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| Pastor Adeboye praying for President Jonathan |
By Pius Adesanmi
Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the Daddy General Overseer of the
Redeemed Christian Church of God, has been in the headlines for all the right
reasons lately. In August 2010, several newspapers quoted him as he declared
war on election rigging and riggers.
"We shall resist election riggers in 2011", the
famous preacher was reported to have fumed decisively. He ended 2010 on a grand
note: Goodluck Jonathan went to beseech God at Daddy General Overseer’s feet,
creating a famous photo-op in the process. Our internet commentariat went gaga
for the wrong reasons, condemning Goodluck Jonathan for contacting God through
the pastor’s intermission. Jonathan’s genuflection before God became the issue.
Nobody paid attention to Pastor Adeboye’s iteration of his warning that election
riggers would not be tolerated in 2011. He even fired a warning shot at
Attahiru Jega and threatened to lead protests against fraudulent elections in
2011.
This is a heartening development. Pastor Enoch Adeboye is
welcome to the Pastor Tunde Bakare corner of our collective struggle to take
Nigeria back from the vultures in Abuja and the state capitals. What took him
so long? Hopefully, his residency in this auspicious corner of the struggle
shall not be temporary. For now, we shall pretend that we don’t mind the fact
that Pastor Adeboye is spending too much time warning INEC and Jega instead of
just kuku directly telling the scurrilous Presidents, state governors,
ministers, senators, reps, chieftains, stakeholders, elder statesmen and such
other ridiculous characters who regularly go to him for kneeling sessions and
photo-ops that their irresponsibility and corruption will no longer be
tolerated.
I have been a student of Nigerian Pentecostalism for a
very long time. In my African Studies courses here in Canada, I teach
Pentecostalism as a key aspect of Nigeria's popular culture. As a writer, I am
also interested in the aesthetic aspects of their flowery language. I can speak
Pentecostal language fluently. I can come against principalities, dominions, and
powers. I can claim my portion and possess my possession. I can reject and send
evil schemes back to sender in Jesus name. I can bind the enemy and blunt all
weapons fashioned against me. I can lob psalms at enemies to make a thousand
fall by my right hand and ten thousands by my left. In essence, I can blend
very easily among Pentecostals to gather material for my writings.
What I have taken away from my scholarly investment in
Nigeria's Pentecostal cultures is an acute awareness of the fact that our formidable
Pentecostal establishment poses a serious threat to civic agency and
socio-political consciousness. Pentecostalism is easily one of the most
formidable instruments of national sedation in the hands of our irresponsible
rulers. Pentecostalism has been a dangerous impediment to the emergence of a
responsible followership in the Nigerian equation. By responsible followership
I mean that critical mass of citizens who are not only aware of their civic
rights but also understand the need to fight for such rights and demand
accountability from the rulership.
We have not even begun to see signs of the gestation of
such a responsible, critical followership since 1999 and the fatalistic opium
of Pentecostalism has played a considerable role in stymieing such auspicious
possibilities.
As I argued recently in an Internet listserv exchange with
Mr. Diipo Famakinwa, a socio-political activist, you are not likely to consider
constant electricity in the 21st century a right that must be fought for if
your mental universe is such that you want to mount the pulpit on Sunday and
give testimony that you went to the lord in prayer and fasting and came against
the spirit of darkness and, behold, “NEPA did not take light during the naming
ceremony of my child!”
Add to Pentecostal sedation the hordes of Almajiris and
talakawa Moslems that radical Islamism and the northern political elite also
brainwash in order to better robotize them as instruments of opportunistic
religious crises and you see how Pentecostalism and Islamism (the ideology that
is not to be confused with Islam), two supposedly avowed enemies, ironically
work together to prevent the emergence of a critical mass that is so vital to
socio-political progress.
It is against this backdrop that Pastor Adeboye's new political
consciousness and awakening must be welcome. Because of the immense powers of
social engineering that they wield, we need more prosperity Pentecostal pastors
- Chris Oyakhilome, David Oyedepo, Paul Adefarasin, etc - to embrace the Tunde
Bakare philosophy: that philosophy which does not see any contradiction between
Christian salvation and political conscientization; that philosophy which
encourages the flock not to see the occasional drop of water from the public
tap as a miracle to be celebrated during testimony hour on Sunday but as a
right they must troop to the streets to demand from Nigeria’s prurient rulers.
Pastor Adeboye, in particular, owes the Nigerian people
the restitution of his new investment in political praxis. It is hoped that
this is the beginning of a new effort to reposition his church. Under Pastor
Adeboye, the Redeem Christian Church of God has been in bed with our enemies in
the rulership for too long. During the Obasanjo era, every stupid rigger or
political jobber in town felt that the best way to celebrate every billion
successfully looted from us was to rush to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway for
photo-ops. Farida Waziri once flew to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway with her
entire office at our expense just to greet Pastor Adeboye. And Daddy General
Overseer indulged so many of these characters. It is no surprise that in the
protracted online struggle for meaning between James Ibori's Internet foot
soldiers and the forces of progress, a famous photo of Daddy General Overseer
welcoming Ibori with a warm handshake to his church was never far away from the
sites of discourse. In the build up to 2011, I won’t even be surprised to see
ignoble characters like Dimeji Bankole and Iyabo Obasanjo sauntering to the
Lagos-Ibadan expressway for their day in the sun with Daddy General Overseer.
It bears repeating: there is such a thing as company a
Pentecostal leader must not keep. Yes, one is aware of the argument that Pastor
Adeboye’s indiscriminate embrace of the criminals ruling Nigeria whenever they
go to his church is sanctioned by Christ’s open sesame to sinners: “I came not
to call the righteous but sinners.” But we are dealing here with totally
irredeemable criminals who loot, rig, loot again, and rig again before rushing
to mock God at Enoch Adeboye’s feet on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
As far as I am concerned, the recidivists ruling Nigeria
are not the type of sinners that Jesus came to call. Rather, I suggest we place
the rulers of Nigeria within the ambit of a more appropriate injunction: “Get
thee behind me Satan.” This is no time for any Pentecostal pastor not to know
the difference between the sort of embraceable sinners that Jesus came for and
the political Satans we must cast behind us for Nigeria to stand any chance of
a renaissance.
Consequently, Pastor Adeboye must not just talk the talk;
he must be prepared to walk the walk after the elections in 2011. For there
shall be riggers no matter what Attahiru Jega does and we, the people, shall
know the riggers. We always do. What we do not want to see is any of the usual
suspects rushing to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway for thanksgiving for
"winning" the election and being rewarded with a warm handshake and a
photo-op. We also do not want to hear talk of any of these despicable
characters in the rulership going to render unto God ten percent of every
successful loot. If they do, Pastor Adeboye should pick his koboko and broom
and do unto them what Jesus did to the moneychangers who defiled His Father’s
temple in Jerusalem. That is what we demand of Daddy General Overseer going
forward.
(This is an [2011] updated and expanded version of an article
that was first published in my NEXT column in August 2010)
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