Nigerian Churches Focus On Money, Not On Poverty

Churches are always at the forefront of development.
Various religion-related centres promote building
schools, hospitals, vocational skills acquisition centres,
farms and cottage industries, and many.
One should also note various scholarships, free books,
food, clothes and even shelter. A church wants to ensure
that its members live good and faithful lives before they
pass away.
However, the modern church slowly abandons old ideals,
Vanguard notices and gives several clear examples:
Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, July 6, 2014: A priest at a church
offers the congregation to appreciate God with various
contributions: N200,000 – special blessing; then
N150,000, N100,000 and so on, to N50,000 to N5,000
and below.
At the end of the day, the priest made a general blessing
for the entire church. Apparently, nobody came out for
N200,000 blessing.
Pastor David Oyedepo of Living Faith Mission (Winners
Chapel) owns several private jets, Gulfstream G550,
Gulfstream G450, Gulfstream V and LearJet with
combined value of $98.3million (N15.9billion).
The General Overseer of RCCG Pastor E.A. Adeboye also
owns Gulfstream V private jet. The President of Christian
Association of Nigeria, CAN, Ayo Oritsejafor, leased one
of his flying machines to cash smugglers for illegal
weapons purchase in South Africa.
The Pentecostal churches are in the lead for revenue
drive. The income is big, but the programmes to help the
poor are not big enough. Well-established churches keep
opening private universities. Their fees range from N1.5
million to N3 million per session, so only the wealthy can
afford it.
At the same time, there are 10 to 80 per cent discounts
for children and wards of the university’s staff, children
of pastors and some indigent church members.
Dr. Joseph Antyo of the University of Mkar, a private
university in Benue State owned by the Evangelical
Church of West Africa (ECWA) however believes that
poverty issues in Nigeria cannot be solved without
participation of churches.
“Churches should see poverty eradication as a part of
their mission of evangelisation, since not only spiritual
but also material salvation is needed to truly free
someone. Some of the money that some churches have
should be made available to their members in form of
loans and other poverty alleviation measures, and the
churches should be able to build on their greatest
strengths which are trust and commitment rather than
dependency.
“Churches should also motivate their members to work
or to help create employment, since the lack of it is
probably the greatest bane of Africa today,” he
concluded.