(Ijabla Raymond)--“There is a lot wrong with the church in
Nigeria today - Pentecostal pastors are in competition with themselves to
accumulate wealth from the tithes and offering of their members; some will stop
at nothing to exploit the desperate situations of our people to enrich
themselves including making bogus claims about faith healing, paying dodgy
characters to fake miracles on stage, making fuzzy pronouncements which
they call prophecies, giving patients false reassurances and encouraging them
to stop taking their medications with devastating consequences; some pastors
own private jets bought with the tithes of their members some of whom cannot
even feed their families; many of them sleep with their vulnerable female
members who come to them for help.
“A medical doctor would lose their licence to practise
or could even get jailed if they did that to their patient, but somehow our
society has different standards for religious institutions and their leaders.
Pastors have god-like statures and a cult-like following, which can overwhelm
their naive members; and this often stops members from speaking out against
sexual or psychological abuse. One thing we can learn from history is that when
accountability is lacking, then a culture of abuse, corruption and exploitation
becomes entrenched in a society and its institutions e.g. the sexual abuse of
teenage boys by Catholic priests.
“… Personally, I am not convinced that religion makes
people good; indeed, believers are guilty of every sin that their holy books
accuse unbelievers of. This is about accountability, a quality that is grossly
lacking in Nigerian society. It is the reason there is a church on practically
every street but our country consistently tops the list of the most corrupt
nations of the world….”
