If an entrepreneur is he who offers what people need at his/her own gain, then entrepreneurship is not limited to extracting or manufacturing industries or those in business of selling and buying. What is said of directors of industries can be said of a pastor carrying his Bible and preaching under a canopy in God’s name. This labeling is truer in a country where the failure of institutions of governance has made it difficult for normal business to thrive.
Three industries exist in Nigeria today- politics, worship and crime. Any Nigerian who cannot fit into the three is destined to hunger. But my concern today is worship industry where people have made God accomplice in their crimes, where people have exploited the psychological vulnerability of economically crucified people to their advantage.
If God is patented in Nigeria, the royalties that will accrue from it would be more than that coming from oil and the rest combined. Nigerians like Israelites are religious people. They see God in their misfortunes and in their fortunes. For them, God intermingles in the affairs of men and determines what happens there in. If you want a Nigerian to take you seriously, swear with God’s name. This is what politicians do.
When a local journalist cornered former President Obasanjo in Lagos and asked for his reaction to the much publicized probes into allegations of irregular public spending during his tenure. His response was rather curious: “Anything you don’t have or you cannot get-leave it to God.” Before then the former chaplain of the presidential villa, Professor Yusuf Obaje once made sensational comment in local tabloid that Nigeria’s 1993 presidential elections widely acknowledged to have been won by Chief M. K. O Abiola but annulled by the military leadership was “an election annulled by God.”
Former military president Ibrahim Babangida was able to hold on to power from 1985-1993 because he intermittently swore by God to hand over power to a democratically elected government. Many believed him because the name of God accompanied such oral covenant. Once asked whether he would hand over the reigns of power to a democratically elected government, General Sani Abacha said: “God will decide”.
The families of the fallen, heroic soldiers who died trying to bring peace to Sierra Leone and Liberia were counseled to take solace in God after a paltry sum of money was paid as compensation. When the popular politician Funsho Williams was gunned in the build up to 2007 elections, his family was consoled with a promise that ‘God will punish the killers.’ After late president Musa Yar’Adua emerged as flag-bearer of his party, serious concerns were raised about his health, but the ruling People’s Democratic Party came with a statement that “sickness and health come from God.” Because the name of God was mentioned people went ahead to queue behind him at the polls. And when the fundamentally flawed process that brought him to power was upheld as free and fair elections by the Apex Court, he described victory as the ‘God’s own judgment.’
The election victory addresses of sit-tight Nigerian governors do not fail to co-opt God in the perverted rulings upholding their elections. Not long ago, one of governors said that ‘God has been Vindicated’ in his victory at the Supreme Court. Some who try to be less pompous simply say: ‘this is democracy for you.’ Worried by the prevalent corruption in the country, the Bishop of Ekiti Diocese, in 2010, warned Nigerians to ‘expect God’s wrath on corrupt public officials.’
God’s name has become statecraft. When teachers protested their minimum wage three years back, they were advised by Nigeria government to go back to work as their reward will be ‘in heaven.’ The Niger Delta people have been repeatedly told to forward their case to God. Victims of Boko Harm’s insurgency have been repeatedly told to pray to God to deliver our country from its current security challenges. The gathering of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has been reduced to prayer and fasting for a nation in dire need of God’s intervention. ‘Watch and Pray’ was the theme of the communiqué issued by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria at the end of their meeting after September 2007.
Nigerian politicians have learnt to anchor their manifestoes in the Bible. They launch their campaign first of all in the church with largest congregation not because they are churchmen but because they need voters. What follows after victory is a thanksgiving outing also at churches and mosques where the name of God is publicly held liable for the victory. Many politicians collude with church leaders, mullah and sheiks in an attempt to cajole the poor to accept their deprivations as an act of God.
The deception didn’t begin with politicians; it began with men in cassocks. God has become a household name in Nigeria and the business run ‘in God’s name’ highly lucrative. There is burgeoning number of churches as many retire from professional fields to take the ‘holy trade.’ Some of the pastors operate within the main line churches. Doctors have abandoned their stethoscopes for cassocks just as well paid engineers have abandoned their calipers.
Many today prefer the term ‘apostle’, ‘evangelist’ or ‘prophet’ to ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’. Some allow the combination to stand. The stories of the ministering pastors are the same: ‘I have tried many things before and none would work until I decided to answer God’s call to start up a ministry. Since then I have been doing well.’ They tell you that initially they never wanted to start a ministry and they have tried other businesses. These are true. But they lie when they attribute their mission to God. No! It is rather economic hardship and late discovery that only holy trade pays off in Nigeria. And before one can say Okechukwu, they already have fancy cars and building tastefully furnished.
In 2007, at Lagos, an accountant working with five-star hotel allegedly stole from his employee. He did not go shopping but rather handed over the money to a Pentecostal church where he served as a deacon. When arrested, he told the police officer that God told him to do so. When police went after the church, a spokesperson for the church refused to hand back the funds saying that what is given to God cannot be handed back to mere mortals.
In Abakaliki, a self-styled evangelist within a Catholic Church prophesied that a barren Catholic mother in her ministry would conceive but not through her husband. Because, the name of God was used, the mother was already looking ‘extra-marital-wards’ for answers before a priest intervened to save the situation. Last two three months a man in Ebonyi killed his 78-year-old father at the order of his pastor because he was a spiritual obstacle to his destiny.
In the former time, people approached God’s temple with fears. And now? God is always afraid each time a Nigeria is entering his temple because he doesn’t know what scandal hides under his sleeves. Tufiakwa to a nation that has desecrated God’s name.
