Few days ago, David Cameron called us a fantastically corrupt
nation and our president agreed with him. I’m very sorry to
disappoint you: I also agree with him. We’re a fantastically
corrupt nation indeed. Everywhere you turn in the country,
there’s corruption. To do the simplest of things in a
government office, you need to bribe one person or the
other. Nigerian politicians are some of the most notorious
money launderers the world over. Fuel crisis, infrastructural
decay, poor health sector, terrible security situation,
economic crisis, every negative thing in this country, just
name it, can be traced to corruption. And you’re still saying
we’re not a fantastically corrupt nation?
But the corruption is happening in the public offices not in
church. Why am I bringing the church in? ‘Peter, must you
criticize Christianity (and religion as a whole)’, you ask? Well, I
like to be focused. Every battle must be strategic or else it will
fail. But where does corruption start from? It starts from the
mind. And what forms the mind? For most Nigerians, it’s
religion. Most people claim to get their morals from their
places of worship. So once corruption is established in the
places of worship, you can be sure that it’s spreading
throughout the whole country. So we can’t but look at these
places for causes of the corrupt minds in Nigerians. In a
subsequent article, I’ll be looking in details at the link
between religion and corruption
But let me go straight to the agenda of the day. Everybody
agrees that our politics is filled with corrupt souls but that the
churches are filled with saints. Well, churches aren’t filled
with saints. The pastors and their church members are
corrupt. These pastors who have been monumental failures
to the nation are being helped by their gullible church
members to contribute to the ideology of corruption that has
pervaded our society. Ten fantastically corrupt pastors and
their church members. More like five fantastically corrupt
pastors and five fantastically corrupt church members. The
pastors first, then the church members later.

Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #1

This is the pastor that asks for donations from church
members for gigantic projects. He looks at the faces of those
poor people, most of them still finding it difficult to have two
meals per day, and he asks them to still give towards some
stupendous church projects. He tells them that their poor
statuses shouldn’t discourage them from giving to
God him. He’s a very corrupt fraudster (double negative) as
he’s Iiving large at the expense of his impoverished church
members. Isn’t that corruption?
They’ve even made themselves into a cabal now. And this
cabal has taken over Lagos and it’s environs, all of them
competing with one another as to who will erect the biggest
auditorium. Their churches are registered as non-profits. So
they’re not being taxed. However the pastors spend the money on themselves.

Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #2

This one directly or indirectly encourages his church
members to become sudden, overnight successes. All the
prayer points he leads his church members in are geared
towards ‘sharp sharp’ success. He gives ‘words’ like ‘Before
this week runs out, you will receive a phone call of
destiny’. There’s even one that calls himself‘Lẹ́sẹ̀kẹsẹ̀’,
meaning ‘instantly’. These are the ones that push their church
members to steal money from the public coffers so that these
prayer points can be actualized instantly. When you listen to
their messages, everything is about money. They’ve turned
their pulpits to an MBA class. In fact, if you’re in an MBA
program, you don’t need to attend lectures. Just listen to their
messages and go for your MBA exams.

Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #3

This one uses fake promises to cajole his church members to
give. The church members are tantalized with too-good-to-be-
true promises of abundant blessings, overwhelming joy,
embarrassing success, divine favour, instant miracles, etc.
One of them even said that people should give during an
economic hardship and that they will withdraw from God
later. How convenient! You give to physical men but withdraw
from your unseen account with an unseen God. Please, this
account is domiciled in what bank? Of course, the fool and his
money part ways very easily.
Sometimes if that doesn’t work, he uses threats. Devourers of
all kinds — children’s sicknesses, sudden debts, business
collapse, terrible calamities, etc — are invoked upon the
church members. Of course, the church members don’t want
God’s wrath upon their heads. They give everything they have
and even borrow to give more.
This kind of pastor is a proper yahoo yahoo boy. This is how
419 email scams go. Cajole your victim with tantalizing
promises or threaten them with scary stuff. Once again,
church members go back to their offices and see how they
can help themselves to some quick wealth to latch on to the
fake promises or escape the fake threats.
The church members are always under pressure. Low and
middle class workers donate the whole of their salaries under
different labels to their pastors. Some of these pastors write
books but since they know that the rest of the public won’t
readily buy the empty, worthless books, they cajole (or scare)
their members to use their own money to buy in bulk and
then donate copies freely to the otherwise uninterested
public. By so doing, they’re assured of a steady stream of
book sales.
One curious thing about these churches is that they never
directly say that giving is compulsory. But using subtle
cajoling and/or threatening gimmicks, the church members
are practically left with no choice but to comply. So the
church members have a false sense of being in control when
in reality, it’s their pastors that are in control. This is a Ponzi
scheme. Plain and simple. If you do this outside (i.e.,
obtaining money under false pretense), EFCC would be all
over you but if you do it in church, you will be hailed as a
man of God and church members themselves will be
screaming ‘Touch not mine anointed’ to silence any criticism.
(See below). And you’re still doubting if we’re a fantastically corrupt nations?

Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #4

This one is invited for the dedication of a posh mansion
owned by a level 8 officer. And he goes there straight without
asking questions. And he gets there, delivers a powerful
dedication service grinning widely. Another newly promoted
level 9 officer invites him for car dedication. He sees a brand
new 2016 Touareg and prays over the car and walks away
without asking any questions. In fact, he tells the church
media unit to include these miracles in the next church
bulletin. Of course, this will convince people that God is
working in that church and it will attract more people.
One even asked for donations towards the building of his 3
km × 3 km auditorium and received ₦2 million each from a
few people without asking where they got the money from.
Many years ago,Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy received
a donation in cash and kind up to the tune of ₦39 million
from one Lawrence Agada and blessed him with the following
words, ‘May God, who gives seed to the sower and bread to
the eater, multiply your seeds in Jesus name’. Of course,
Agada was blessed by a police visit when it was discovered
that he had stolen those funds from Sheraton Hotel and
Towers where he had been an official. And you’re asking for
why our politicians are corrupt?

Fantastically Corrupt Pastor #5

This one here is one of the most influential people in the
world. Whenever he visits any town or city in the country, the
crowd is so large that traffic practically freezes to a standstill.
Even the president of the country doesn’t pull a crowd so
large. Millions of Nigerians wake up every morning to either
read his book or listen to his voice. Millions of others either
use his voice as their ringtone or caller’s tune. Yet they won’t
do more than give cheap permutations called prophecies
every New Year Day. They will never speak against
corruption. A large section of these politicians attend their
churches or programs but they will never rebuke anyone for
the mismanagement of our commonwealth. In fact,
politicians that are supposed to be pelted with stones occupy
the front row seats in these pastors’ auditoriums.
Of course, there’s a mutual understanding between them.
They also get favour from them. They spoil them with gifts of
cars, houses, and large sums of money. One of them even
benefited from the corruption in government by receiving
import waivers to the tune of billions of Naira for so many
years. These politicians embezzle our money and they pay
the tithes in these churches.

Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #5

This one is a low cadre officer that climbs the pulpit to give a
testimony of God’s goodness in his life concerning a ₦20
million federal government contract he just received. Is he a
contractor? Behind that testimony is a poorly executed (if
executed at all) project whose quotation was terribly
overblown. This is a corrupt citizen that should be celebrating
with handcuffs behind bars instead of on a church podium with a microphone.

Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #7

This one is a devoted church member. He loves his general
overseer so much that he can break bottles on your head if
you dare criticize his father in the Lord. Talk about how his
pastor has just acquired a property in Panama or a private jet
and he screams ‘Touch not mine anointed’. Try to criticize his
idol and you have him screaming ‘Judge not’. (Don’t worry.
Just watch out in the comments section. They will soon be
here attacking this post). They forget to scream ‘Judge
not’when we’re talking about Buhari and Saraki. He can
divorce his wife or even commit suicide instead of agreeing
that his pastor is at fault. Even if the World Bank releases his
pastor’s name on a corruption list, he will still defend him.
This one is a very serious accomplice to a monumental, perennial crime.

Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #8

This is the church member that has never used his brain to
detect the fraud going on in his church. He heartily claps for
Jesus after fraudulent testimonies. He even uses those
testimonies as a point of contact to his own blessings too —
he’s desperately, eagerly waiting for an opportunity to climb
the podium too. He’s not interested in knowing what the
pastor uses the donations for. He has decided to leave the
pastor for God to judge. How corrupt!
Or he’s one of the people in charge of money and the pastor
has been spending freely from it but he’s not even ready to
complain anywhere. In fact, he’s an accomplice to a very serious crime.

Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #9

This is the church member that drops his last penny in church
expecting miracle money to show up in his bank account the
following morning. This is the one that doesn’t have anything
and doesn’t have any hope that he will get any money soon
but pledges towards a church project with the thinking that
this will gingerGod to bless him with magic money as an
emergency. Some of them drop stolen monies to remain in
the pastor’s good books or get elevated to lofty positions in
the church. If you’re this kind of church member, you’re a
thief! You’re the kind of public servant that will see an
opportunity to steal some public funds as the opportunity to
be rewarded by God. The story of Lawrence Agada narrated
above also comes here.

Fantastically Corrupt Church Member #10

This one doesn’t pay taxes. Never. He just knows how to
evade them. He doesn’t pay his electricity bills. He has
connected his home circuit directly to the supply such that his
true consumption is not showing up on the metre. He knows
how to bloat government contracts. He’s part of the syndicate
that are fueling corruption in government. But in church, he’s
a different person entirely. He doesn’t miss his tithes. He
evades taxes but pays tithes regularly. He arranges the
disappearance of a few zeros in the bank account of his place
of work but he’s the church account and every penny is well
accounted for in the church. He’s a contributor to the present
state of the nation. He should be doing a jail term as we
speak.

Footnote:

1. Look for yourself or your pastor/general overseer on this
list and tell yourself where you belong. This is some form
of a mirror for self-reflection.
2. Islam is not exonerated in this matter but because
Nigerian Islamic clerics aren’t on Forbes list and because
Islamic worship centers are yet to take over the Lagos-
Ibadan expressway, I’m deemphasizing Islam in this
write-up. However if Christians and their pastors had
been upright, their numerical strength and sociopolitical
influence would’ve been enough to change this country
positively.
Thank you for reading.

Op, Are you a muslim or Atheist?

OP what you just did is plagiarism. Next time give credit to the owner and writer of the article!