₦airaland Forum

13 Days To Go....EASTER SINGLES MEGA HANGOUT

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You are the Chief scammer your self. With the downward trend of the market, you still have the mind to scam people. I fear you

Sadly these "gods of men" are leading a lot of people away from God via their warped version of Christ's Gospel.

I just pray that the eyes of the young people worshiping these modern day Pharisees, these "yahoo boi pastors " will be opened on time before they start using their hard earned money to buy jets like their seniors in the business of church mongering .

May God help us all!

Amen

Deji Yusuf, this is the main reason your life has been stagnant. Have you ever seen any successful man criticizing men of God? It is always the same poor and unfulfilled folks with entitlement mentality. Visit Coza in Abuja and ask yourself if you are more intelligent, rich, fulfilled, educated, and informed than the members of the church. What have you done with your life the world can see? Upon your abuse and criticism, is Pastor Biodun even aware of your existence? Ask your family members if they won't trade you for him without thinking twice. When unfulfilled kids like you feel they have the authority over pastors, then you know that insanity is to be treated.

easybussiness:
Coza

Chubhie:
Bravo deji yesufu! This guy deserves to head the free sheep movement. I know truth when I read one.

He is a Muslim he is not qualified to question these. men of God he should go and question his imams.

We all know them because the bible says by their fruit ye shall know them.

well who am I to criticize a man of God....he is answerable to God alone..only God knows those who are truly his


I prefer to go to churches that preachers preach the undiluted word of God..the ones that preach about; salvation,against ungodliness, being effective In the things of God

if our present day preachers will in humility like john the baptist say, I must decrease and Christ must increase john 3;30...then the church is on it's way to becoming that beautiful unstained bride

No wonder serious advertisers and young professionals don't visit nairaland again. So many kids here.

balmofgilead:
Why wont you people let us 'slaves' be?why do you people care about us so much eh.leave us to be decieved ahn ahnn!

something is wrong with you.. ..do you know that useless pastor is in trouble for allowing the ESE Walter to abandone her faith

nonsense

I don't understand why you people will sit to judge others.

traeces:
Muttleylaff, I don't hold brief for Pastor Biodun and I have no need to make you change your opinion of him. I just felt like testifying about how God helped me away from my judgemental attitude. That's all!

This is the mindset that has put the Nigerian masses at the mercy of those who exploit them day and night.....No matter how much we hide under "thou shall not judge" the truth will always be said....To think that a public figure can do anything andbget away with it afterall I knows "thou shall not judge".....My brother, pls don't get me wrong and I'm it in anyway condeminh you, but if you and I continue to take this path of "thou shall not judge" then this country and society has got no hope.....

We all talk about developed countries, we pray for our country to be like theirs but we are not ready to do it the way it's done overthere....Ask yourself the honest question....do you think he would have gotten away with it in America?....No way, because the most fundamental method to keep a society sane, is public accountability....any society that looses that due to s ycophancy will never grow.

Fourwinds:
something is wrong with you.. ..do you know that useless pastor is in trouble for allowing the ESE Walter to abandone her faith

nonsense

Who are you!go away satan!get thee behind me.ese walters police go to hell.

traeces:
Muttleylaff, I don't hold brief for Pastor Biodun and I have no need to make you change your opinion of him. I just felt like testifying about how God helped me away from my judgemental attitude. That's all!

you forget that Jesus Christ condemned the Pharisees multiple times in the Bible....maybe he shouldn't have judged them as well, right?


Your arguments lack substance. You just sound like someone who got so comfortable, he started questioning his own beliefs. I'm sure the coziness of COZA did so much to inform your latest standing.

traeces:
Biodun Fatoyinbo first came to my notice after Ese Walter's revelation and I carefully followed the story and dropped my opinion on it in a nairaland post of August 2013. See the post :www.nairaland.com/1414171/ese-walter-coza-pastor-biodun

After passing my "judgement" in that opinion and waiting for years for the "robust" reply from Fatoyinbo which did not come, I concluded the guy was not a christian. Anytime I heard someone attends Fatoyinbo's church, I put him or her in Fatoyinbo's category. I have 2 bosom friends who incidentally are cousins who attend the church and I remember expressing my disgust at one of them for attending COZA- Fatoyinbo's church.

However, on 3rd March 2018, I travelled from Benue to attend a program where Don Moen was ministering in Fatoyinbo's church. I arrived on an Okada too.

First thing I noticed was the coziness. I don't think any church any where in the world can ever be cozier. Fully air condition auditorium, completely rugged, giant sized electronic billboards, comfy chairs, state of the art sound system and music equipments, I can go on and on but I refused to be impressed.

While we waited for Don Moen to take the stage, young men and women attired in jeans trousers and unbottoned shirts with white t-shirts inside were ministering powerfully in songs BUT I COULDN'T BE BLESSED cos I was processing how some of them probably just left a bed of fornication to come to church in my poor mind. Then it hit me: I wasn't in any way better than anyone of them. Scripture after scripture jumped at my spirit and I became humble. One of the scriptures that came to me that helped me truly participate in that meeting was "Wherever two of you shall gather together in my name..." I reasoned that even if every other person here was not a christian, I was and Don Moen was so God was in the building.

My final "humbility" happened when Fatoyinbo took the mic. He spoke from a depth and with an auction I could tell was the Holy Ghost. I realized that day that Fatoyinbo may be guilty of everything ESE Walter accused him of but very importantly, I am no judge. It is between him and God at the end of the day. Who knows what "my own" man of God may be doing in secret that nobody knows-God forbid. In any case, I preferred one who kept quite in the face of such accusations to one who fabricated lies and did plenty things to cover up.

That was how I came to see Fatoyinbo as a brother in Christ and his church as a family of God upon the earth. Like all of us, he is a work in progress and not perfect but we must desist from seating as judges over his life or any other person's.

Your own talk con plenty pass op own.
Inshort, you are now a strong Cozite, ba?
[img]https://media1./images/fca346e1ae3c4a50f68174089ebd8aa7/tenor.gif?itemid=9760861[/img]

balmofgilead:
Who are you!go away satan!get thee behind me.ese walters police go to hell.

.

traeces:
Muttleylaff, I don't hold brief for Pastor Biodun and I have no need to make you change your opinion of him. I just felt like testifying about how God helped me away from my judgemental attitude. That's all!

The Bible says the Holy Spirit will teach us to know what is right and by what is right, we would know those who are false. Do you honestly think it is possible not to judge? Please, stop being a weakling. We are to expose false teachers. How can we expose without judging.

Christ never said that judgement itself was a bad thing. He only condemned hypocritical judgement. For instance, if you want to remove the log from someone's eyes be sure your own eyes are free.

balmofgilead:
Who are you!go away satan!get thee behind me.ese walters police go to hell.

look at this one ...who is Satan or Satan agent...it is evil doers ....that is what that pastor is.. .sleeping with a church member. if he was a politician you would have condemned his actions because it is abuse of office..... what a nonsense.....

Dude you write well!!! There is still hope in Nigeria

Same story from the mentally deprived enemy of the church. Poverty, frustration, and lack of direction typify their lives. They only find fulfillment is attacking the pastors and the church...the only requirement for their job is 'impaired upbringing'....They are not in church, but they think they have to dictate to church....they called the church members fool, but their lives are not in any way as good as those in the church....A poor man telling a rich man how to spend. An ignorant fellow trying to teach the learned....He went to Niyi Eboda's church on Okada...yet, he is against the church prospering while he should be grateful that someone is providing solution to his inherited problem . Biodun Fatoyinbo....I know...but who knows Yusuf? Yusuf couldn't find fulfillment after school, situations of life has obviously made him to believe his plight is caused by the successful people in the society. Frustration makes one to be highly critical of success. I am sure if he is sued now to clear all the allegations against pastors, he will bring his entire family to come to beg. We give in church because we have an understanding and not because we are forced or cajoled. When we don't give, no one arrests us or abuses us for not giving. But these poor and frustrated, jobless, pained Freeze brothers are not the ones to tell us what we do in church. I am not a member of COZA, but if this Yusuf thinks he is right, he should visit COZA Abuja next week, he will realize how low he is in life.

safarigirl:
you forget that Jesus Christ condemned the Pharisees multiple times in the Bible....maybe he shouldn't have judged them as well, right?


Your arguments lack substance. You just sound like someone who got so comfortable, he started questioning his own beliefs. I'm sure the coziness of COZA did so much to inform your latest standing.

Exactly.

VBCampaign:
Biodun Fatoyinbo aka "Robust Reply" Visits Ibadan

by Deji Yesufu

A few weeks ago, I saw a billboard that announced that Biodun Fatoyinbo was coming to Akobo, Ibadan. He would be guest minister to Gbeminiyi Eboda’s church – the Harvest House Christian Centre. I made up my mind that I was going to attend.

At least to behold this gentleman who had long promised Nigerians a “robust reply” but whom somehow has refused to speak on the matter almost five years after the allegations of his sexual philandering hit the news in this country.

Gbeminiyi Eboda is the reigning “man of God” in Akobo, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, this moment. Mr. Eboda has not always been big. He used to pastor a tiny congregation in Basorun, Ibadan, in a certain building called “Iya Ni Wura House”. There his church shared the building with two or three other churches within the office complex. Today he pastors the “Alpha Cathedral” in Akobo.

The one and only time I listened to Mr. Eboda was when he was a guest speaker at the Vine Branch Church, Mokola; where he ministered at a Tuesday service – about 7 years ago. That day I was not impressed with his preaching at all. For whatever reason best known to him, he chose to preach like T. D. Jakes. Mimicking his manner of speaking and all that. When I saw Mr. Eboda this last Wednesday, he had indeed “evolved and increased”. He was no longer preaching like T. D. Jakes.

Gbeminiyi Eboda and his congregation have built something close to a cathedral at the Iyana Olopa Bustop at Akobo, Ibadan. It is arguably the fastest growing congregation in that vicinity of Ibadan. Populated mostly by young people, some of whom are young and rising professionals in various fields of occupation in the humble city of Ibadan.

On the street that Eboda built his church, there are no less than seven other churches – all competing for members. I noticed that even the break away Bishop Bolu Martins, who left David Oyedepo a few years ago, also has his church facing that of Eboda. I also noticed the conspicuous absence of the pastors of these churches in Mr. Eboda “revival” meetings.

I arrived the opening night of the meeting on the 14th of March, 2018 on top of an Okada at exactly 6pm. It was my first time at Mr. Eboda’s church. As I paid my fares, I noticed Mr. Eboda arrive the same venue in a Pajero Jeep. Two rows of about 30 young men and women had been set up, in the midst of which Mr. Eboda walked into the church. As he walked, these young men and women were singing his praise, while he waved at them like a newly elected government official.

That night, Mr. Biodun Fatoyinbo was to be the guest preacher. Mr. Eboda introduced him to the congregation with fanfare and after a short “worship” session, Fatoyinbo launches into the meat of his discuss for that night. Usually in meetings like this, the invited minister spends the first few minutes of his message to “praise” his host; stating that he is the best to have happened to that congregation since the invention of pounded yam.

Fatoyinbo said nothing less; just that he said a little more and I just could not but wonder at how things have deteriorated in these charismatic assemblies since I stopped attending them some four years ago.

Fatoyinbo said “I knew that Pastor Eboda will make it…” That statement is pregnant with meaning because Fatoyinbo goes on to explain how he had always been friends with Eboda when he was little known.

How he used to visit his home when he was a student in Ilorin. He states that this was his first time visiting Eboda’s church. And I just could not but wonder at the dichotomy of these words: you never visit your “friend”, until this friend of yours built a cathedral – one large enough to contain your person.

These prosperity preachers never change, I said to myself.

Fatoyinbo continues: “Heaven has come to Ibadan…” I say to myself: I can imagine. “Eboda is a great man. He oozes out wisdom. He is a genuine man of God. Pray for the gift of such a friend… This is a church to cling to… Only beautiful people come to my meetings… I have come to master three things in life: what I say, what I think and where my money goes to…”

The last remark elicits a lot of laughter from the congregation as the guest minister invites us to take our seat. He launches into his text for the night and this is where I must make a point. Fatoyinbo is preaching a message in this opening night of the meeting themed “evolve and increase”.

It is incumbent on him to find a biblical text that will support this theme. The trouble however with preachers like him is that they go into the Bible, find a text that supports a particular theme or topic, reap it out of context and make that text say what they want it to say; not what it really says.

Fatoyinbo goes for the mother text of all Faith Preachers: Mark 11:24. It reads: “Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them”.

Mr. Fatoyinbo closes his Bible, turns to the congregation and asks: “when do you have them?” He goes on to answer: “You have them the very moment you pray.” Then he ditches the text and proceed to tell the congregation what he wants them to know and not what the text is saying: “You are made for movement… God expects you to go forward… You need to continually evolve and increase… There is more out there for you… Everything you will be, you are already… Not one person here will miss their destiny… This is the least that you can be… The Lord has instructed me to declare things… Prayer is not only the key, it is the master key…”

Preaching the same sort of nonsense that prosperity preachers long before him have been preaching, Fatoyinbo fans the embers of the congregation’s ego and self, and positions their mental state to believe that God exists to satisfy their lusts.

He takes a perfectly spiritual tool, prayer, and uses it in a clearly unspiritual manner, to bring about the desires of the congregation. The prosperity theme of the meeting remains: evolve and increase.

It is the same with all the other big churches in Nigeria, including the “Open Heavens” and the “Shiloh” or whatever “Experience” that people are seeking in these churches. The aim is to use God to satisfy human lust. God somehow has lost control of his world and he is now depending on men to make him do certain things: particularly to brings blessings and prosperity on all men, so preach these men.

To drive home his point, Fatoyinbo laces his messages with anecdotes that will arouse the greed of the congregation. He explains that he does not think he has arrived. He has a friend in the USA who pastors a big church – this guy is just 36 years old. He explains that Beyonce once visited this church and gives this young man $10 million to advance the gospel. In the midst of the hues and cries, I wonder at the congregation and thought to myself: do these people know who Beyonce is? What has Beyonce done to ever advance the gospel through her music that to plainly glorifies sex and vanity? Will a gift of $10M suddenly absolve her of all her ways?

Fatoyinbo is not done with stories. On his second night preaching, he tells the story of how he was given a beautiful car which he discovers that his five year old son loves so much. So one morning, he calls the boy and gives him the car. He told that story to say that although his son owns the car, he cannot drive it. He wanted the congregation to grow in maturity to be able to own and use the things God wants to give them.

While the congregation hails his point, the other fact of how pastors subtly or directly compel members to give them things is carefully overlooked. The vision of the pursuit of mundane things etched on the listeners is not seen. And the disguised pride in his own wealth comes out in a veiled form. He tells us of how he had to silence a proud preacher once. He simply took the man around his congregation and showed him his wealth. The congregation was just like “wow!”

I have intentionally reported Fatoyinbo in the negative in this article because I am hopeful that Nigerian young people would some day discover the deceitful manner ministers like him can defraud them.

But Fatoyinbo was not all negative in the two nights encounter I had with him at Eboda’s church. He came out to me as a man that has minimum education: he speaks very well. His father was a politician and he and his siblings were raised with some silver spoon.

He regarded himself as a “rich kid”, who got away with certain things in the home of his relatives when he visited them in the village because his father had money. After making that statement, Fatoyinbo prayed that the congregation will have the kind of money that will make them “somebody” in society.

It was at the second night of his ministration that Mr. Eboda introduces Fatoyinbo as “his lordship”. Where I sat, I just cringed at the manner to which these men take the praise of other men to.

I have long suggested that two of Nigeria’s leading trouble are her politicians and her preachers – especially those of the Prosperity/Pentecostal ilk. While Nigeria’s politicians defraud her, the preachers lend legitimacy to their actions. Fatoyinbo himself alluded to this when he said that what most young ministers do now is to come to Abuja and be errand boys to politicians. He says these young men will spend hours praying for politicians and when they are done, they are rewarded with some cash as honorarium. As he recounted this story, I say to myself: but, sir, you also left Ilorin for Abuja at some point too now. It is working for you; hopefully, it would work for these boys too.

I end this essay by stating emphatically that there is nothing Christian in many of the gatherings that call themselves “revivals” in Nigeria Pentecostal churches today. They are simply the gathering of a people to rub the ego of one man and to source for more membership for him. Pentecostal churches are ponzi schemes that cause the people at the top to increase in wealth as their base line followership increases.

These gatherings are devoid of the Christian gospel and the foremost call of the Christian church, which is to make disciples for Jesus, is not even a motive for them. The whole motive is to get members, so as to grow a church, that will have people “sow” into the life of the “man of God”.

In late 2013, a young woman by the name of Ese Walters came out to accuse Mr. Biodun Fatoyinbo of indulging in months of sexual philandering with her. She claimed that they both carried out the acts in hotels far away from this country. She had severed relations with the pastor as of the time of making these allegations. Her own way of finding healing was to make the whole matter public.

Mr. Fatoyinbo came under fire from that moment on. The Sunday after the scandal broke out, he promised Nigerians to give a “robust reply” to the allegations. Five years down the line there has been no response. Rather, Mr. Fatoyinbo has only continue to “evolve and increase” in ministry, bringing his friend, Gbeminiyi Eboda along with him.

These men are in their early forties and they are the new face of Pentecostalism in our nation. As they continue their business, some of us will continue to track them and hold them accountable to their words and ways. The only people one pities in this whole drama are the young men and women, whose mental faculties these men eat into with their nice words. Their judgement lingers not (2 Peter 2:1-4).

I spent fifteen years of my youth in these environment and I know the toxin these people are instilling into the life of young people. I advise that parents should guard their children and wards, and keep them from these people.

http://mouthpiece.com.ng/biodun-fatoyinbo-aka-robust-reply-visits-ibadan/

Abeggi, the pastorpreneurs who keep siring disgustingly behaved Christians again smh

balmofgilead:
Why wont you people let us 'slaves' be?why do you people care about us so much eh.leave us to be decieved ahn ahnn!

Because folks like you are ruining our country.

AZeD1:
Because folks like you are ruining our country.

I can see you dont have anything to say.goodbye

MuttleyLaff:
Have nothing to do with the useless works that darkness produces.
Instead, expose them for what they are
- Ephesians 5:11

possibly the most fitting reply I have seen on nl in a while

balmofgilead:
I can see you dont have anything to say.goodbye

There's nothing to say.

traeces:
Biodun Fatoyinbo first came to my notice after Ese Walter's revelation and I carefully followed the story and dropped my opinion on it in a nairaland post of August 2013. See the post :www.nairaland.com/1414171/ese-walter-coza-pastor-biodun

After passing my "judgement" in that opinion and waiting for years for the "robust" reply from Fatoyinbo which did not come, I concluded the guy was not a christian. Anytime I heard someone attends Fatoyinbo's church, I put him or her in Fatoyinbo's category. I have 2 bosom friends who incidentally are cousins who attend the church and I remember expressing my disgust at one of them for attending COZA- Fatoyinbo's church.

However, on 3rd March 2018, I travelled from Benue to attend a program where Don Moen was ministering in Fatoyinbo's church. I arrived on an Okada too.

First thing I noticed was the coziness. I don't think any church any where in the world can ever be cozier. Fully air condition auditorium, completely rugged, giant sized electronic billboards, comfy chairs, state of the art sound system and music equipments, I can go on and on but I refused to be impressed.

While we waited for Don Moen to take the stage, young men and women attired in jeans trousers and unbottoned shirts with white t-shirts inside were ministering powerfully in songs BUT I COULDN'T BE BLESSED cos I was processing how some of them probably just left a bed of fornication to come to church in my poor mind. Then it hit me: I wasn't in any way better than anyone of them. Scripture after scripture jumped at my spirit and I became humble. One of the scriptures that came to me that helped me truly participate in that meeting was "Wherever two of you shall gather together in my name..." I reasoned that even if every other person here was not a christian, I was and Don Moen was so God was in the building.

My final "humbility" happened when Fatoyinbo took the mic. He spoke from a depth and with an auction I could tell was the Holy Ghost. I realized that day that Fatoyinbo may be guilty of everything ESE Walter accused him of but very importantly, I am no judge. It is between him and God at the end of the day. Who knows what "my own" man of God may be doing in secret that nobody knows-God forbid. In any case, I preferred one who kept quite in the face of such accusations to one who fabricated lies and did plenty things to cover up.

That was how I came to see Fatoyinbo as a brother in Christ and his church as a family of God upon the earth. Like all of us, he is a work in progress and not perfect but we must desist from seating as judges over his life or any other person's.

We look for excuses to justify wrongdoings of supposed men of god.
All will be well.

Jaynom:
Pastor "Hushpuppy"

I can't stop laughing!

The Pentecostal pastors of this generation aren't for frugality but flamboyance outright showoff!

#ProudlyAnglican

You goofed the moment you said "God has some how lost control of the earth"

No mind the guy deji

balmofgilead:
Deji yusuf you are seriously messed in mind body and spirit.you took your time to write absolute jargonnn!Go and rest biko.just take a look at you.you attended the church thrice just to judge and dissect this men.may you be judged and dissected in the same way so that you would feel how it is.you know nothing.

aproko in a very innovative and Behind mannee

Hmmmmmmm it's deep. the almighty God will continue to teach us more.

If u think prosperity preachers are the problem, then attend deeper life or orthodox church and leave us alone. I believe there is more to thhe relationship between ese walter and the pastor, ese is not telling us the complete truth, I respect adeboye, kumuyi, olukoya, etc but there is a limit to what they will tell me to do that I will do. How can an educated woman sleep with a pastor just because he is a pastor, there is something fishy about it.

VBCampaign:
Biodun Fatoyinbo aka "Robust Reply" Visits Ibadan

by Deji Yesufu

A few weeks ago, I saw a billboard that announced that Biodun Fatoyinbo was coming to Akobo, Ibadan. He would be guest minister to Gbeminiyi Eboda’s church – the Harvest House Christian Centre. I made up my mind that I was going to attend.

At least to behold this gentleman who had long promised Nigerians a “robust reply” but whom somehow has refused to speak on the matter almost five years after the allegations of his sexual philandering hit the news in this country.

Gbeminiyi Eboda is the reigning “man of God” in Akobo, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, this moment. Mr. Eboda has not always been big. He used to pastor a tiny congregation in Basorun, Ibadan, in a certain building called “Iya Ni Wura House”. There his church shared the building with two or three other churches within the office complex. Today he pastors the “Alpha Cathedral” in Akobo.

The one and only time I listened to Mr. Eboda was when he was a guest speaker at the Vine Branch Church, Mokola; where he ministered at a Tuesday service – about 7 years ago. That day I was not impressed with his preaching at all. For whatever reason best known to him, he chose to preach like T. D. Jakes. Mimicking his manner of speaking and all that. When I saw Mr. Eboda this last Wednesday, he had indeed “evolved and increased”. He was no longer preaching like T. D. Jakes.

Gbeminiyi Eboda and his congregation have built something close to a cathedral at the Iyana Olopa Bustop at Akobo, Ibadan. It is arguably the fastest growing congregation in that vicinity of Ibadan. Populated mostly by young people, some of whom are young and rising professionals in various fields of occupation in the humble city of Ibadan.

On the street that Eboda built his church, there are no less than seven other churches – all competing for members. I noticed that even the break away Bishop Bolu Martins, who left David Oyedepo a few years ago, also has his church facing that of Eboda. I also noticed the conspicuous absence of the pastors of these churches in Mr. Eboda “revival” meetings.

I arrived the opening night of the meeting on the 14th of March, 2018 on top of an Okada at exactly 6pm. It was my first time at Mr. Eboda’s church. As I paid my fares, I noticed Mr. Eboda arrive the same venue in a Pajero Jeep. Two rows of about 30 young men and women had been set up, in the midst of which Mr. Eboda walked into the church. As he walked, these young men and women were singing his praise, while he waved at them like a newly elected government official.

That night, Mr. Biodun Fatoyinbo was to be the guest preacher. Mr. Eboda introduced him to the congregation with fanfare and after a short “worship” session, Fatoyinbo launches into the meat of his discuss for that night. Usually in meetings like this, the invited minister spends the first few minutes of his message to “praise” his host; stating that he is the best to have happened to that congregation since the invention of pounded yam.

Fatoyinbo said nothing less; just that he said a little more and I just could not but wonder at how things have deteriorated in these charismatic assemblies since I stopped attending them some four years ago.

Fatoyinbo said “I knew that Pastor Eboda will make it…” That statement is pregnant with meaning because Fatoyinbo goes on to explain how he had always been friends with Eboda when he was little known.

How he used to visit his home when he was a student in Ilorin. He states that this was his first time visiting Eboda’s church. And I just could not but wonder at the dichotomy of these words: you never visit your “friend”, until this friend of yours built a cathedral – one large enough to contain your person.

These prosperity preachers never change, I said to myself.

Fatoyinbo continues: “Heaven has come to Ibadan…” I say to myself: I can imagine. “Eboda is a great man. He oozes out wisdom. He is a genuine man of God. Pray for the gift of such a friend… This is a church to cling to… Only beautiful people come to my meetings… I have come to master three things in life: what I say, what I think and where my money goes to…”

The last remark elicits a lot of laughter from the congregation as the guest minister invites us to take our seat. He launches into his text for the night and this is where I must make a point. Fatoyinbo is preaching a message in this opening night of the meeting themed “evolve and increase”.

It is incumbent on him to find a biblical text that will support this theme. The trouble however with preachers like him is that they go into the Bible, find a text that supports a particular theme or topic, reap it out of context and make that text say what they want it to say; not what it really says.

Fatoyinbo goes for the mother text of all Faith Preachers: Mark 11:24. It reads: “Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them”.

Mr. Fatoyinbo closes his Bible, turns to the congregation and asks: “when do you have them?” He goes on to answer: “You have them the very moment you pray.” Then he ditches the text and proceed to tell the congregation what he wants them to know and not what the text is saying: “You are made for movement… God expects you to go forward… You need to continually evolve and increase… There is more out there for you… Everything you will be, you are already… Not one person here will miss their destiny… This is the least that you can be… The Lord has instructed me to declare things… Prayer is not only the key, it is the master key…”

Preaching the same sort of nonsense that prosperity preachers long before him have been preaching, Fatoyinbo fans the embers of the congregation’s ego and self, and positions their mental state to believe that God exists to satisfy their lusts.

He takes a perfectly spiritual tool, prayer, and uses it in a clearly unspiritual manner, to bring about the desires of the congregation. The prosperity theme of the meeting remains: evolve and increase.

It is the same with all the other big churches in Nigeria, including the “Open Heavens” and the “Shiloh” or whatever “Experience” that people are seeking in these churches. The aim is to use God to satisfy human lust. God somehow has lost control of his world and he is now depending on men to make him do certain things: particularly to brings blessings and prosperity on all men, so preach these men.

To drive home his point, Fatoyinbo laces his messages with anecdotes that will arouse the greed of the congregation. He explains that he does not think he has arrived. He has a friend in the USA who pastors a big church – this guy is just 36 years old. He explains that Beyonce once visited this church and gives this young man $10 million to advance the gospel. In the midst of the hues and cries, I wonder at the congregation and thought to myself: do these people know who Beyonce is? What has Beyonce done to ever advance the gospel through her music that to plainly glorifies sex and vanity? Will a gift of $10M suddenly absolve her of all her ways?

Fatoyinbo is not done with stories. On his second night preaching, he tells the story of how he was given a beautiful car which he discovers that his five year old son loves so much. So one morning, he calls the boy and gives him the car. He told that story to say that although his son owns the car, he cannot drive it. He wanted the congregation to grow in maturity to be able to own and use the things God wants to give them.

While the congregation hails his point, the other fact of how pastors subtly or directly compel members to give them things is carefully overlooked. The vision of the pursuit of mundane things etched on the listeners is not seen. And the disguised pride in his own wealth comes out in a veiled form. He tells us of how he had to silence a proud preacher once. He simply took the man around his congregation and showed him his wealth. The congregation was just like “wow!”

I have intentionally reported Fatoyinbo in the negative in this article because I am hopeful that Nigerian young people would some day discover the deceitful manner ministers like him can defraud them.

But Fatoyinbo was not all negative in the two nights encounter I had with him at Eboda’s church. He came out to me as a man that has minimum education: he speaks very well. His father was a politician and he and his siblings were raised with some silver spoon.

He regarded himself as a “rich kid”, who got away with certain things in the home of his relatives when he visited them in the village because his father had money. After making that statement, Fatoyinbo prayed that the congregation will have the kind of money that will make them “somebody” in society.

It was at the second night of his ministration that Mr. Eboda introduces Fatoyinbo as “his lordship”. Where I sat, I just cringed at the manner to which these men take the praise of other men to.

I have long suggested that two of Nigeria’s leading trouble are her politicians and her preachers – especially those of the Prosperity/Pentecostal ilk. While Nigeria’s politicians defraud her, the preachers lend legitimacy to their actions. Fatoyinbo himself alluded to this when he said that what most young ministers do now is to come to Abuja and be errand boys to politicians. He says these young men will spend hours praying for politicians and when they are done, they are rewarded with some cash as honorarium. As he recounted this story, I say to myself: but, sir, you also left Ilorin for Abuja at some point too now. It is working for you; hopefully, it would work for these boys too.

I end this essay by stating emphatically that there is nothing Christian in many of the gatherings that call themselves “revivals” in Nigeria Pentecostal churches today. They are simply the gathering of a people to rub the ego of one man and to source for more membership for him. Pentecostal churches are ponzi schemes that cause the people at the top to increase in wealth as their base line followership increases.

These gatherings are devoid of the Christian gospel and the foremost call of the Christian church, which is to make disciples for Jesus, is not even a motive for them. The whole motive is to get members, so as to grow a church, that will have people “sow” into the life of the “man of God”.

In late 2013, a young woman by the name of Ese Walters came out to accuse Mr. Biodun Fatoyinbo of indulging in months of sexual philandering with her. She claimed that they both carried out the acts in hotels far away from this country. She had severed relations with the pastor as of the time of making these allegations. Her own way of finding healing was to make the whole matter public.

Mr. Fatoyinbo came under fire from that moment on. The Sunday after the scandal broke out, he promised Nigerians to give a “robust reply” to the allegations. Five years down the line there has been no response. Rather, Mr. Fatoyinbo has only continue to “evolve and increase” in ministry, bringing his friend, Gbeminiyi Eboda along with him.

These men are in their early forties and they are the new face of Pentecostalism in our nation. As they continue their business, some of us will continue to track them and hold them accountable to their words and ways. The only people one pities in this whole drama are the young men and women, whose mental faculties these men eat into with their nice words. Their judgement lingers not (2 Peter 2:1-4).

I spent fifteen years of my youth in these environment and I know the toxin these people are instilling into the life of young people. I advise that parents should guard their children and wards, and keep them from these people.

http://mouthpiece.com.ng/biodun-fatoyinbo-aka-robust-reply-visits-ibadan/