Mr Samuel Ezekiel,
father of Nathaniel Samuel, the man who was arrested for trying to bomb a
Living Faith Church in Kaduna, has confirmed that his son is a Christian, and
not a Muslim as being speculated on social media.
“No! Not even for a
single day has he been a Muslim,” Ezekiel said in his Marabar Demishi village,
in Kaduna.
Nathaniel Samuel’s
true identity has become a controversy in the social media, with some accusing
the police of changing his name to deflect anger against Boko Haram or the
muslim community.
Some reports said
Samuel had told the Christian leaders who arrested him at the Winners Chapel
branch in Kaduna that he was Mohammed Sani, only for the police to parade him
as Nathaniel Samuel.
As controversies
continue over the true identity of the suspect of last Sunday alleged attempt
to bomb the Living Faith Church, Sabon Tasha, Kaduna, the father of the victim,
Mr. Samuel Ezekiel has declared that his son’s name is Nathaniel Samuel.
He is of Jawara
tribe, from Bauchi state.
In an interview with
Dailypost in his rented house at Damishi village in the outskirts of Kaduna, in
Chikun local government area, the father in the presence of the Kaduna State
Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, chairman, Rev. Joseph Hayab, who has
also gone to the house to make findings, confessed, “Nathaniel was born in
1991.
“He has been a drug
addict in spite of all efforts to make him understand the danger of what he is
doing.
“He has found
himself taking drugs and l have been struggling to put him in a right way but
he has not been able to understand what l am telling him. That is all l know
about him.”
When asked if
Nathaniel has been staying at home, the father responded, “It has been long
since he left the house and when he came back last weekend, l asked him what
was wrong with him seeing him becoming a different person entirely. I
discovered that his words were not consistent. He will say one thing and before
you know it, he will tell you a different thing.
“Nathaniel could not
tell me where he was coming from because he is not consistent in all that he
says. I have been advising him on how to live a good life but he seems not to
understand what l am telling him. He came and left last Saturday in the
morning. Since he left that morning on Saturday, l did not hear anything about
him until on Sunday when l heard what he did and then l was not at home. I
learnt policemen came to my house in my absence but before l came back to the
house, they had all left.
“Till date, nobody
has come to my house to ask me what happened. It is only this morning being
Tuesday, 4th February, 2020, that SSS from Chikun local government came to
interview me on what happened and l explained to them what l have just told
you.
“My concern is the
lives of those he wanted to destroy if it is true that he carried bomb to the
Church. Since l know Nathaniel, he has never been a Muslim but l tell you
because of the drugs he takes, l had to take him to Psychiatric hospital,
Kaduna for treatment. I could not cope with the expenses because l was not
financially able to meet up, l had to take him back home.”
On his part, the
state CAN chairman, Rev. Hayab said, “When the matter came up as l said in the
previous interviews, there were conflicting reports; report that he said his
name is Mohammed Sani, another report that his name is Nathaniel Samuel. What
we are concerned with is- was there proper background investigation to know who
he is and exactly what is his name is?
“Now, we clearly
stated that we are not interested about his name, tribe, religion and where he
comes from but we are interested in the act of criminality that he would have
committed and felt should be addressed. Part of our work as CAN is to go beyond
making noise, and that is why we went to finding out who is this Nathaniel or
Mohammed.”
Luckily, he said,
“ln our investigation, someone told me about his father and where his family
lives. The good news is that l drove here and fortunately, the father of
Nathaniel is someone that l, Rev. Joseph Hayab knows for many years.
“The story you hear
from the father is the challenge of his son, Nathaniel and l believe in
Nigeria, we can solve problems by doing a proper background checking. I am sad
that the policemen who came to the father of Nathaniel could not be patient to
wait to hear the true story of the boy in question, inpatient and sometimes
lack of professionalism could cause some problems in the society.”
Rev. Joseph Hayab
appealed to Nigerians to use the situation of Nathaniel to learn.
“Let us not rush to
judgment. We need to really find out if what he was arrested with is actually a
bomb, if he has a mental problem and he is holding something that is harmful so
that we clear ourselves from a situation of killing one another,” he explained.
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