A quiet December 10 morning in Benin City turned into chaos when a familiar face jumped the fence of a Pentecostal church and made straight for the sacred altar.
The target? Two ordinary standing fans cooling the pulpit where prayers are offered daily.
But this wasn’t just any thief. Church members instantly recognised him as the same man whose son is on their scholarship payroll.
“He plays keyboard for us sometimes,” one usher later told reporters, voice shaking with anger. “We thought he was family.”
CCTV footage captured everything: the suspect forcing the side door, stuffing cables into his bag, then dragging the fans toward his waiting bicycle.
The church owner, whose face is not visible in the now trending video, spotted him on the monitor and raised the alarm.
Within seconds, half a dozen young men swarmed the compound. A short chase ended when the thief tripped near the borehole.
What followed was raw and brutal, punches, slaps and kicks rained down while the man begged, “I have children, please!”
In a viral confession recorded right there in the church, he admitted in pidgin: “Na me dey thief the church property since. Hunger push me.”
Social media exploded. Some called it betrayal of the highest order, “stealing from God’s altar after eating His grace?” Others condemned the beating as jungle justice, asking why police were never called.
By evening, the battered suspect limped away after promising repayment through community service. No arrests, no charges, just another scar on Nigeria’s long list of instant mob justice stories.
As one X user wrote: “They paid his son’s fees, he repaid them with theft. They beat him half-dead, he repaid them with a confession. Everybody lost today.”
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