Police in Nigeria have freed at least 77 people held in a church basement by pastors who preached to them as Christian believers ascending to heaven at the second coming of Jesus Christ, authorities said Sunday. The people rescued Friday night from the church in Ondo state included 23 children, some as young as eight. Local residents told The Associated Press that some members of the Whole Bible Believers Church had been held there since last year. Pastors at the church located 75 kilometers (46 miles) from the Nigerian capital encouraged members to “stay back” and wait for the rapture, police spokesman Odo Funmilayo Odunlami said. Two pastors are in custody, although investigators have found no evidence that church members were “mistreated and/or forced” to stay in the basement, he said. “The assistant pastor said he told them what the Lord told him; that they should obey their parents in the Lord,” Odunlami said, Nigeria is a deeply religious country where many religious leaders are revered. This is not the first time authorities have reported rescuing people held by clerics, either voluntarily or by force. A woman has raised the alarm of a possible kidnapping involving Ondo Church, saying her daughter was not allowed to register for her exams, locals said. Other residents had nuisance complaints about the church but didn’t know what was going on inside. “They hold services around the clock and people rarely sleep when they hold their vigils,” said Tunde Valentino, who lives nearby. “It was until Tuesday when a woman came saying that they didn’t release her two children.” When local authorities got there, some church members resisted their would-be rescuers and “refused to go,” cursing the parents who also arrived, according to Valentino. Famakinwa Lucaskakaki, president of a local youth group, said during the interrogation, church members insisted they “went into the basement themselves” after service every Sunday. “Some of them said they were there since August; some told us they got there in January this year,” he said.
