NIGERIAN CHURCHES AND ITS UNENDING MONEY PROBLEMS

By Abu Onyiani

Nigerian churches, particular the Pentecostal arm of Christianity in the world’s most populous black nation seem to have a money problem. Pastors like to say God doesn’t need members, it is members who need God. Yet it is the members who keep taking their lean resources to appease God. Worse, these resources are promptly and wastefully garnished by Pastors.

God can raise stones to praise him they like to say. God can do all things, yet when the church is in financial mess, they do not approach God for the money, they instead attack the members with vituperative remarks and threats of hell fire that the members are forced to part with their money. Then the sheep, consisting mostly of pastor worshipping morons who are ever ready to die for a cause they do not even benefit from, would go into sermons about how the church needs money for the gospel to be carried to every part of the world, but it is pastors and church leaders who travel around the world in private jets and luxury yachts as they cruise in bullet proof Lexus and Mercedes.

These Pastorpreneurs deceive many with the doctrines and teachings of tithes that they love to twist and bend to their own advantage. The Bible is clear in Deuteronomy 14:22-29 where it advised Jews to eat their tithes, how did these peddlers of religious opium come about eating other people’s tithes. I mean, the bible is written in plain English, but they tell you that you need the Holy Spirit to help you interpret what is written in clear English. Yet they jettison the same Holy Spirit in favour of the “Horny Spirit” when they fornicate and perpetuate their adulterous affairs with vulnerable choristers and even little children.

This is exactly what the church does. They take, and take, and take. Then they make empty promises, pray for you, and commence to take from you, till you are empty, and then they make you pledge even money that is not yet within your grasp. They take in form of Tithes, offerings, seeds of faiths, partnership with healing schools, dangerous seeds that will provoke God, pledges, annual levies, men, women and youth levies, as well as harvest levies and bazaars. Then members are expected to buy stickers, holy water, holy brooms and many other items that are too numerous to mention. Church mega programs are properly spaced, to give members just enough time to recover from the financial woes they may have been plunged into during the last crusades or events. Pastors even feature themselves in crusades, the way Wizkid featured Tems and Tiwa Savage.

A few months ago, my mum survived a freak fire explosion. A number of relatives, friends, and neighbours called incessantly, sent money, brought food, and visited during the weeks she spent in the hospital. Her church did not bother to do any of these things that could have showed they truly cared. Instead they sent their thoughts and prayers. I bet the church is claiming their prayers healed her, even as they are waiting for her to resume attending their services so they can continue to milk her.

This is just one example, and there are so many. A friend of mine back in the University of Benin told tales of how a pastor her parents accommodated sexually molested her and her siblings. The most heartbreaking aspect of the whole ordeal was that her parents did not believe them. They had disconnected their brains from logical reasoning and mental exercises simply because their pastor was involved. This is not even strange because we have seen reverse cases where pastors issue orders to people who chase then chase their parents away.

These Pastors get away with their crimes because they have mastered the art of formatting the brains of their members, turning them into intellectually lazy troglodytes, who are little better than lobotomized dolts. I criticize churches and Pastors a lot, and I have subsequently lost a number of friends, not because I was lying, but because I dared questioned the activities of their daddies. They tell them in church that it is wrong to criticize the church, although Mathew and John reported that Jesus took a koboko and drove scammers away from the temple. A number of people can argue that this shouldn’t be my concern as they are not being forced to, but this is just unmasked dishonesty. I mean, these people are victims, and it would be insensitive to blame victim of a scam project, whilst allowing the criminals continue to perpetuate their illicit activities. Or do Yahoo boys operate with guns?

Ask yourself this, what would Jesus Christ do if he was born today. Would he join devitalized simpletons to say “Don’t criticize pastors, allow God judge them” or would he have been at the fore front of those who seek its reform? I mean, it pains me that most Nigerians seem to divorce their brains whenever religion is tabled before them, and what vexes me is that these people are the majority. Why would you blindly defend the church when you do not directly benefit from its resources?

First, the Church’s money and assets are the exclusive rights of your Pastors and his immediate families. Second, the miracles they perform never gets to you, your family members or church members everyone can see are in need of such miracles. Instead, only “foreign bodies” who are not seen before or after these crusades seem to receive healings during deliverance crusades or concerts. Is this not suspicious? Then to further delude yourself, you claim mundane ordinary things that Atheist, Muslims, Buddhist and Taoist share in like Visas to a better country, housing, healthcare and employment as your miracles.

The same Pastors who claim to raise the dead suddenly cannot cure your deaf uncle when you take him to church, yet you allow them to perpetually milk you dry. I just feel sorry that many people are wasting their time, money, efforts, energy, lives, etc, whilst people of questionable characters rake in millions from deluding them and encouraging them to be mentally and economically useless. This is sad.

Churches in Nigeria today hold financial breakthrough services during productive hours of the day where members leave their jobs and businesses to go and cry, pray, bribe God for hours before going back to their multi dimensional poverty. In spite of, or because of this, ungodly people who keep their shops open keep making money, and members are told to wait for God’s time. Even the few ones who complain about this unholy trend are shushed with “it is harder for an elephant to eat Amala and Ewedu than for a Rich man to go to heaven”, Yet Apostle Johnson Suleman  cruises around with a multi million naira bullet proof Lexus.

There is an Igbo Adage that says that when an Idol begins to misbehave, they first show it the wood it is carved from. Since the church, like an over pampered glutton is in perpetual need of money, let these Pastors approach God for money, instead of taking the little money most Nigerians have. Or is there something God cannot do? No? Okay, the church should fix up its money problem before attempting to lead us to heaven.

(c) Abu Onyiani, January 2023