Nigeria: Blame the GOs?

By

Apostle Paul Taiwo Adenuga

apgo_frac@yahoo.com

Nigerians are a much churched people. In some sections of the country, there is at least one church in every street. About forty per cent are said to be Christians. Let us assume that fifty per cent of the remainder is Muslim as claimed. Now, 40 per cent is a significant contribution in any population. This is more so in the religious divide of Nigeria whereby the religions guard their own converts jealously. The Christians also claim that Muslims are always copying Christian innovations. Isn’t this great? And this is where the General Overseers of the Churches and their pastors come in, and why they must be held responsible for the rot in the society. Instead of keeping their parishioners in spiritual pathways, the GOs decide to contribute in the overheat in the polity by coming out to condemn the incumbents and anoint a new protégé. Whether right or wrong, they even forgot to express the spiritual authority for such action. However, this is enough evidence that the GOs recognize the power and ability of their pronouncements on the Nigerian polity.

 

Christianity is supposed be to an expression of the love of God and your neighbor epitomized in forbearance, tolerance, forgiveness, honesty, steadfastness, truthfulness, incorruptibility and fairness among many attributes. Acts suggestive of greediness, dishonesty, and wickedness are not supposed to be mentioned along with the labels of Christians. But what we have had and continue to have is a fuelling of the negative attributes by the GOs, who remain only concerned with the cumulative incremental financial income of a parish in order to facilitate promotion and recognition to the detriment of the number of souls saved. A pastor is set in competition with his colleagues. Many bribe their way to posh postings, just like you will find it among unbelievers and a practice frowned against by the Bible. If a pastor’s returns continue to drop, evidence of his inefficiency continues to stare at him in his face, readying him for loss of status or recognition.

 

Hence, you begin to notice that many bank managers are assistant pastors. Many Directors of government parastatals are assistant pastors. The moment it becomes obvious that you are able to source money for the church, you are nominated a Deacon and from there you move on, based on your financial performances. The result is that people who have not imbibed the message suddenly find themselves elevated to serve sacraments. This is why an assistant pastor, who happens to be in Budget Department, will not hesitate to demand bribe before signing necessary documents for funds disbursement. It is the same reason; many steal their offices dry in the name of serving Jesus. It is the same token that makes the commissioner of oaths who has the label of Deacon XYZ on his desk collect N20 before signing each affidavit, irrespective of content.

 

An example of the issue in focus is this. I ordered that none of my parishioners should collect more than one month’s rent from their tenants henceforth. And that should they have any difficulties with their tenants related to this matter, they should bring it to my attention. That under no circumstances should any new tenant pay more than 3 months rent in advance, irrespective of a lack of a credible reference. And following that, they should pay monthly. Now, I am not certain that the Islamic leaders overheard me during the Sunday Service or God ministered to them directly; but what we noticed immediately the following month was an endemic practice of monthly rent in my area. Some people started calling the Muslims names like copycats and so on. I made it clear that I do not subscribe to that view, because they had the freedom to pretend as if nothing was happening. Contrarily, they got their own people to do the same and everyone was relieved. Tension was relieved in the community and everyone became happy for it.

 

This is just to illustrate what the GOs could have done to keep our country out of confusion. There is so much uncaring in the place where a little Christian attitude of care, under the instruction of these influential GOs can turn the tables in our favor; and allow the mercy of God to flow undisturbed by our terrible habits of shameless sin.

The polity is heated by the news of the shameless atrocities committed by the politicians and GOs have the audacity to comment! These politicians know how much of stolen money that they have donated to the GOs to make the GOs powerful. Did the GOs ask from the donors, the source of the money? Did they seek God’s counsel before appropriating the money to church uses? Or did God say it is alright to take tithes of stolen money? Or do they not know that using stolen money or money that is stained by blood will have repercussions?

 

Let me give an illustration here. A top politician planned the assassination of his wife. As usual policemen were silenced either by money or the instigation of fear. But some journalists did not allow the trail to go cold. Years after, a young newspaper thought about breaking into the Ivy League by leaking this story. The big man got a whiff. He swiftly went into action, which included top journalists from the big league with an announcement that people were out to assassinate his character by using the press. This was set up to pre-empt the effect of the story that was still being put together in the matter of his wife. He gave the journalists about half a million naira each. Imagine how many millions he must personally have access to. Of course, the press conference got a big shout in the big tabloids which drowned the truth in no time.

 

Later, I was approached by one of the journalists who wanted to thank God because he made a big hit. When he told me the figure on him, it struck me immediately that something was fishy. It must have been very big for this journalist to have access to such money. Of course, I got suspicious. After all, the guy was no total stranger to me. And he brought his offering on a day when my whole family had nothing at home to eat. Yet we were not fasting. I had kids less than 2 years old at the time, there was no way that I could have put them in a fast. We just did not have the money to eat. But see the trick Satan wanted to play on me. The satanic ploy was to have this journalist compromise me by sharing the blood stained money with the church of God. Thank God, the Holy Spirit was at hand to foil that move.

 

Sadly, this is the way it has gone on in Nigeria today. A governor was said to have remarked that a certain GO whose church he constantly funneled money into did not even bother to ask of him [the governor] when he ran into difficulties with the law. Unfortunately, the governor got it wrong. The GO did not see the governor as a parishioner but as his Excellency, which is contrary to what the governor really is; a parishioner under a pastor who is supposed to provide spiritual guidance.

 

GOs compete with each other as to who gets invited to Aso Rock the most. They build Presidential guest apartment in their camps. They are eager to have politicians read the lesson during church service, just to acknowledge and honor their presence; against the guidance of the Bible. Kings had their roles, priests had theirs and prophets have their own roles. Politicians have no business in the altar reserved for the clergy.

 

Essentially, our very powerful GOs remain responsible for the state of anarchy in our polity today by allowing the love of money override the love of God, allowing the love of power the love of your neighbor. If they keep the 40% Christians away from trouble, you can be certain that we will have at least 25% Muslims having some conscience pangs and may be some 2-4% of the others on the good side of the law and morality. I say that the GOs can put at least 65 per cent of our nation straight and we will have been saved the current pandemonium and drunkenness. Let someone ask them!
Apostle Paul