A pestilential pastorate

A popular Yoruba folk song proclaims the following: “Bi me l’owo l’omode o, ma ni l’agba, alailolowo l’omode o, e ma i s’ole, aye ni mo ma b’owo o.” Gloss: “If I do not have money as a youth, I will in my old age. After all, money was in this world before my birth.” This song is solidly anchored in the traditional Yoruba and, I dare say, African worldview which frowns on US rapper 50 Cent’s “get rich or die trying” kind of philosophy. It is a call for patience in matters of financial well-being. But Nigeria’s contemporary pastorate, having long made a pact with luxury and comfort defined by the economics of fraud, cannot even pretend to have any use for this piece of ancient wisdom. As keen disciples of Mammon, some General Overseers (G.Os) are propagating a new brand of philosophy that takes its influence from the here and now rather than the future projected in the Bible from which they purport to teach.

The G.O dynamic derives its fervour from hero worship: it is routine to see women in their 60s going down on their knees before a 41-year-old G.O and calling him Daddy. Driven mad with the adulation of their followers, the G.Os become dictators, dispensing spiritual malady with maniacal consistency. Purporting to speak for God, they commit all sorts of financial frauds, wallowing in their rich supply of women, including women of sewage, and choice wine. They are gods of men; infernal, mercantile morons. Richly moneyed, needlessly showy and spiritually bankrupt, the G.Os prey on the gullibility of the Nigerian churchgoers to amass earth-shaking fortunes for themselves.

If anything illustrates Nigeria’s pastoral pestilence, it is the statement attributed recently to one Apostle Joshua Selman, namely that “building a house at 65 is not a testimony”, implying that those applying certain spiritual principles would have long been sorted out by God before that age. One of the worst things that can happen to the life of a man, Selman avers, is the mystery of delay. This delay “happens when the only thing growing in your life is your age. No growth in wisdom; no growth in influence.” According to him, “there is a hear-ye-him anointing and if it is not on you, no matter what you want to say, men cannot hear you.”

Even by the standards of contemporary Pentecostalism, this averment is extraordinarily perverse. Equating material comfort with godliness, it ignores the logic of the Nigerian environment where the national minimum wage cannot settle food bills alone and where millions of workers can never dream of owning a house; a country where mortgage institutions are effectively non-existent. To assume that 65-year-olds without a house to their name have somehow missed divine favour in their course of life is not only arrogant and unwise, it is the product of an undisciplined, hollow and shamelessly shallow intellect. This is the kind of things the Yoruba call oro rirun, oro idoti, oro alufansa, oro radarada and, finally, oro were, all implying defective thinking. Implying that people conversant with God must have built a house before age 65 derides honest labour, devalues constant struggle, and ignores the point that life is a tug of war.

Stripped of its rhetorical obfuscations, Selman’s submission can indeed be read as an unwitting appeal to corruptive tendencies. Such statements can easily breed jealousy and self-help among people. Worse still, it diminishes the self-esteem of members of Selman’s own flock who are just getting into comfort under what Wole Soyinka calls the cottonhead of age. In essence, Selman is mocking those just building a house at 65 or above. This is dangerous territory for a mere mortal to tread, but sycophants abound in the churches confirming the G.Os in their nihilism.  Just how can any mortal assume the place of God who only is the Owner of times and seasons? The Jesus whom these G.Os proclaim is their Lord did not even build an earthly house.

By the way, people in Europe and other civilised climes hardly see any reason to pray for a house, cars, etc, because there is a social security system in place. But Nigeria, lacking social security, provides fertile ground for spiritual motivational speakers who build giant, imposing edifices harassing the bowels of the earth while their followers wallow in misery, to pontificate on poverty. These blokes put their prayer sessions online, craving social media validation, far from the Biblical train of men who we are told in Hebrews 11:37 were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, and slain with the sword, people “of whom the world was not worthy.” The world is definitely worthy of the G.Os with their chains of businesses, massive investments in real estate, book publishing, and huge connections to political power.

Politicians scam us in Parliament, the G.Os scam us on the Pulpit. But when you question these fellas, they say “touch not my anointed,” as if preachers are not in jail in the civilised climes. The church shouldn’t be the place to nurture a gbewiri, olosa or jaguda spirit. Has the apostle never read this: “And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content”???

Re: Senator Lawan’s servile Senate

Sycophancy is a disease, as you said! That was why Fashola said President Buhari is the most powerful president in the world. Thanks for the write up sir. Rev Olalekan Oladimeji (08023852901)

Your article titled Senator Lawan’s Servile Senate is a classic. The tragedy of this current leadership of the country is the idiocy of the current National Assembly. They confidently ask Buhari to borrow to kill Nigeria. There is one satanic loan they approved for the Federal Government to establish agric mechanisation  centres in ALL 774 LGAs of this country. This wild thinking was approved! They have even approved more loans after this display of madness. I believe the spirits and souls of the Nigerians they put heavy yoke upon with their clever stealing of the country’s wealth under the guise of infrastructure will curse them to the highest heavens everyday and God will carry out the curses upon the present actors and all their collaborators to their fourth generations. (08066759838)

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