Religious leaders and hegemony of lies

Sir: An African proverb says that when an eye emits dirt, such dirt is shown to the eye itself so it can see very clearly its own misdemeanor. Perhaps the time has come to get even with Nigeria’s religious leaders with a view to letting them know that their deceit of many decades is part of why Nigeria remains the way it is. If a survey is instituted to find out the species of beings that tell the most lies on the planet earth, it is doubtful if any other group will beat Nigeria’s religious leaders to it because the more lies any Nigeria’s religious leader is able to tell, the more admirers he or she is always able to gather. It is only Nigerian pastors for instance who would extract only Malachi 3:10 to justify the importance of tithes but in another breath argue that the entire Old Testament is already obsolete and taken over by the New Testament.

Their first round of lies known with the Nigerian pastors is that God called them to found a church. This idea descended on Nigeria like a plague many years back when acute unemployment hit the country and everyone began a crucial struggle of survival. Suddenly, almost all unemployed men and women became God’s favourites with a mandate to start their own churches! In retrospect, personal churches were a rarity. What everyone grew up with were the few orthodox churches that have been in existence since the colonial era. But with God calling everybody to start their own churches came the proliferation of churches and the building of large false empires.

Smart pastors ride on the ignorance of their followers to build personal castles on earth while urging their followers to build theirs in heaven. Funds generated from members’ sweats are deployed to founding big schools which the children of members cannot attend because of very high tuition fees. The missionaries that introduced Christianity to Nigeria brought education to its people on a platter of gold. It was the same free education offered by the colonialists that gave rise to first set of educated Nigerians who were at the vanguard of fighting for the nation’s independence.

In the utterly deceitful racket Christianity in Nigeria has become even Nigeria’s gospel artists can never be exenorated.

From the early 70s, they have kept releasing different records proclaiming the urgent arrival of Jesus Christ and by so doing giving Nigerians false hopes of Jesus coming soon to right all the wrongs perpetrated in the country. Because of such false hopes, Nigerians are never ready to take their destinies into their hands and fight for what truly belongs to them as a united body.
Rather, they prefer someone who would rise up to fight their battles for them while they all fold their hands. After deceiving the people with false songs about rapture, most of the gospel artists themselves abandoned their country and relocated abroad without explaining why they could no longer wait for the coming rapture in their own country.

Smart pastors preach about heaven being a place reserved for those who are Christ-like in every aspect but all their actions point at the opposite direction. It is never recorded in the Bible that Jesus Christ laid any treasures for himself on earth but that is always the secret engagements of Nigeria’s pastors. Jesus never at any time solicited the service of escorts for protection even though he was surrounded by so many enemies but that is the trend with Nigeria’s pastors.

Again, Jesus Christ taught his followers that the greatest among them is the servant and demonstrated it by washing their feet himself. Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible was so meek and lived the same simple lifestyle with his disciples. It was therefore difficult for whoever did not belong to his inner caucus to recognise who Jesus really was among the whole lot. That was why the enemies of Jesus had to rely on Judas Iscariot to reveal his true identity to them. But the lying pastors of Nigeria go about like emperors with a large body of escorts without them realising that they are mere local champions in a land dominated by illiteracy and utter ignorance.

• Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Nigeria.