Pastor Adeboye still owes Nigerians more – TheNigerialawyer

Abimbola Adelakun

In July, a group of musicians/artistes took their peaceful
protest to the Redemption Camp where they challenged the General
Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch
Adeboye, to speak up on raging issues. The artistes prodded Adeboye
to use his globally acknowledged influence to speak on the security
situation in the country, including advocating the release of the
young woman, Leah Sharibu, who, unfortunately, remains in her Boko
Haram abductors’ gulag.

When Adeboye’s media aides responded to the protesters, they
said his silence does not mean he is apathetic. It was just that he
had ceded such a responsibility to bodies formed to take on such
tasks, namely the Christian Association of Nigeria and the
Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. Truly, when CAN too responded to
the protesters, they told them to take their issues to the
government and leave the good Pastor alone. Why single out a church
leader and invest him with the moral responsibility that should be
distributed to a collective? Besides, CAN and the PFN were already
speaking on the issue, why should the Pastor usurp their roles? The
response of CAN to the protesters sounded reasonable enough, but I
am afraid they missed a significant point.

When the times are dire like this, people look up to a prophet
to apprehend the times, articulate them in divine speak, and
provide a moral direction for the future. The prophet of God is the
one the people believe is imbued with the perspicacity to divine
the times and speak to the situation using the weight of his
spiritual authority and charisma. In an intensely religious country
like ours, the words of prophets weigh a lot. In secular climes,
people look to their intellectuals and celebrities to take a moral
stand on their country’s situation. In Nigeria, we have pastors. I
do not think there is any personality whose words weigh half of
Adeboye’s. That is why they pester him to say something.

Yes, I do understand the hesitancy of pastors who do not want to
talk too loudly on political issues. There are times one cannot
blame pastors for taking refuge in silence. Take the case of Pastor
W.F. Kumuyi. The man has been, for most of his career as a shepherd
of Christ, apolitical. But sometime in October last year, he paid a
congenial visit to Aso Rock where President Muhammadu Buhari hosted
him and his wife. In June, Kumuyi preached a sermon where he told
Christians not to attack the President either through the
newspapers or the Internet, and instead strive towards Christ-like
behaviour. The kind of backlash he received must have made him
wonder what was outrageous about the statement that the “children
of anger” dragged him on the floor of the social media. His
admonition was truly biblical but when a country is going through
hell, people will not take kindly to a spiritual injunction that
can be weaponised by the political establishment. If one keeps
quiet in this Buhari government, one will die and still be blamed
for one’s death. Anyway, Kumuyi’s experience must have taught
others that in these tough times, the pastor who will last is the
one who keeps his political views to himself.

But unlike others, Adeboye cannot afford to be apolitical or
lukewarm. Number one reason is the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.
One of the factors that changed public perception of the Buhari
candidature in 2015 was Osinbajo who was offered to the public as
not just a lawyer, but a pastor as well. He was not merely a
self-labelled pastor, he was also affiliated with the RCCG, one of
the largest gatherings of Christians in the world. By implication,
Osinbajo was Adeboye’s son and that factor gave them mileage in the
2015 elections. We cannot quantify how many votes it translated
into, but it did help to ameliorate the fear of “Islamisation” that
had previously dogged Buhari’s ambition. When people invested their
votes in Osinbajo, they were also voting for Adeboye. If things are
not going well, Adeboye owes it to people to speak unequivocally on
issues and not just relegate that responsibility to other Christian
bodies. They have their roles to play, no doubt, but he owes people
that obligation.

The second reason has to do with Adeboye’s deployment of his
spiritual gifts. In what has become a Pentecostal lore, the
prophesy that ended the despotic rule of Gen. Sani Abacha and
triggered the civilian rule in Nigeria came from the altar in his
church. At the church’s December convention, Adeboye repeated the
story of how his prophesy ended Abacha’s evil reign as a testimony
to God’s working power. If he takes the credit for giving the word
of power that launched Nigeria on the path of democratic rule, he
should also take responsibility for what democracy has brought for
and on us. Things are falling apart, and democracy is beginning to
feel like military rule. So, where do we go from here? Like Adeboye
himself acknowledged lately when some of his church ministers were
kidnapped, on the issue of security, things have never been so bad
in Nigeria as they are presently. Violence has become so routine;
incidents have to be spectacular before they make the news.

The Chairman of CAN in Kaduna, Joseph Hagan, recently disclosed
that their association had paid about N300m as ransoms for their
abducted members since 2015. That is a hefty amount of money for
any organisation to shell out. Considering that the churches are
not manufacturing goods, it means it is the poor church members who
fronted the costs. That is the more reason influential people
should raise their voices to put pressure on the government. On
that score, I must give some credit to Bishop David Oyedepo of the
Living Faith Church. After one of his pastors, Jeremiah Omolara,
was killed and his wife abducted, Oyedepo got on the altar and
cursed the kidnappers. I am not a believer in the telepathic power
of curses, so I see what he was doing with his charged admixture of
curses and prophetic utterances before the church and general
public as public incitement. He was propelling them to an urgency
that will impact their civic agencies. His confrontational approach
might be problematic for some, but there is also the potential of
such prayers rattling the political establishment enough to compel
them to treat security issues more urgently. In these times when
religious and tribal leaders are cautious about dissenting and
offending political power, Oyedepo’s audacity is refreshing. On
that score, he earned my respect.

Finally, one other reason Adeboye owes us is because it seems
his God – and this is judging from what His prophet says about him
– is not politically neutral. On Friday, at the Holy Ghost night of
the RCCG convention, Adeboye told us that God revealed to him that
Osinbajo would be involved in a helicopter crash. Adeboye claimed
he prayed for Osinbajo and the disaster was averted. To be clear, I
have no problems with God saving the Vice President of a nation,
but I want God to do the same too for poor and hapless Nigerians
who have become perennial victims of routine violence in Nigeria.
Many people all over Nigeria are disqualified in the consideration
for citizen protection by the country because their lives do not
even register in the consciousness of the state to warrant security
for them. They too need God to intervene for them with the same
force of power as He did for Osinbajo. These people need
influential pastors to intercede for them both spiritually and
politically; prophets like the days of old who will risk everything
and boldly declare, “Thus saith the Lord…” They need people with
moral influence to put agents of political power in a state of
dis-ease. We thank God for the life of our brother Osinbajo, but
God’s flock is being eaten by the wolves in the corridors of power
across the country. They need God to do more for them, not regale
them with the story of how He saved a politician in a cassock.

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