Few days ago, David Cameron called us a
fantastically corrupt nation and our president agreed with him. I’m very
sorry to disappoint you:
I also agree with him. We’re a fantastically corrupt nation indeed. Everywhere you turn in the country, there’s corruption. To do the simplest of things in a government office, you need to bribe one person or the other. Nigerian politicians are some of the most notorious money launderers the world over. Fuel crisis, infrastructural decay, poor health sector, terrible security situation, economic crisis, every negative thing in this country, just name it, can be traced to corruption. And you’re still saying we’re not a fantastically corrupt nation?
I also agree with him. We’re a fantastically corrupt nation indeed. Everywhere you turn in the country, there’s corruption. To do the simplest of things in a government office, you need to bribe one person or the other. Nigerian politicians are some of the most notorious money launderers the world over. Fuel crisis, infrastructural decay, poor health sector, terrible security situation, economic crisis, every negative thing in this country, just name it, can be traced to corruption. And you’re still saying we’re not a fantastically corrupt nation?
But the corruption is happening in the public offices not in church. Why am I bringing the church in? ‘Peter, must you criticize Christianity (and religion as a whole)’,
you ask? Well, I like to be focused. Every battle must be strategic or
else it will fail. But where does corruption start from? It starts from
the mind. And what forms the mind? For most Nigerians, it’s religion.
Most people claim to get their morals from their places of worship. So
once corruption is established in the places of worship, you can be sure
that it’s spreading throughout the whole country. So we can’t but look
at these places for causes of the corrupt minds in Nigerians. In a
subsequent article, I’ll be looking in details at the link between
religion and corruption.
But let me go straight to the agenda of
the day. Everybody agrees that our politics is filled with corrupt souls
but that the churches are filled with saints. Well, churches aren’t
filled with saints. The pastors and their church members are corrupt.
These pastors who have been monumental failures to the nation are being
helped by their gullible church members to contribute to the ideology of
corruption that has pervaded our society. Ten fantastically corrupt
pastors and their church members. More like five fantastically corrupt
pastors and five fantastically corrupt church members. The pastors
first, then the church members later.
Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #1
This is the pastor that asks for
donations from church members for gigantic projects. He looks at the
faces of those poor people, most of them still finding it difficult to
have two meals per day, and he asks them to still give towards some
stupendous church projects. He tells them that their poor statuses
shouldn’t discourage them from giving to
God him.
He’s a very corrupt fraudster (double negative) as he’s Iiving large at
the expense of his impoverished church members. Isn’t that corruption?
They’ve even made themselves into a
cabal now. And this cabal has taken over Lagos and it’s environs, all of
them competing with one another as to who will erect the biggest
auditorium. Their churches are registered as non-profits. So they’re not
being taxed. However the pastors spend the money on themselves.
Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #2
This one directly or indirectly
encourages his church members to become sudden, overnight successes. All
the prayer points he leads his church members in are geared towards ‘sharp sharp’ success. He gives ‘words’ like ‘Before this week runs out, you will receive a phone call of destiny’. There’s even one that calls himself‘Lẹ́sẹ̀kẹsẹ̀’,
meaning ‘instantly’. These are the ones that push their church members
to steal money from the public coffers so that these prayer points can
be actualized instantly. When you listen to their messages, everything
is about money. They’ve turned their pulpits to an MBA class. In fact,
if you’re in an MBA program, you don’t need to attend lectures. Just
listen to their messages and go for your MBA exams.
Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #3
This one uses fake promises to cajole
his church members to give. The church members are tantalized with
too-good-to-be-true promises of abundant blessings, overwhelming joy,
embarrassing success, divine favour, instant miracles, etc. One of them
even said that people should give during an economic hardship and that
they will withdraw from God later. How convenient! You give to physical
men but withdraw from your unseen account with an unseen God. Please,
this account is domiciled in what bank? Of course, the fool and his
money part ways very easily.
Sometimes if that doesn’t work, he uses
threats. Devourers of all kinds — children’s sicknesses, sudden debts,
business collapse, terrible calamities, etc — are invoked upon the
church members. Of course, the church members don’t want God’s wrath
upon their heads. They give everything they have and even borrow to give
more.
This kind of pastor is a proper yahoo yahoo boy.
This is how 419 email scams go. Cajole your victim with tantalizing
promises or threaten them with scary stuff. Once again, church members
go back to their offices and see how they can help themselves to some
quick wealth to latch on to the fake promises or escape the fake
threats.
The church members are always under
pressure. Low and middle class workers donate the whole of their
salaries under different labels to their pastors. Some of these pastors
write books but since they know that the rest of the public won’t
readily buy the empty, worthless books, they cajole (or scare) their
members to use their own money to buy in bulk and then donate copies
freely to the otherwise uninterested public. By so doing, they’re
assured of a steady stream of book sales.
One curious thing about these churches
is that they never directly say that giving is compulsory. But using
subtle cajoling and/or threatening gimmicks, the church members are
practically left with no choice but to comply. So the church members
have a false sense of being in control when in reality, it’s their
pastors that are in control. This is a Ponzi scheme.
Plain and simple. If you do this outside (i.e., obtaining money under
false pretense), EFCC would be all over you but if you do it in church,
you will be hailed as a man of God and church members themselves will be
screaming ‘Touch not mine anointed’ to silence any criticism. (See below). And you’re still doubting if we’re a fantastically corrupt nation?
Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #4
This one is invited for the dedication
of a posh mansion owned by a level 8 officer. And he goes there straight
without asking questions. And he gets there, delivers a powerful
dedication service grinning widely. Another newly promoted level 9
officer invites him for car dedication. He sees a brand new 2016 Touareg
and prays over the car and walks away without asking any questions. In
fact, he tells the church media unit to include these miracles in the
next church bulletin. Of course, this will convince people that God is
working in that church and it will attract more people.
One even asked for donations towards the
building of his 3 km × 3 km auditorium and received ₦2 million each
from a few people without asking where they got the money from. Many
years ago,Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy received a donation in cash
and kind up to the tune of ₦39 million from one Lawrence Agada and
blessed him with the following words, ‘May God, who gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater, multiply your seeds in Jesus name’.
Of course, Agada was blessed by a police visit when it was discovered
that he had stolen those funds from Sheraton Hotel and Towers where he
had been an official. And you’re asking for why our politicians are
corrupt?
Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #5
This one here is one of the most
influential people in the world. Whenever he visits any town or city in
the country, the crowd is so large that traffic practically freezes to a
standstill. Even the president of the country doesn’t pull a crowd so
large. Millions of Nigerians wake up every morning to either read his
book or listen to his voice. Millions of others either use his voice as
their ringtone or caller’s tune. Yet they won’t do more than give cheap
permutations called prophecies every New Year Day. They will never speak
against corruption. A large section of these politicians attend their
churches or programs but they will never rebuke anyone for the
mismanagement of our commonwealth. In fact, politicians that are
supposed to be pelted with stones occupy the front row seats in these
pastors’ auditoriums.
Of course, there’s a mutual
understanding between them. They also get favour from them. They spoil
them with gifts of cars, houses, and large sums of money. One of them
even benefited from the corruption in government by receiving import
waivers to the tune of billions of Naira for so many years. These
politicians embezzle our money and they pay the tithes in these
churches.
Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #1
This one is a low cadre officer that
climbs the pulpit to give a testimony of God’s goodness in his life
concerning a ₦20 million federal government contract he just received.
Is he a contractor? Behind that testimony is a poorly executed (if
executed at all) project whose quotation was terribly overblown. This is
a corrupt citizen that should be celebrating with handcuffs behind bars
instead of on a church podium with a microphone.
Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #2
This one is a devoted church member. He
loves his general overseer so much that he can break bottles on your
head if you dare criticize his father in the Lord. Talk about how his
pastor has just acquired a property in Panama or a private jet and he
screams ‘Touch not mine anointed’. Try to criticize his idol and you have him screaming ‘Judge not’. (Don’t worry. Just watch out in the comments section. They will soon be here attacking this post). They forget to scream ‘Judge not’when
we’re talking about Buhari and Saraki. He can divorce his wife or even
commit suicide instead of agreeing that his pastor is at fault. Even if
the World Bank releases his pastor’s name on a corruption list, he will
still defend him. This one is a very serious accomplice to a monumental,
perennial crime.
Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #3
This is the church member that has never
used his brain to detect the fraud going on in his church. He heartily
claps for Jesus after fraudulent testimonies. He even uses those
testimonies as a point of contact to his own blessings too — he’s
desperately, eagerly waiting for an opportunity to climb the podium too.
He’s not interested in knowing what the pastor uses the donations for.
He has decided to leave the pastor for God to judge. How corrupt!
Or he’s one of the people in charge of
money and the pastor has been spending freely from it but he’s not even
ready to complain anywhere. In fact, he’s an accomplice to a very
serious crime.
Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #4
This is the church member that drops his
last penny in church expecting miracle money to show up in his bank
account the following morning. This is the one that doesn’t have
anything and doesn’t have any hope that he will get any money soon but
pledges towards a church project with the thinking that this will gingerGod
to bless him with magic money as an emergency. Some of them drop stolen
monies to remain in the pastor’s good books or get elevated to lofty
positions in the church. If you’re this kind of church member, you’re a
thief! You’re the kind of public servant that will see an opportunity to
steal some public funds as the opportunity to be rewarded by God. The
story of Lawrence Agada narrated above also comes here.
Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #5
This one doesn’t pay taxes. Never. He
just knows how to evade them. He doesn’t pay his electricity bills. He
has connected his home circuit directly to the supply such that his true
consumption is not showing up on the metre. He knows how to bloat
government contracts. He’s part of the syndicate that are fueling
corruption in government. But in church, he’s a different person
entirely. He doesn’t miss his tithes. He evades taxes but pays tithes
regularly. He arranges the disappearance of a few zeros in the bank
account of his place of work but he’s the church account and every penny
is well accounted for in the church. He’s a contributor to the present
state of the nation. He should be doing a jail term as we speak.
Footnote
- Look for yourself or your pastor/general overseer on this list and tell yourself where you belong. This is some form of a mirror for self-reflection.
- Islam is not exonerated in this matter but because Nigerian Islamic clerics aren’t on Forbes list and because Islamic worship centers are yet to take over the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, I’m deemphasizing Islam in this write-up. However if Christians and their pastors had been upright, their numerical strength and sociopolitical influence would’ve been enough to change this country positively.
Thank you for reading.
0 comments:
Post a Comment