The National Vice President, South-South, of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, (PFN), Bishop Simeon Okah, has urged the Federal Government to revoke the controversial clause in the new Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) in the interest of peace and security in the country.
He also urged all well-meaning Nigerians, Muslims and Christians alike, to speak out and condemn the controversial law to save the country from imminent collapse.
Okah, who is the Bishop of the Flock of Christ Mission in Warri, declared that the Federal Government has no moral right to regulate religious centres that it did not help to institute in the first place.
Speaking to journalists after a church service in Warri on Sunday, he said the uproar already following the ratification of the Act should alert President Muhammadu Buhari that he has stoked another wildfire that could ravage the entire country.
Dr Okah said those who smuggled the controversial Sub-section 838, 1 & 2 inti the CAMA Act were enemies of the nation and were aware of the aftermath.
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He said from the experience garnered across the nations of the world, similar regulations in advanced nations such as Britain and the US were solely directed at protecting governments’ investments in churches which receive grants as nongovernmental organisations from governments.
The case, he submitted, was not the same in Nigeria where the government has no single investment or contribution whatsoever in churches and therefore has no moral right to regulate what it has no inputs in.
He said the church has kept the law of the land by paying taxes of its business investments such as schools and hospitals which are profit-oriented.
The man of God added that the government has no legal or moral right to tinker with the trustees of churches let alone tamper with their bank accounts in the guise of regulating their activities.
According to him, such action would amount to a denial of religious freedom which is against the spirit of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
Bishop Okah, therefore, called on the National Assembly to swiftly revoke the obnoxious aspect of the law and halt the rising tension in the country.
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