Nigerian Pastor Wanted For Rape In Canada!

An Ontario woman says she had been assured that a countrywide arrest warrant would prevent a Nigerian priest charged with sexually assaulting her from ever returning to Canada.



Nearly a decade later, she found evidence that Rev. Anthony Onyenagada had been allowed back into the country.

"It bothers me to hear so much attention being spent on people not coming into Canada," she told CBC News in an interview, "[but] they didn't catch the priest who raped me. And there were charges for him."

Onyenagada, a Roman Catholic priest from Nigeria, visited the woman's southwestern Ontario church in 2004.

The woman, whose identity CBC News has agreed to protect, was an administrative employee at the parish. She says he confined and sexually assaulted her there, shattering her relationship with a church she once loved.

The woman reported the allegations to the local diocese in London, Ont., and later went to authorities. Woodstock police laid 11 criminal charges against the priest in connection with the alleged assault and issued a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest. But by that time Onyenagada had already left Canada.

The woman sued the diocese of London over the alleged assault. In 2013, while she was still in the midst of a lengthy legal battle that eventually ended in a settlement, the woman came across an ad for a charity fundraiser on a local parish website that featured Onyenagada as a guest.

The fundraiser had been held only months earlier, and had been promoted by a church under the same diocese she was suing.

"I remember just starting to shake and just saying to my husband, 'Is this possible'?" she said.

She wasn't the only one who was astounded. Staff Sgt. Marcia Shelton of the Woodstock police laid the original charges, and told CBC news, "Certainly, to our agencies it was a surprise." She confirmed that the priest is still a wanted man.

The woman called the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and later contacted her local member of Parliament to find out whether Onyenagada had, in fact, been admitted to the country.

Last December, she received an email response from her MP's assistant, saying that the MP "has been made aware by [Public Safety Minister Steven] Blaney that CBSA apologizes that Mr. Onyenagada was able to re-enter Canada and that [the woman's] comments have been noted by CBSA and they will take the appropriate action."

The email advised her to contact the agency's Border Watch Line should she gain any information "regarding future travel" by Onyenagada.