spiritual daughter' — a congregant under his direct religious guardianship — between November and December 2016, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • religious guardianship formalised in the 'spiritual daughter' relationship

Primary record

Sources

reliable contemporaneous court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Pastor sentenced to life imprisonment for raping spiritual daughter', CrossRiverWatch (June 2025).

Cross River outlet reporting the conviction and life sentence.

Related record

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