Only In Nigeria: Similarities Between Pastors And Politicians In Nigeria
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
The disparity in roles between ecclesiastics and politicians is generally expected to translate to differences in values, lifestyles, and creeds, but this pattern has been disrupted and bridged in Nigeria by materialism. Moral disconnects, lust and insatiability for money, wealth, fame, influence, and power have conspired to bring the men of God to the level of politicians. This is evident in the Pentecostal ministries where some founding pastors and general overseers no longer exhibit ascetic disposition and restraints from material allures.
Men of God are ordained servants positioned to constantly communicate God’s values and the work of Jesus Christ for the redemption of mankind with humility and sacrifice, not as businessmen and women with devotion to brewed capitalists, displaying affluence like politicians. Politicians are elected political office holders with the responsibility of running the government to primarily provide welfare and security of lives and properties for the people but opt to make politics a career and business for generating wealth for themselves.
Looted funds are accepted as donations, gifts, seeds, tithes or offerings. Pastors and GOs are not bothered about the sources of funds nor the integrity or character of donors. As long as it swells the revenue base of the church, it is acceptable. This is the attraction accounting for the proliferation of Pentecostal churches in Nigeria. It is doubtful if the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics knows the exact number of these churches. They target locations populated by high net-worth individuals to set up branches in order to grow their finances, as against rural areas inhabited by the poor. Lekki in Lagos is a major target, accounting for the high presence of key Pentecostal churches.
While politicians have made politics a lucrative business, violating the purpose of government for selfish interests and gains, these men of God in the Pentecostal movement have also made the gospel a business, failing to resist the lure of earthly wealth under the guise of kingdom expansion pursuit. While it is true 1 Corinthians 9:13-14 says preachers can live from the gospel, making it an obligation for church members to support their pastors, men of God have taken this verse out of context by taking advantage of the vulnerability and ignorance of members to fund their ostentatious and extravagant lifestyles.
The need to sustain and maintain their expensive lifestyles is also responsible for the absence of clear succession plans. Having tasted power, money and influence, the typical politician is afraid to relinquish office. Where he is statutorily required to do so, resorts to picking his child or wife or relation or a sponsored successor to take over from him. For them, it is difficult to let go of the wealth and juicy opportunities associated with their offices.
Founding Pentecostal pastors and GOs also deploy similar methods to perpetuate themselves in office. They have no clear succession plans, preferring to foist themselves on the congregants in perpetuity, pretending to be waiting for the Lord to choose a successor, when in fact, they have their children or wives in mind, whom they groom to take over. They cannot afford to hand over the huge finances of the church to an “outsider.” It is the reason a Pentecostal church hardly survives beyond the life of its founder, as it slowly slides into extinction after his or her demise.
Also, while politicians regale their audience with promises of taking them out of poverty as a strategy to secure their votes, some of these Pentecostal pastors also create false hope for members for prosperity as a strategy for church growth. Rather than encourage congregants to acquire skills to enable them to offer services and products, they organise prayer programmes where they are asked to sow seed, which only enriches the pastors but depletes the poor. They know wealth cannot be created through prayers, yet members are advised to exercise faith.
Looted funds are accepted as donations, gifts, seeds, tithes or offerings. Pastors and GOs are not bothered about the sources of funds nor the integrity or character of donors. As long as it swells the revenue base of the church, it is acceptable. This is the attraction accounting for the proliferation of Pentecostal churches in Nigeria. It is doubtful if the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics knows the exact number of these churches. They target locations populated by high net-worth individuals to set up branches in order to grow their finances, as against rural areas inhabited by the poor. Lekki in Lagos is a major target, accounting for the high presence of key Pentecostal churches.
While politicians have made politics a lucrative business, violating the purpose of government for selfish interests and gains, these men of God in the Pentecostal movement have also made the gospel a business, failing to resist the lure of earthly wealth under the guise of kingdom expansion pursuit. While it is true 1 Corinthians 9:13-14 says preachers can live from the gospel, making it an obligation for church members to support their pastors, men of God have taken this verse out of context by taking advantage of the vulnerability and ignorance of members to fund their ostentatious and extravagant lifestyles.
The need to sustain and maintain their expensive lifestyles is also responsible for the absence of clear succession plans. Having tasted power, money and influence, the typical politician is afraid to relinquish office. Where he is statutorily required to do so, resorts to picking his child or wife or relation or a sponsored successor to take over from him. For them, it is difficult to let go of the wealth and juicy opportunities associated with their offices.
Founding Pentecostal pastors and GOs also deploy similar methods to perpetuate themselves in office. They have no clear succession plans, preferring to foist themselves on the congregants in perpetuity, pretending to be waiting for the Lord to choose a successor, when in fact, they have their children or wives in mind, whom they groom to take over. They cannot afford to hand over the huge finances of the church to an “outsider.” It is the reason a Pentecostal church hardly survives beyond the life of its founder, as it slowly slides into extinction after his or her demise.
Also, while politicians regale their audience with promises of taking them out of poverty as a strategy to secure their votes, some of these Pentecostal pastors also create false hope for members for prosperity as a strategy for church growth. Rather than encourage congregants to acquire skills to enable them to offer services and products, they organise prayer programmes where they are asked to sow seed, which only enriches the pastors but depletes the poor. They know wealth cannot be created through prayers, yet members are advised to exercise faith.
Unfortunately, donations, levies and other revenues contributed by members of the church are not fully used for kingdom expansion but diverted and invested in private family commercial businesses registered in family names. Returns from these investments are also not fully ploughed into the church but partly reinvested into other businesses, including real estate, stocks, manufacturing, and even aviation where underutilised private jets are leased for commercial purposes.
Implicitly, there are now obvious blurred lines between spiritual and temporal dimensions fuelled by material pursuits involving Pentecostal pastors and politicians. Existential gaps between them have continued to be narrowed by shared values, exacerbated by materialism. The underpinning motive behind this seeming convergence is prosperity, covertly wrapped under the guise of bringing succour to the people, which is currently posing a serious reputation threat to the Pentecostal movement, and reshaping it to conjure an image of hypocrisy. It is, indeed, an unhelpful development.
Sadly, the affluence associated with pastoral office is also currently having a ring on the minds of church members who are enrolled in Bible Colleges. Most of them now look forward to establishing their own church upon graduation. They also want to “blow” like their pastors who project their stupendous wealth as a product of divine favour, prompting them to want to set aside divine ordinances and protocols to commence their ministries, rather than wait to be called by the Lord.
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Michael Owhoko’s Punch piece Similarities Between Pastors And Politicians In Nigeria is nothing like a revelation, is all too sickening to read and should come as no surprise, even as one is left aghast and gasping with the question, does what good can come out of Nazareth also apply to Nigeria // Nigeria World?
In the first two paragraphs, the operative words are “values”, ”lifestyles”, “creeds”, “avarice”, “materialism”, “moral disconnects “, “ lust and insatiability for money, wealth, fame, influence, and power”, “Pentecostal ministries where some founding pastors and general overseers no longer exhibit ascetic disposition and restraints from material allures”,” Jesus Christ”
In the seventeen ( 17) paragraphs that paint this picture of moral decay and disaster, the word “corruption” occurs and is mentioned exactly only once:
“When citizens demand accountability over the management of revenues in the face of glaring corruption, politicians in power are quick to accuse or label such persons as agents of destabilisation working for opposition parties”
“Only In Nigeria” exclaims one Kayode.
No names are named, it's all general non-specific accusations, and no real Elmer Gantry is mentioned. When such people, be they war-mongering rabbis, sons and daughters of Yahweh, prime ministers, or army generals, when they transgress so transparently, one comes to the insane conclusion that it must be that they don’t believe in the all-seeing, omnipresent God and that God is not mocked
As the lonesome troubadour mourns,
“if my spirit starts to sink, it comes as no surprise,
I've come a long way from anywhere like heaven
to this town - your town”
They say that charity begins at home, and the town in question could be Canberra (headquarters of the former penal colony), Lagos, Abuja, or even In the Closet of the Vatican…
It should come as no surprise, because, according to Paul, ”All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” - and in this case, all means all, including all the judges, all the judged, the three, four, five P-ees, namely the Pharisees, the Popes, the Politicians (some of whom think that they are above the law) the Police, and the Pastors who believe that by Jesus’ vicarious suffering on the cross and dying for their sins, they have been redeemed from “the curse of the law” and are therefore free to sin some more.
At least during this holy month of Ramadan in Nigeria, Micheal Owhoko has the decency to refrain from saying anything unbecoming of the Muslim clergymen, although, it would seem that some of the politicians who embrace or have embraced the Islamic faith are not exempt and do not escape the whiplash under the general category “Politicians”, they too have been tarred and feathered - as they should be, if and when found guilty - as a criminal category, an essential part of the loot-o-cracy to be found among those who say,” We the people”
Concerning the earlier political world of al-Islam there’s the outstanding example of Abu Dharr al-Ghifari who is still being honoured for setting a good example.
In my own very limited experience, one ( a) good thing you can say about Nigerian pastors / BibleThunpers, is that they know their stuff - you can’t deny them that - they can quote chapter and verse, by heart. The two that I know most, Samuel ( a professor of politics - Yoruba) and Titus Akanabu (a Bishop - Igbo ) are of impeccable integrity.
Ad nauseam, Michael Owhoko has painted an extreme portrait of dissonance and dishonesty to Jesus; I expect Bukola Oyeniyi, another critic of spirituality being tainted or corrupted by materialism, to be more temperate. Owhoko’s emphasis has been on the similarities between pastors and politicians in Nigeria. We could also propose some dissimilarities, such as to begin with, given its hierarchical structure of authority, in all Christianity, including the Pentecostal Movement in Nigeria, it is Jesus Christ and not some corrupt or sinful president like Genocide Joe who is the head of the Church and supervising power to whom all Christians are accountable. Without a doubt, the Pentecostal pastors must be having a moral impact on their congregations, just as indeed for example Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are exerting a quantifiable moral impact - for the better - on the segments of American society, wherever they operate.
What is further expected of the Pentecostal pastors of Nigeria ( what I expect) is that they lead - much more vigorously - the moral crusade against the endemic corruption and materialism in their various constituencies, that is corrupting the spiritual values which they preach….