On a certain Friday night in 2010, a Lagos-based Pentecostal church held a special vigil.  The theme of the vigil was entitled: “My Enemies Must Die.”

The church was full to its brim that evening, with both its members and other invited guests.  Every one of them came to pray against the people they suspected to be their enemies, both known and unknown.

On Sunday succeeding that all-night prayer session, an excited member of the church gave a testimony of the death of his uncle, whom he claimed had been responsible for his spiritual and financial woes.  Another member of the church also thanked God for causing her sister-in-law to fall into a terrible sickness, while the third member was happy for the sudden death of his uncle’s elder son.

In 2011, another Pentecostal church, also in Lagos, invited its members and members of the public to what it described as a “power-packed vigil” at its auditorium.  Interested parishioners and members of the public were advised to come along with their canes and brooms.

The canes, according to the pastor of the church, were to be used in flogging their perceived human enemies to death in absentia, while the brooms were to be used in sweeping the imaginary corpses of their flogged enemies into their imaginary graves.

When it was time for testimony on the Sunday succeeding that last Friday of the month vigil, many members of the church celebrated and thanked God for answering their prayers and causing their enemies to suffer different forms of misfortunes, including death.

Among those who testified was a forty-something-year-old woman who sang and danced over the death of her own biological mother.  Her mother, according to her, died on Saturday night after confessing of being a witch and being the architect of her late marriage and bareness.

Apart from these instances, there are so many other stories of churches that organised vigil and other prayer sessions meant to bring about the misfortune and deaths of the enemies of their members.

You may also be aware of such stories, because this seems to be a common practice among churches today, especially in Nigeria.

Now, my question is: Is it right, in any way, for Christians to pray for the misfortune or outright death of their perceived human enemies?

I’ll like to read from you.