‘Yes, I was an armed robber before Jesus arrested me’ – Rev. Dachomo

The Regional Chairman of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, has boldly owned up to his dark past as an armed robber, dramatically declaring that it was Jesus Christ who “arrested” him and turned his life around, in direct response to allegations leveled against him by a fiery Islamic cleric, Sheikh Yusuf Haruna, popularly known as Baban Chinedu.

The controversy erupted after Baban Chinedu, in a viral social media outburst that has set tongues wagging across Plateau State and beyond, accused the reverend of not only being a notorious bandit captured in photos with criminals but of masterminding a daring bank robbery in Jos back in 1980, while branding him a serial liar who invented his dramatic conversion story purely to profit as a “crisis entrepreneur” sowing discord in Plateau and the North.

Far from shying away from the claims, Rev. Dachomo, whose leadership role in COCIN places him at the forefront of Christian ministry in the area, has instead embraced the narrative with unflinching candor, using it as a powerful testimony of redemption that underscores the transformative power of faith amid Nigeria’s ongoing religious and ethnic tensions.

In his now-widely circulated post across social media platforms, Sheikh Yusuf Haruna pulled no punches, painting a grim portrait of the clergyman as a “hardened armed robber” with a criminal dossier stretching from 1976 right up to sometime after 2000, insisting that records exist to back his explosive revelations and dismissing Rev. Dachomo’s much-touted encounter with Jesus following the alleged 1980 Jos bank heist as nothing but fabricated fiction designed to exploit communal crises for personal gain.

“Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo isn’t just someone seen in a photo with a bandit; no, he is the bandit! Ezekiel committed armed robbery. We have records on him from 1976, from ’76 to sometime after 2000. This man is a hardened armed robber. He is a liar who fabricated stories about meeting Jesus after a 1980 bank robbery in Jos,” the cleric insisted in his post, igniting a fierce online debate that has drawn in religious leaders, politicians, and netizens from across the divide, with many hailing the unmasking of alleged hypocrisy while others decried it as an attempt to tarnish a man’s ministry.

As the dust settles in this latest flashpoint of interfaith rivalry in Plateau State, Rev. Dachomo’s affirmative embrace of his robber past, “Yes, I was an armed robber before Jesus arrested me”, not only defuses the cleric’s barbs but elevates the scandal into a riveting redemption arc, leaving the public to ponder whether truth lies in archival records or in the profound silence of a changed life.