Some repentant Niger Delta militants and kidnappers undergoing rehabilitation in the Omega Power Ministries (OPM) rehabilitation centre ,had been gainfully employed in different oil companies in the country, while others got jobs abroad,the General Overseer, Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere, has said.
He also also said no fewer than eight of the repentant kidnappers are now pastors in the church.
He said that the repentant militants/kidnappers changed after a divine encounter through evangelism organised for some of them in their various camps.
“I preached to them and many of them hearken to salvation call and gave their lives to Jesus Christ. Before I embarked on this move, I bought some estates to relocate them.
“Initially when I preached to them, because I could not relocate them out of their place, it was easy for them to go back to their old ways.
“So, I decided that the best way to approach them is to change their environment and that became the first step of their healing process,” he said.
He said that he took them to the estate, got them baptized and began to teach them the words of God to complete liberation from crime.
“These kidnappers have wives and children, so what we did was to put their children in the free school operated by the church and at the same time established businesses for their wives.
“We started teaching them different skills and by the grace of God, after they acquired the skills, some said they wanted to be pastors.
“And, currently we have eight of them that are full-time pastors in OPM branches.
“Others are into different skills like carpentry, pipeline welding, scaffolding, mechanics and so on,” Chinyere said.
“The Nigerian Police have been cooperating with us; some of these youths have been in crime for many years and they were not caught, but they came with their arms to surrender.
“The police decided not to go after them since they surrendered willingly as long as they don’t go back to crime again; there is somebody that submitted three AK-47 rifles.
“We took them to police headquarters in Rivers, located at Moscow Road and they took their biometrics, pictures and fingerprints as well as the record of guns submitted and the crimes they committed.
“With this, the police have their full data in case they go back to crime. However, I know they won’t go back to crime,” he added.
