Found this article in
Punch. Written by Abimbola Adelakun (aa_adelakun@utexas.edu)
Recently, the Daily Mail, UK,
had a feature on Bishop David Oyedepo. He was accused (alongside his son
who ‘manages’ the UK branch) of fleecing worshippers by making
“spurious claims” and “cynical exploitation of the gullible”.
The undercover journalist who visited
the British church and the British MP who condemned him acted ignorant
of the antithesis of faith and logicality when they expressed surprise
about how people were urged to give more money in return for blessings
that were neither guaranteed nor cognisant of the realities on ground.
The feature also talked about how much
of the money creamed off these worshippers are being repatriated to
Nigeria (which, in a perverse sense, is a positive development!)
The same Daily Mail, weeks
before, ran a feature on another Nigerian pastor in the same UK, Alex
Omokodu, (who claims on his website to have raised the dead twice) and
another Pastor Mbenga of the Victorious Pentecostal Assembly who scam
worshippers by selling olive oil and black currant drink at double the
market rate as “miracle cures”, capable of curing terminal diseases.
Like Oyedepo, Omokodu lives large, far removed from the mess he makes of peoples’ lives.
My visceral reaction at those articles
was to defend my countrymen against a searchlight that might have been
beamed with a racist undertone. I mean, Daily Mail suddenly woke up and realised religion is exploitative? Wow!
Isn’t that what religion has been all
about for many centuries? How can we say that what Oyedepo and Mbenga
are accused of peddling different from the Pope’s selling of Indulgences
in the 16th Century? Religion plays on fear to rip-off poor and
miserable people in the name of God. And the irony is, the more people
are deceived, the more devoted they become. So, what’s new? From
appropriating people’s money to shoplifting condoms to forcing youths to
have sex, what have church leaders not done?
If people have refused to read History
books that teach us that religion came to us riding on the back of
exploitation and politics, why, with the celebrated cases of Jim Bakker,
Eddie Long and Benny Hinn among others, do people still throng churches
and sponsor their pastors’ excesses out of their poverty? Why has the
case of financial scandals involving the creators of TBN Channel -some
of which are so disgusting- not caused a mass boycott of these hawkers
of falsehood? Why does it spur people to defensiveness instead?
Why did somebody like Jesu Oyingbo have
followership in the first place and why didn’t people walk out on Pastor
Chris Oyakhilome when he charged gate fees before one could attend
service? Seriously, who should take the blame? The person who sells
snake oil or the one who finds a psychic relief (however temporary) from
buying?
Take the case of Pastor Enoch Adeboye:
On his church website, Adeboye claims God told him He had no choice but
to keep Covenant Partners alive for 10 years because they were giving to
Him within that period. This takes ideas of bizarre and outlandish to
another height entirely.
One, a god is meant to earn his keep but
Adeboye’s is one whose services people have to pay for, never mind that
billions who are not his covenant partners are not only alive, but live
considerably better lives elsewhere. Two, can Adeboye, personally,
account for every single one of his covenant partners and that in those
last 10 years, not a single one died? Can he? We are used to Nigerian
judges and politicians saying that their hands are tied, but God? That
sounds like something from the mind of a freakish Nollywood
screen-writer.
Since the news broke that Pastor Ayo
Oritsejeafor has joined the league of Private Jet-Owning Pastors, there
has been, thankfully, a sense of outrage at the excesses of Nigerian
pastors.
For the record, let me state that Pastor
Oritsejeafor is not a good poster boy for Christianity (never mind the
various caps he wears, anyone can be anything in Nigeria’s
Pentecostalism). I make this point – debatable, of course- not just
because of his Bling Bling jewellery like 50 Cents or even his bond with
the present occupant of Aso Rock Villa; there is something about him
–and I came to this conclusion after watching him raise an offering on
Cable TV- that doesn’t seem to me would wait for God to supply all his
‘greeds’ according to his riches and glory.
His private jet was presented while he
was sandwiched, like Jesus between two thieves, in the presence of a
President who bizarrely declared he couldn’t see how corruption and road
accidents are interlinked and, a governor whose public morals fall
below average. Rev. Fr. Matthew Kukah could not have put it better:
Oritsejeafor’s moral authority is undermined by these dalliances.
The issue is, religion, exploitation and
subsequent scandals will not go away. Not in this generation. Not even
in this world. As long as there is that primitive instinct in man to
seek the supernatural, to seek God and the fear of death is constantly
shaken before our eyes, people will continue to subject themselves to
exploitative pastors to use as they like.
But the good thing Oritsejeafor has done
for us is that he created a conversation; Oyedepo, Omokodu and other
sellers of 21st Century Indulgences keep exposing the underbelly of
these merchant-pastors; but whether this will translate into a
rationality that will cause Nigerians to slow down on the ill-logic of
tolerating these pastors’ shenanigans remains to be seen.
It takes more than throwing pastors in
jail for their followers to be set free from the mind-prison they are
ensconced in. Religion and political power are intertwined in many ways
that make this impossible to begin with at all. History shows that, for
instance, with an Industrial Revolution, the process creates a ripple
effect that bleaches people of primitiveness to transcend religious
superstitions while forging a better society that is not predicated on
dogmatic concepts of theodicy which religion propagates. When that day
comes in Nigeria, and even Africa, these pastors will wilfully choose
jail as rescue from irrelevance the times would banish them.
But here’s the problem: These pastors
know that with Nigeria’s developmental progress comes their end. And
they are actively complicit in the dysfunctionality of Nigeria to extend
their own longevity.
