₦airaland Forum

Ese Walter’s Naked

By: Deji Yesufu

I did not know that Ese Walter had written her book. I learnt of the book from a discussion on a Whatsapp group I belong to where people were discussing the latest brouhaha between Biodun Fatoyinbo, Pastor of the Commonwealth of Zion Assemblies (COZA), and Timi Dakolo, a Nigerian musician. Dakolo had published a post on Instagram, complaining bitterly that it seems the consistent testimony of Biodun Fatoyinbo in all the churches he serves in is that he leaves a blood trail of broken hearted and used women in these places. Without mentioning names, Dakolo called out the COZA chief executive and challenged his supporters to ask some salient questions concerning their pastor.

As usual, many of these people were not interested in doing so. A member of Fatoyinbo’s church responded to the allegation on Facebook by stating that most people in COZA know that their Pastor did what he was accused of. They however have forgiven him. He went on to state that Fatoyinbo’s wife has now provided “sexual security” around her husband. Since the Ese Walter matter broke, the woman screens all the ladies that work with her husband in the hospitality unit of the church where he used to find all the “COZiness” he needs besides his wife.

Six years ago Ese Walter published a series of posts on social media revealing a string of dalliances that she had had with Biodun Fatoyinbo. She mentioned how the two of them went to hotels in foreign countries and had endless sexual rendezvous. At some point the whole thing came to an end and Ese, now in guilt and almost losing her sanity, had to come out to the public to reveal it all. In her book, Naked, Ese explained that she did this to retain her sanity:

“As a church-worker, I was close to the pastors and one time I had an affair with a pastor. I couldn’t get over the guilt for a long time… I also thought that if the pastor could stoop so low as to have an affair with me, then maybe God didn’t care all that much about the things we said God cared about. I asked the pastor a few questions about the implication of our affair but what I heard was something about a level of grace available to me that I wasn’t aware of. The pastor decided he was going to teach me about that grace but something in me thought it was better not to know the grace than know it and live a double life forever. For a long time, I carried the guilt of having an affair with a pastor like a wet blanket. I thought leaving the church and burying what happened was going to save me but it didn’t it…”

Eventually Ese let the cat out of the bag and the whole country was plunged in another Pentecostal Pastor’s story of sexual immorality. Ese explains in her book that she had had to rewrite the first draft of the book because her publishers saw hate written all over them. She had to remove names and do a great deal of editing, so that the final work did not carry the name of Biodun Fatoyinbo. But for those who had followed the saga closely when it first broke out, we all knew that the pastor in question was him.

The book, Naked, is a well written memoir of a girl that discovered herself after a deep personal tragedy had befallen her. When I began to read it, I could not drop it until I was done. Ese’s story is one that every young Nigerian should read; however, I am convinced that every person that reads the book should do so with a certain lens; a certain understanding. I am of the opinion that Ese went only from one error to another. Although I am willing to accept that the latter error is a safer one. This error is the universal error of self-discovery. It is a discovery that when taken to its logical end results ultimately in atheism or agnosticism – the very state of mind that Ese is in at the moment. My thoughts on Ese’s book therefore lends credence to my often made remark that the Pentecostal religion is the leading producer of God deniers among young people in our nation today.

Ese was honest about what led her to church. She had gone to COZA and other churches because she needed God to bless her academic endeavors and help her to graduate. Thankfully, and even as the church people had said it would happen, she passed her law exams and became a lawyer. But with a benefit of hindsight, Ese was able to identify the false basis for her going to church. She wrote:

“It is clear to me now that I created a god based on the transactional manner in which human beings tend to treat each other. ‘Scratch my back and I scratch yours’. I also decided to subject my life to an illusion that my actions were judged, and that they determined whether God would be kind or wicked to me. By the time I graduated from law school, I figured it was time to fulfil my promise of serving this God that had helped me come this far…”

Ese would eventually discover the falsehood behind this transactional Christianity and with time she ditched religion altogether. Today, Ese is a worshipper of her own self.

The hues and cries that I have made against the Pentecostal religion, particularly the Prosperity Gospel that many of them propagate today, is that they have failed to represent God correctly to those who hear them. When you teach people that by doing good, or by tithing, or by going to church, you would earn certain approbation of the deities and thereby draw forth blessing from them, you are essentially teaching people transactional Christianity. It is the same religion that our pagan fore-fathers practiced with their animism.

The Christian message is not transactional. It has never been and it would never be. The Christian message speaks of God’s gracious actions in Christ that led him to come to the earth and die for the sins of the whole world. If anyone would believe in this gracious act of God, their sins are forgiven. There is nothing transactional there. The work of redemption is a done deal and it is given free of charge to all who believe.

The doctrine of grace, which the like of Fatoyinbo have perverted, teaches essentially that God’s blessings are free. In fact the whole world, including those who are in rebellion against God, are partakers of his grace daily. God sends the rain, the sun and many manifold gifts to men who curse him every day. This is grace. But the greatest of these graces is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and graciously called us into covenant with God his Father.

The Christian is therefore not a person who does whatever he does in Christianity to earn God’s approbation. Rather, a Christian is one who responds to God’s grace in worship, holiness and various acts of godliness. Whatever the Christian does, he does in respond to what he is already enjoying. We give out of what God has given us. We love because we are enjoying the security of God’s love. We present the gospel to sinners because we were once sinners who are today partakers of God’s mercies. We never give to get (the prosperity gospel is an accursed message!); we rather give because we have been given so much.

Ese Walter’s Naked is a revelation of the state of the Christian religion in our nation Nigeria. I do sincerely hope that those who have read the book can come away with a strong sense of how much religion has deteriorated in our clime and why the church is in desperate need of revival premised on the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Deji Yesufu is the author of the books Victor Banjo and Half a Millennium. He can be reached on newdejix@gmail.com

http://mouthpiece.com.ng/ese-walters-naked/

Biodun Fatoyinbo

Timi Dakolo

“It is clear to me now that I created a god based on the transactional manner in which human beings tend to treat each other. ‘Scratch my back and I scratch yours’. I also decided to subject my life to an illusion that my actions were judged, and that they determined whether God would be kind or wicked to me. By the time I graduated from law school, I figured it was time to fulfil my promise of serving this God that had helped me come this far…”
- Ese Walter "Nâked: A Journey to Self"

And God said, “Let us make man in our image after our likeness...”
- Genesis 1:26

In the beginning God created man in His Own image, and man, ever since, always, just as Ese Walter (now Ese Ark) from the above inverted commas quote admitted in her book, have been trying to repay the favor ever since.

Just like the prodigal son, in Luke 15:17, who came to himself, we all need to, at some crucial point, to "sọji", as in wake up, come to our good senses and have sense wiseness

They are both victims, he, because of being a sexual predator and for his greediness, as in, a married man that is being covetous and her, because of her naivety, ignorance, over-trustfulness, lack of suspicion(s) and sheeple spirit