Beware of the law of CAMA •As Religious leaders rail against FG

BIOLA AZEEZ reports that the newly signed Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) is currently raising dust among non-governmental bodies and especially religious organisations as most of them think government is by the law creating more problems rather than solving them.

After about 30 years on the table, the Company and Allied Matters bill was recently accented to by President Muhammadu Buhari having been duly passed by the National Assembly.

In a statement, Buhari’s media aide, Mr Femi Adesina, said the president repealed and replaced the extant Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990, and “introduced several corporate legal innovations geared toward enhancing ease of doing business in the country.”

The CAMA Act, among others, include filing fee reductions and other reforms to make it easier and cheaper for small and medium-sized enterprises to register and reform their businesses in Nigeria. It allows corporate promoters of companies to establish private companies with a single member or shareholder, and create limited liability partnerships and limited partnerships to give investors and business people alternative forms of carrying out their business in an efficient and flexible way.

Others are innovating processes and procedures to ease the operations of companies, such as introducing Statements of Compliance; replacing “authorised share capital” with minimum share capital to reduce costs of incorporating companies; and providing for electronic filing, electronic share transfers, e-meetings as well as remote general meetings for private companies in response to the disruptions to close contact physical meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among others.

But those are justsome aspects of the law that appear beneficial. What has caused national uproar is the part that gives the Corporate Affairs Commission the power to sack the boards of corporation and other non-governmental organisations it declares as non-performing and take them over. Since the Act came into effect, religious leaders who are indirectly affected by the new order have raised their voice in condemnation, noting that religious organisations’ books should not in any way be open to government’s scrutiny. Their contention is that given the irrationality and/or indecorum of those in government, such a law could be applied arbitrarily to purnish perceived enemies. There were also those who agree with government’s intention.

Head of a non-governmental organisation, Concerned Parents and Educators Initiatives in Oyo State, Kemi Koleowo, described the CAMA Act as a welcome development.

According to her, a well-structured NGO with a balanced Board of Trustees at the helm should not have any problem with its leaders being removed or installed, adding that only those who lack transparency with their finances should fear the new law and that a takeover where discrepancies are found is not out of place.

She noted that most organizations, especially churches, have become family businesses, but the CAMA Act will bring about the needed accountability and transparency.

Leader of Sanctuary of Christ Evangelical Church, Ibadan, Dr Gbade Ojo, similarly held that the state was stronger than religious bodies; hence, it reserved regulatory powers over church or any religious  Institution and NGOs registered by the state.

He noted that though the church or an NGO should respect the laws of the state, Nigeria is a peculiar case as the laws may be implemented as vendetta. While recognising the norm in advanced democracies where their account books are checked annually, Ojo noted that Nigeria is not ripe for CAMA stipulations.

However, Sheikh Abubakar Ali-Kamaldeen of the Issa Elelu central mosque in Ilorin, Kwara State has a different perspective to the issue. According to him, government should hands off any issue pertaining to religious organisations.

“It’s not in tune with tradition of religion in this country. Government can fund places of worship but cannot impose leadership, control financial affairs or take control of the building of places of worship. In a situation whereby allegations of financial infractions are levelled against a leader of a place of worship, for instance, the committee of the mosque led by the imam would take charge of such development, not government.

“The Imam is the supreme head of a mosque and controls affairs in the mosque, such as maintenance of the mosque. The mosque is there to ensure continuity of affairs. Even after expiration of a government funtionaries as well as the led return to places of worship, which are owned by the Almighty God.

“Government has its territory, while the imam has his own territory, which is the mosque. Imam is that person that will account to God on how he has managed affairs in the mosque. The position of an imam in the Qur’an is higher than that of government officials or appointees. The imam is responsible for guiding people to good ways of life,” he explained.

Professor Timothy Oloyede Opoola, a former Christian Association of Nigeria chairman in Kwara State, is similarly baffled by government’s extension of the CAMA Act to religious and other non-profit organisations.

“I think it is not correct, because constitutionally, there’s freedom of worship and freedom of establishing a church. For government to now say that it can close a church, remove its leader or take over its finances….I think they should not embark on what can lead to religious war. It’s very dangerous.

“I think the church is in partnership with the government. Every church is praying for the government and good of the nation. In fact, most programmes of government are best achieved through religious modes, because people listen more to their pastors (and imams) than the government. So, the churches are co-partners with government. Government should not see the Church as an enemy.

“Of course, anyone that errs, there’s a law of the nation that can be employed appropriately. But for government to directly take over a church or impose any law will not be for the good of the nation,” he said.

A lecturer at the University of Ilorin and Chief Imam, Hilal Crescent Central Mosque, Ilorin, Professor Yusuf Lanre Badmus, also believes that the CAMA Act is a “very dangerous trend.”

According to him, “If you do not have hands in the construction of these places of worship why will you now have the total authority to take over leadership, building or finances of those places? I think it’s a very mad drive at generating revenue for government. You cannot generate revenue for government from places of worship where people are supplicating to God. And they have no commercial merchandise that are being sold in that place.”

He noted, however, there was no meeting yet on the matter by religious leaders to present a common front on the issue.

Kwara State CAN chairman, Most Reverend Paul Olawoore, in his own contribution, said that government is arrogating to itself what is not in its power to do, wondering why it wants to hire and fire a leadership it did not constitute in the first place.

In Kano State, civil society groups are have strongely opposed CAMA, describng it as an infringement on the rights of churches, mosques and non-governmental associations.

According to its secretary, Ahmed Tijani Yau, “the donors of funds to NGOs are many and already monitoring how funds allocated to them are being spent. Therefore, it is not the right of government to supervise or look into how our leadership is being run.”

Alhaji Kazeem Tahoreed, North-West zonal chairman of  the Nasrul-Lahi-Faith Society (NASFAT) said though government may want to check the excesses of some religious organisations, it may, however, be overstepping its bounds by appointing trustees for religious organisations.

“The Federal Government has no business running religious organisations, it is not their terrain. Therefore religious organisations should team up and let the Federal Government see reasons on the need to amend some aspects of this Act,” he said.

Outrage against an Act

Meanwhile, in Ondo State religious leaders have threatened they are heading to court to challenge the “anti-social  law, which sets the people against the government.”

General Overseer of Success Gate C&S International, Akure, Ondo State,  Prophet Adefisokun Turton, describes the new law as laughable.

He said: “it is glaring that the Federal Government is set to muzzle churches because they don’t seem to be comfortable with the progress churches are making, and apart from the civil organisations, only the church is saying the truth to the people in power.

“They have been on this for long. Sometime ago, they said if one attained a certain age or had headed a church for more than 20 years, they should retire. But this is wrong. Church planting takes a long time before it germinates and may not mature until it gets to 100 years in order to fulfil the purpose it was set up. This is repressive.

“Everything is retrogressing and the only thing that is progressing is the word of God and they are not comfortable with it. So they are acting out of confusion. They know not what to do and attracting more enemies to themselves and creating a law that is dead on arrival”.

Corroborating Turton, founder of God Liveth Ministry, Akure, Ondo State, Rev. Soji Gbadebo, said the Federal Government by the Act, is creating more problems for itself and is designed to attack and persecute its perceived enemies who are the vocal church leaders.

“So, if they cannot talk, who else will talk? So, God has positioned them to be the voice of the voiceless, the hope of the hopeless. And if they fold their arms, I know that God will never forgive them,” he said.

Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam, Shafaudeen In Islam Worldwide, Professor Sabit Olagoke, said that with the CAMA law, government has portrayed itself as seeing religion as a mere material substance of entertainment and commercial values.

He argued that government should instead “enforce a law to separate corporate social responsibility from the divine services by discouraging commercialisation of religion to restore its divine value for the society.” According to him, “CAMA Act must not become a political tool for unnecessary victimisation.”

Reverend Gideon Para-Mallam, a religious leader and an elder in Southern Kaduna, Kaduna State in his own reaction, said government does not have the moral rights to look into others’ books as corruption is similarly very rife within the government.

“It is very sad that one of the media aides to the president, one Lauretta Onochie, would tell Bishop David Oyedepo to go and create his own country, create his own laws and live there in reaction to Oyedepo’s objection to CAMA. That is very unfortunate. All because of CAMA?” he lamented.

Also speaking to Sunday Tribune the secretary to the Jigawa State Council of Ulama, Ustaz Salisu Muhammed Gumel said “the honest and proper management of trust is a duty upon a trustee in Islamic law.

“Allah doth command to ‘render back your trusts to those to whom they are due.’ This command includes delivery of the trust to the proper beneficiary and to handle it in the prescribed manner if any.

“Where a trustee is found mismanaging or misappropriating the trust, it is necessary for the law to intervene and stop such mismanagement or misappropriation.”

Understandably, the chairman Christian Association of Nigeria Jigawa State, Rev. Markus Yohan Danbinta said “the Church is not happy with the law. I don’t support the law.”

He added that “Church leaders are not appointed by the government; government is not funding churches, so there is no reason for government to have rights to investigate church spendings. Our leaders will take appropriate actions to challenge it in the court.”

The minister in charge of the First Baptist Church, Dutse, Rev. Andy H Ndandok, in his own contribution to the dabate  said “I have been in service for over 25 years. Churches and organisations should be separate from the State because the State is not funding them.

“I think the law is not a welcome idea because intrusion by government into the affairs of religious organisations is not good.

“It is, however, proper for the law to make such provision in the interest of transparency, justice, fairness and checks and balances.

“The idea of the CAMA Act is, however, misleading and deceptive, (it is) to create confusion and sentiment in a democratic and secular society, he said.”

As for Revd. Mathias Echioda,  Christians Association of Nigeria, government’s attempt to regulate activities of religious organisations is a clash of interest.

“The decision of government to have signed  CAMA into law was a clash of interest. When did the government become pastor or Imam? What does the government know about the administration of either a church or mosque? he querried

“The decision of government to have signed  CAMA into law was a clash of interest. When did the government become Pastor or Imam. What does the government know about the administration of either a church or mosque?

Echioya who doubles as the Vice Chairman, CAN, North Central States and Abuja the Federal Capital Territory added that “it is immoral, it is illegal and they must retract their steps, while that act must be repealed. Let them  give attention to what we voted them to do rather than pursuing shadows.”

• Additional stories by Yomi Ayeleso, Kola Oyelere, Hakeem Gbadamosi, Isaac Shobayo and Wale Akinselure

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