₦airaland Forum

THE IMPERATIVE NEED TO CLEAN UP THE RELIGIOUS MESS IN NIGERIA

In the last few weeks there have been a lot of reports about the Nigerian church in the news. This article is to help the government in Nigeria address this issue once and for all.

I don’t believe there remains anyone in Nigeria who has not yet witnessed the excess of religious organizations exploiting and abusing parishioners under their care.

Mr. Jim Osayande Obazee, the Executive Secretary of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) in December 2012 announced that the FRC had designed an accounting system for churches, mosques and other not-for-profit organisations that would compel them to report their financial transactions periodically from January 2013.

To achieve this objective, he unveiled the Statement of Accounting Standards (SAS) 32 which stipulates that the financial statements of such organisations shall include Statement of Accounting Policies, Statement of Financial Position, Statement of Activities (income and expenditure), Statement of Changes in Net Assets, Statement of Cash flows, Notes on Accounts and Five-year Financial Summary. He also tried to introduce accountability to religious organizations by proposing for founders of churches to have a time limit to their leadership, similar to what was successfully executed with other professional and charitable organizations that have to do with public trust and money. According to Jim Obazee in his own words “Mosques and orthodox churches freely complied, but those Pentecostal churches called me to ask questions.
“They said ‘this church is church of God and we are accountable to God.’
“And I told them: ‘Very good, so you must take this church to heaven, you can’t operate it here’.
“When public funds are involved, government needs to ensure proper accountability”

These churches didn’t stop until they got Obazee sacked. This is how the recklessness of these one man show churches continued unabated until the building collapsed in the synagogue and in another church in the south/ south of the nation leading to a huge loss of innocent lives.

Religious organizations in Nigeria can no more continue to operate without a supervision and government oversight like in all advanced countries. Right now it’s impossible to ensure accountability through CAN or PFN because every church claims to be independent so they are gods to themselves.

I am therefore using this avenue to appeal to the Federal Government Of Nigeria and especially to President Tinubu to reconvene the committee to regulate religious activities and put it under Jim Obazee because he knows what to do. Obazee needs to finish the work he started. Below I’m offering my suggestions on how to clean up the religious mess in Nigeria. This is coming from my nearly 40 years of experience living in Europe. I’m using the one man churches as my basis for judgement especially since Obazee confessed that the mosques and orthodox churches are ready to cooperate with the government in this regard.

So how do we clean up the religious mess in Nigeria?

We need a government intervention and regulations in religious affairs in Nigeria asap especially thanks to the corrupt practices of Pentecostal and prosperity gospel merchants

Here is a rather comprehensive guide:

1. Pastors and imams must have minimum qualifications and experience set by law before they are allowed to practice.

2. Religious leaders must be checked that they don't have any past criminal records, it's not enough to simply say they are born again or changed.

3. Too many predators are entering into the pulpits with bad intentions on gullible people.

4. Religious leaders from other countries must be checked by submitting their papers and biometrics to Interpol. Too many criminals are trying to escape justice by disguising as missionaries same is true of boco haram terrorists.

6. No pastor, imam or church officials shall provide counseling services unless they have a degree in guidance and counseling or psychology or psychiatry from an accredited university and duly certified by the appropriate agency of government. This would reduce the number of women men and children raped trafficked and pimped by Pastors.

7. Churches and mosques should be classified as charities and nonprofit organizations with regular reports to the government of their charity and finances.

8. Churches and other religious organizations should not be used as cover for tax evasion or avoidance. They shouldn't be owning fuel stations, banks, shopping malls, hotels, printing press, fee paying universities, schools, etc. only their subsidiaries and affiliates can and they must not be tax exempt.

9. All money transactions of churches and mosques should be under surveillance and investigations when necessary to ensure they are not being used as cover for money launder wire fraud lottery scam mail fraud drug trafficking codeine trafficking and other illegal activities.

10. To sell food and drinks in the church the people involved must be certified to do so. Including the bread and wine for communion must meet the health standards of the land. This will help avoid food poisoning in the places of worship and even death.

11. Some so called churches are actually placing codeine, drugs and narcotics in members drinks, food and even communion to create a mass feeling of being in the spirit, deliverance and healing.

12. Churches and religious leaders should be prohibited from promising multiplication and increase of money just by giving money to the church or pastors. They should also be banned from issuing threats, curses to members who don’t give. All sorts of scams in the name of religion and God should be stopped. Like prophecy scam, miracle scam, wealth covenant scam, tithe for wealth scam should all be seen as offense.

13. Private jets and other ostentatious lifestyle commodities should be probed if they are coming from the offerings or legitimate businesses. If from offerings that should be viewed as punishable offense, with taxes paid.

14. Medical certification and proofs should be provided before miracles could be advertised on media by medical authorities of the land.

15. Churches and religious leaders should not be allowed to prescribe medicines or medical solutions like asking people to drink anointing oil, holy water, mantle or other witchcraft paraphernalia for healing and medical solutions.

16. Children should be prohibited from going through deliverance services and procedures or prosecution should follow.

17. Board of trustees must not consist of relatives and family members.

18. Assets cannot be acquired using tithes, offerings and donations in the name of pastor's and relatives.

19. Pastors and head of religious organizations should retire as regular civil servants at the age of 60-65 years.

20. Churches and other registered religious entities should not be handed over to family members let them go start their own churches.

21. Annual reports and audited financial statements must be filed with the relevant government agencies, and posted on the churches notice board and website.

22. Salaries of religious leaders and staff members should be made available and verifiable by auditors, accountants and church members.

23. If a church doesn't spend fifty percent of its income on charity they should be taxed and made accountable.

24. Churches must comply with the laws of the land. Especially in regulations relating to building, fire, water, zoning, sewage, bathroom facilities, parking, noise pollution, garbage disposal, etc.

25. Churches should be warned against abusive practices against citizens. Especially in deliverance services, or practices that could hurt people physically, emotionally, and psychologically. These should be punishable offenses by law.

May Nigeria succeed and may all her enemies live long to witness it.

For The Love of God, Church and Nation
Dr. Sunday Adelaja.


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He will surely be removed insha Allah.

The werey nearly killed my darling club. Arteta is next.

Fake news, fake prophet and fake prophecy

Na tiwa savage i just dey pity. The her noodles photos still dey on the internet. I still have it in my phone.

I have no comment to make. Na Muslim Muslim thing. Na family matter.

They should leave their borders opened for Nigerians to come in and help them out of the problem.

Only pastor Chris Okafor can answer that question for us.

Tinubu is next. No wonder he raned out of the country.

press9jatv:
Tinubu will win his Reelection bid. No doubt about it.

not if the election is free and fair.

O ti lo. E don go.

Yipeeeeeee. I'm hening less than 100k

That's the final stage of HIV/AIDS.

NANS wan use the opportunity to collect money from baba Seyi

Nigerians and rubbish be like bread and butter. Crossover ko, carry over ni

Na wa o. People don already dey die inside 2026 wey never reach one day. Bring back our 2025 jo.

Chelsea fans jubilate as Chelsea inquired about Finidi George availability.

The man for the job

Manchester united should please sign him. We need him more than he needs us.

njokuuche77:
This is Nigeria’s cup to chase. The squad, the depth, the hunger, everything is there. One game at a time. Let’s go Super Eagles.

where was the hunger during the world cup qualifiers?

All na guess work. Baba no see anything.

If you had given me just 10k, I would have gotten 3 of that for you from my neighborhood. The only thing is that you'll only come to pick them up at night around 2am.

Thank God it's wasn't pastor nakademos chris Okafor church. I for weak.

Poverty is a cause and a decease

Awon agbako pastors, destiny changers dede.

Join workers or allow your child join worker and see how youngi will turn to oldies, from their dress rules they give to put you under as a silave .
Instead of them to admit to their lack of self control sexu*lly, they will ask workers to be dressing like mourners.
You slav€ for free and they still deprive you of living. Awon ika dede. Won shenu womu bi onigiri

Pix one was 10 years ago as a full member of MFM
Pix two 10 years after escaping from the dungeon.
I can’t stop looking at the picture one 😫😩

Awon arogobogoje


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Village people una no try at all o

Anthony Joshua & A Nation Wrapped in Lawlessness!

My sincere condolence to the families of those who lost their lives in the ghastly accident.
May God grant them the fortitude to bear the loses.
Meanwhile the ghastly auto accident involving the world heavy weight boxing champion has once again exposed the lawlessness and the systematic failures that has and is destroying Nigeria
You dont need to be a road safety officer to know that Anthony Joshua and his co-travelers were travelling with exessively dangerous speed putting the lives of other road users at risks. The impact of SUV tells the story.
Do Anthony Joshua and his friends travel with such an insane speed on UK roads and highways where they live? Never.
Because in the UK there are consequences for excessive speed and boxing champions are not excused from paying the price for overspending.
Like here, the UK has speed limit for both its inner city roads and highways and once you drive above the speed limit, the speed monitoring cameras would pick up your license place and send citation straight to your your home
Here you would’ve be given a court date to come explain why you were traveling above the speed limits or pay a fine of $100.(I don’t know what they pay in the UK)
Nigeria has a speed limits on its roads and highways but as they say” you do like Romans while in Rome” when you leave a country where there is law and order where no one is above to a lawless country where the rich, celebrities and the powerful are above the law, the country becomes a huge joke.
If this auto crash occurred in the UK, UK police would request alcohol and drug tests for the driver during autopsy and even the passengers to determine if they were driving under the influence:DUI which can lead to prosecution and suspension of driving.
But what happened in Nigeria? The police and road safety officers are not asking questions
Rather the president, Senate President and governors are calling! The National Assembly may even move a motion to suspend plenary for Anthony Joshua. Governors are spending hours in the hospital. The same governors who would use their siren blaring convoys to push ordinary Nigerians into the ditch and wont care if they land in hospitals
The same governor who run the two major states in Nigeri:Lagos and Ogun with near zero emergecy response team to help accident victims on thier state roads( Anthony Joshua was dragged out of the car wreckage by passersby) the same clowns who call themselves governors are now keeping vigil in the hospital for Anthony Joshua
Nigerians are even shouting that Nigeria has happened to Anthony Joshua.
They are blamming the country for him. Even the government is blaming their dangerously bad roads. No one is talking about overspending! Yes. Thats how we roll in Naija.
We blame everything for our political leaders, Imams, pastors and celebrities. They do no wrong. The wrong only do them
I listened to news report about the accident on CNN as I was writing this piece and it says
“Heavy weight champion Anthony Joshua was involved in a ghastly motor accident in which two people died on the road authorities described as the most dangerous road in Nigeria”
Yes. Nigeria authorities are blaming the accident on “the most dangerous road in Nigeria” not on excessive speed that may have been caused by alcohol or drug intake.
And just wait to hear what many very religious Nigerians would blame the accident on: spiritual attack and attempt by the enemies to kill Anthony Joshua.
Many Nigeria would come to this timeline to question my audacity to even write this!

Thats how we roll.

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I'm very sure it wasn't only money that the alfa collected. He must have collected her body too.

Another criminal coming back home tonight join his people in Nigeria.

Did you did it? If you didn't did it, you have nothing to worry about.

Konjiboii:
E sure me die say no be BAT write this thing

I'm sure na Buhari write am.

Carry on baba Seyi. Nigerians can only bark, they can't bite. In October bring another that would inflict more pains on the people especially those on nairaland.