The church and anti-Christ, the FRC

NIGERIANS woke up to an episcopal shocker in the New Year – the news of the stepping down of, unarguably the most famous/respected Nigerian pastor, Enoch Adejare Adeboye, as the General Overseer of, also unarguably, the most self-multiplying church in the world in the last three decades or so – the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). The issues which surround the shocking news were as uncertain as they were queer. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) had reportedly wielded its hammer. The FRC is a Federal Government agency established by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria Act, No. 6, 2011 and placed under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment. It is an organisation set up, among other things, to regulate the activities of NGOs and churches/mosques and the enforcement of stipulations on management of not-for-profit organisations. Pastor Adeboye, in his characteristic exemplary humility, unassuming disposition and quest to always be an exemplar for others to follow, promptly stood down at an RCCG ministers’ meeting and immediately named a successor.

This singular action has since attracted polar opposite arguments of the place of religious institutions in the social equation of Nigeria. It has also literally blown the feathers off the rump of ecclesiastical pretensions of decades span. First, the Executive Secretary of the FRC, Jim Obazee, was shown the gate of the council with a baffling alacrity that is alien to the Muhammadu Buhari government. A coterie of self-serving comments, mostly from church leaders, then followed. The most skewed to the literal mind and one prone to polemics, is one ascribed to Bishop David Oyedepo of the Living Faith Mission Church. He had said, “If you heard or saw anything in the newspapers or anywhere that the G.O (Adeboye) has retired, it is a lie of the devil. In our spiritual family tree, we don’t retire… I believe in the covenant of 120 years… No government can determine the constitution of the church and they know.” Many other commentators have pilloried government for seeking to poke its nose into a territory (the spiritual) that they claim it knows nothing about, while some condemned the move as akin to the biblical prediction of the intrusion into the world of the anti-Christ.

There is no doubting the fact that the church/mosque has contributed immensely to the social equilibrium of the Nigerian society, perhaps far more than any other social ensemble. While successive governments of the country wreck havocs on society and the polity through self-serving policies that are less protective of the tomorrow of the people, it is to the church/mosque that the people run for refuge. The church tames the people’s angst and anger, helping them to construct mansions in the hereafter where no mote or termites can destroy. This has helped slow down revolts and revolutions against the bad governance that has almost become an imprimatur of the Nigerian state. To this end, the church deserves kudos. Looked at from another prism however, the church can be summarily accused of connivance with and vicarious liability in the docility that obtains among the people of Nigeria in that it is an unwitting collaborator with the state to tame the dissent of the populace.

Of a truth, prominent churches like the RCCG have contributed immensely to the social capital that the nation enjoys in the international community. Indeed, seldom does there exist any touristic endeavour that has attracted more attention to Nigeria than the RCCG. For instance, the 159 countries of the world where the church has its parishes have over the years helped to advertise the progressivism of Nigeria to the outside world. Adeboye also yearly pens a spiritual daily digest called Open Heavens which has broken racial divides and is available to all races of the world. Adeboye himself goes all over the world like an ambassador of goodwill. His humility and spiritual accomplishments, which he unwittingly wears on his sleeves, are the epistle he communicates to the rest of the world about Nigeria. These are converse epistles to the one that has become a refrain in the impression of the world about the dubiousness of the Nigerian.

In spite of the above, however, it would amount to sophism and cants to argue that the church be allowed to have a free rein and its social activities unregulated, in a Nigeria that is awash with charlatans and fraudsters masquerading as pastors and Imams. To do this would be throwing to the sharks of the world the fickle-minded ordinary man on the streets, who is as yet buffeted by idiotic governance left, right and centre. If this happens, politicians in the garb of leaders would have a free rein to pierce their incisors into the naked and defenceless flesh of the average innocent Nigerian.

Let us not lose track of the fact that the church/mosque is thriving this tremendously because governments are performing dismally and there is much hopelessness and idleness in the land. If the reverse were the case, there would be less religiosity in Nigeria. In other words, if Nigerians were ruled by fair-minded leaders, the people would prefer to seek the kingdom of this world that they know its geography, far and above the kingdom of heaven of which they have no physical evidential knowledge. Second, aware that the populace is in dire need of redemption from its slavish taskmasters – the government – and aware that its activities are not prone to empirical and scientific scrutiny, the spiritual has become an object to defraud the people. An absence of government regulation would make the people’s relationship with churches a Hobbesian affair which is nasty, brutish and short.

For example, if government regulations were in place, it would almost be an impossibility to have a situation that we have today where many of these prominent churches who establish universities from the offerings, tithes and life savings of their congregants, have scant offspring of their members as students because their school fees are super-exorbitant. Some of the church leaders even threaten to curse anyone who inquires into this ecumenical anomaly. It is no news that many of the spiritual concerns’ founders do not make any distinction between congregational budget and personal budgets, dipping their hypocritical hands into church tills with reckless abandon. Having been its ally for decades/centuries when the economy favoured them, the church/mosque in Nigeria today ought to come to the rescue of its followers now that there is crushing economic privations. Instead, the church/mosque advertises the wealth it gets off the sweats of the congregation, leaving the people to stew in their economic privation broth.

More fundamentally, the church, which is about the most populated social group in Nigeria, as it daily interfaces with virtually all strata of society, cannot afford to play the ostrich by asking that societal laws should not be applicable to it. The General Overseer of the Victory Apostolic Church, Rev Paul Adeti, put it very succinctly: “The truth remains that once you are registered under CAC, you are bound by the rules and regulations,” he had said.

If the House of Representatives, as reported in the media, condemned the RCN for imposing retirement age on church leaders, it must have done that in obedience to the wild uproar of RCCG parishioners. To my mind, it is in order for the issue of succession in the church/mosque and age of relinquishing of power to be regulated as well. This is why this writer disagrees with Bishop Oyedepo that “in our spiritual family tree, we don’t retire…  No, My Lord Bishop! The church in Nigeria has just a tiny spiritual fraction – and that is being magnanimous with epithets – and the largest chunk of its manifestation is physical. The holy writ itself states that God’s judgment will begin in the church where rodents, reptiles and arachnida have made their home. The Nigerian church/mosque today is where there is the hottest competition for the good things of this world. Logically, it argues that its members are not worshipping a poor God. Church/mosque is where the greatest commercial enterprises take place. Church/mosque leaders today live in mansions, fly private jets and ride limousines. Churches/mosques are today multi-billion concerns and it is absurd that they are not subjected to heavy taxation. What then is spiritual about those pursuits? So why should they not be subjected to all the laws that govern social existence like other human gathering, including ensuring that they don’t turn churches/mosques that are funded by the sweats of the poor into family dynasties, as well as ensuring that Robert Mugabes are not sired therein? A regulatory body like the FRC must recognise and measure churches/mosques’ identifiable assets and liabilities for the sanity of the nation.

Obazee has suddenly become the fall guy in this equation and like the Roman plebeians; Nigerians are clapping for his exit. His crime was implementing an act of the parliament which went through due process. Passed on May 18, 2011 by the Senate, the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria Bill repealed the Nigerian Accounting Standards Board Act with a new set of rules. Senator Ahmed Makarfi had earlier submitted a report to the Senate as Chairman of its Committee on Finance. The major reason of widespread support for the bill was its tendency to align Nigeria with other countries and improve investor confidence. Indeed, the former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who spoke at a fundraising dinner organised by the council for its academy, had commended it as a move that would help attract foreign direct investments to Nigeria. The Bill was subsequently signed into law on July 20, 2011.

What is more, churches/mosques and NGOs, which are classified as charity, are regulated by government in saner climes. There, you cannot collect tithes/offering from the suffering poor and expend same on your personal esophagus cravings. No one has yet claimed this is unnecessary governmental interloping. This is why it would be sad if the allegation of the Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, is true that the suspension of the rightfully passed law by the Buhari government was politicking at its zenith. It would be tragic for government to bow to the whims of a powerful pressure group whose intention is obviously primordially self-serving.

• Dr. Adedayo is on the editorial board of the Tribune