Nigeria is a country where powerful cults dot the landscape and their powerful leaders straddle the populace like colossi. They ride on the fickle minds of their followers and create a culture where the worship of the leader is king, second only to the worship of Mammon, the powerful god of money spoken about in the bible.

The bedrock of the stupendous wealth of these leaders lies in obscure Old Testament passages quoted excessively to frighten their hapless followers. Once the Malachi sword has been made to hang like the sword of Damocles over the minds of the gullible, their hypnotised sheep empty regularly and without fail, ten per cent of their earnings for life into the offering baskets of the Man of God. Any attempt to question the high and mighty Man of God is silenced with a barrage of curses which would make even Lucifer blush crimson bright, the brightness overshadowing the flames of hell.

And so, the reality that any early Christian Pastor who would have attempted to teach that the Malachi curse applies to gentile Christians would have been quickly branded a heretic escapes even the most biblically versed Cultish Christian.

In fact, the curse in Malachi was for those Israelites who did not follow strictly God’s formula for tithing. Early gentile Christians would be told straight out that because they are not Israelites, they cannot meet the strict rules required for them to be compliant. They can give ten per cent of their income if they so choose but are not under any curse for not doing so.

Our MOG would curse a people who are not equipped to meet the strict formula set out in order to be compliant.

1. They do not live in Israel neither did they inherit the lands in physical Israel.

2. They are not the physical children of Israel

3. They are not farmers in food stock or livestock on the inherited physical land of Israel

4. They do not give the tithe to the widows or orphans or strangers or those from the tribe of Levi

5. They do not eat the tithe in celebration or change it to money and buy food, wine, strong drink (kai kai) and make merry in the physical place God chooses.

6. Even outside of the Moses Tithe, they do not give a one off tithe like Abraham from items plundered in war.


(Mama go sick for village, her son who was lovingly straddled on her back while she bent over in the hot sun to fry akara to send him to school would say, ‘I can’t give you money to go to hospital, I only have my tithe, I don’t want a curse’. Or worse still, they begin the divide and rule, ‘mama, don’t call me, my Pastor saw a vision and said you are a witch!’)

The single-minded desire and pursuit of money as a reflection of spirituality is at the core of the teaching. The consequence of monetary gain being the yardstick for measuring spirituality is myriad.

1. It waters down the shame with which a society approaches stolen wealth. The self-styled MOG accepts money whatever the source. Politicians whose forte is stealing blind the populace causing bad roads (accidents), poor health care (think of all the precious babies dying) etc are readily welcome and given front seat pews. The wealth of the MOG is made up of blood money.

2. The MOG are very, very reluctant to chastise those who provide a very large percentage of their stupendous wealth. Woe betides the stupid wife who attempts to approach pastor and tell of domestic violence in the hands of pastor’s pet (money donating). Na imaginary wozai pastor go the give the yeye babe (‘endure my dear’, ‘pray harder’, ‘nto’!)

3. Our young ones aim to get rich whatever the means after all, honour and fame in society and church are theirs once the Benjamins roll in.

4. The poor (treasured of our precious Lord Jesus Christ) are viewed as worse than lepers. They are the outward reflection of the most profane curse our cultish clan can conjure. In their haste to flee from any association (whether it be giving or loving), they quote biblical verses taken out of context e.g.’ the poor will always be with us’ is used as a cop out for not helping forgetting that since the Lord Jesus is not with us we should give the poor our most treasured like the lady did with the alabaster oil. His admonition was that she could pour it out for Him then because he was present on earth.

5. The great MOG downplay the fact that on the Last Day, the measure will be what you did for others and not for the great MOG. In their followers haste to follow Christ, the fact that their utmost should be for the poor and downtrodden is only whispered and never shouted loud from the rooftops (The MOG don’t want people to take matters into their own hands by helping the poor directly; the source of ready funds for the MOGs empire will be taken away and given for the poor, it would deplete his pocket!). Some would say they want a prophet’s reward, all well and good but how about going for Our Lord Jesus’ reward? When you give to the poor, you give to our Lord Jesus!

6. The greatest problem of all is that instead of seeing Jesus when they see the poor, they see an aberration, a stigma, an abomination forgetting that “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren, that you do unto me.”

7. The Sheep become so sated in the calming hypnotic verses that they momentarily forget the’ siegelike’, warlike zone they live in. Craters for roads, appalling healthcare, epileptic power, poor children wandering the streets, sick and dying people for whom scientific breakthroughs abound but who have no access etc.

8. A people not so distracted by the evil marriage of the politicians and clergy would readily see their plight for what it is and hold the politicians to account.

9. But the politicians are smart; they pacify the MOG who in turn pacifies his followers.

When you are sucking on the teat of hypnotic and misapplied verses you go off into a stupor, content in your own little world ignoring the many whose travails of the soul cannot be uttered, those who matter the most to Him whom we profess to love.