The General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye (Daddy GO), has set off a vortex. In, perhaps, the most shocking move of the New Year, the revered man of God appointed a national overseer for the church, Pastor Joseph Obayemi, a move that has been subjected to various interpretations. Some had it that Adeboye had stepped down as general overseer of the church. Others said he is now the global missioner and overseer of the church. Yet others opine that Adeboye is now international overseer of RCCG worldwide. However, whatever the interpretations, the church’s head of media, Pastor Segun Adegbiji, has clarified that Adeboye remains the GO of the church. One sure thing though is that Adeboye’s decision has set off a fire that is more likely than not to redefine how government would relate with religious institutions in this country.
This was triggered off by a new, controversial stipulation of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, FRC(N), that religious leaders should retire on attaining 70 years of age or after 20 years in the saddle. Adeboye’s ‘resignation’ was couched in anger, protesting the move and even urged Christians to venture into politics to be able to make decisions that would consider the interest of the church. Not much has been heard from Muslim clerics but Christians are up in arms against government meddlesomeness in their internal affairs.
The CEO of the FRC(N), Jim Obazee, was reportedly so intent on implementing the law, against the directive of the Minister of Trade, Investment and Industries, Okechukwu Enelamah, who had the approval of the President to suspend it. However, Obazee spurned the advice, insisting he would only comply with the directive if it was gazetted and, like the lord of the manor, he slammed down the toxic law that has now pitted the President Muhammadu Buhari administration against Christians. There have been unverified reports that Obazee, a former zonal pastor with RCCG, had earlier defied Adeboye and vowed to remove Daddy GO from office.
The person the gods want to kill, they first make mad. Following the hoopla that Adeboye’s resignation generated, Obazee was sacked from office, with members of his board, and the noxious law put in abeyance. If Obazee had known, he would not have been that daring, knowing he was hiding inside a glasshouse.
The church too must learn its lessons from this odd development and clean-up its activities. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and, especially, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), must set standards that must be enforced. The unchecked preponderance of a lot of jobless men and women to litter the landscape with kiosks, alias churches, bring the church, the body of Christ to ridicule. Babalawos and Ifa priests now consult Ifa with laptops, strutting across their evil altars in well starched agbada or Giorgio Armani suits; fraudsters have sharpened their glib tongues, fleecing foolish miracle seekers of their hard-earned monies; Occultists now claim to be prophets, prophesying heresies to mumus, too lazy to consult or cross-check with their bibles. For me, I insist these are neither Christians nor pastors but since they take up that tag, they are rubbishing the church. CAN and PFN must step in to stem the ugly tide. They must make churches accountable and ensure the end of the era of ‘Mr.&Mrs. Family churches’. Of course, God has rejected the crooks behind the pulpits and vowed to begin His judgment with them. Nevertheless, methinks that while we await God’s promised judgment, the church needs self-sanitising, as abyss-bound charlatans drive away potential converts by unsavoury conducts.
However, it is worth stating unequivocally that government must have no input into the running of churches. It is strange that despite the daunting and multi-faceted challenges facing the country, government deems it wise to meddle in the affairs of the church. It is no business of theirs if the founder of a church is allowed by its members to occupy the office till death. Succession plans of the churches should not bother government since it neither called the pastors nor set up the churches. What the law infers also is that the head of the Muslim ummah, the Sultan must also quit; if the mosques are comfortable with that, the churches are not. And it will do this government a world of good to shun all its anti-Christian posturing or be prepared for the wrath of the Almighty God.
The issue of Christians going into politics is neither here nor there. Because we only have lip-service Christian politicians without the content of Christian character. Most times, the people we call Christians are shallow and are only Christians because of their names and habitual attendance at church services on Sundays. So, they get easily sucked in by the awesome powers of the principalities and powers in government; they begin to sing strange tunes, feathering their own nests and forgetting their root; that is if they had any roots at all. Where are these Christians when anti-Christian policies are formulated or implemented, using them sometimes? Is the Vice President not a Christian and a pastor in RCCG? Is Obazee not a Christian and once a pastor of RCCG? Are there no Christians in high office in various places in the land and even in the National Assembly?
Time was when the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa held sway in the land, our own version of Eljah, and the church stood out. The church is in need of an Elijah, who would fearlessly confront heathen kings and control the affairs of government and men on their knees and exemplary lifestyle. But government must not risk mistaking the dearth of Elijah as sign of a weakened church; God will arise and the enemies of the church will surely scatter.