A series of scandals involving prominent Pentecostal
pastors in Nigeria has shed unwelcome light on a
powerful and unregulated force in Africa's largest economy — one that critics
say preys on the aspirations of the poor and wields undue influence over its
politicians.
On September 12, a guesthouse inside the preacher T.
B. Joshua's Lagos compound collapsed and killed 115 visitors, among them 84
South Africans. Joshua, a multimillionaire who claims his powers extend to
healing AIDS and cancer, blamed the tragedy on a mysterious plane that he said
flew over the property just before it caved in. It later emergedthat the
structure was undergoing illegal construction.
Many of the South Africans were poor and on their
first trip abroad, having saved more than $1,700 to visit the church of the
charismatic pastor. Some spent days trapped under the rubble, and one
woman spoke afterward of
being forced to drink her own urine to stay alive.
Rescuers said that members of Joshua's Synagogue
Church of All Nations impeded their attempts to pry the dead and injured from
the rubble.
It wasn't until this week, after a month of outrage in
both Nigeria and South Africa, that a coroner in Lagos began an investigation
into the collapse.
"They are so powerful, the government doesn't
want a confrontation with these preachers," Jibrin Ibrahim, director of
the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja, told VICE News. With
elections only four months away and President Goodluck Jonathan — himself an
Anglican but with close ties to the Pentecostal community — under fire for his
handling of the conflict with Boko Haram, "they are being treated with kid
gloves," said Ibrahim.
As
charities, the churches do not pay taxes, nor does the government require them
to provide a detailed accounting of their holdings in Nigeria and overseas.
At the time of the tragedy, a separate and much more
bizarre scandal involving a Pentecostal pastor was unfolding thousands of miles
away, in Johannesburg.
On September 5, South African authorities impounded a
private jet belonging to the head of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)
laden with $9.3 million in cash upon arrival. Along with the seizure, two
Nigerians and an Israeli were arrested and accused of illegally attempting to
buy weapons. Two weeks later, South African officials froze another $5.7
million in Nigerian funds destined for a separate arms deal.
That the initial transaction involved a plane
belonging to Ayodele Joseph Oritsejafor, the first Pentecostal leader of CAN,
raised questions about the Niger Delta pastor's ties to Jonathan, who is
regarded as a close ally.
Oritsejafor denied involvement in the arms deal, and
this week an aid to Jonathan also denied that Oritsejafor had been involved.
"Oritsejafor is the president of CAN and head of
all Christians in Nigeria, representing at least 50 percent of people in this
country," said Doyin Okupe,
senior special assistant to the president. "When it comes to a man like
that, people should be cautious and circumspect."
Okupe said Oritsejafor had merely rented out the jet
as a way to make money.
"If I have many cars at the airport and decide to
give one to car hire service, and he decides to pick somebody having Indian
hemp, will you link it with the man who gave it out?" he asked.
As for the deal itself, Okupe said he couldn't share
information because it would endanger military operations, but assured the
Nigerian press it was official government business.
"I am surprised that Nigerians want to discuss
security issues openly and publicly when a war is still going on," he
remarked. "These are very serious national security affairs and running a
government is not the same thing as running a shoprite, where everything is on
the table and on display."
Other Nigerian officials have claimed in vague
terms that US interference has forced them to revert to clandestine arms deals
— a notion that arms experts whom VICE News consulted called far-fetched and
conspiratorial, particularly considering the eagerness of countries like
Russian and China to sell arms to Africa.
Other theories have circulated linking the arms to
militants in the Niger delta or to military officials attempting to skirt
taxation and turn a profit.
Oritsejafor isn't alone among Nigerian pastors in
owning a private jet. He described the one he owns as a gift from "members
of our congregation and ministry partners worldwide."
Not only are many Nigerian Pentecostal pastors rich,
but their earnings have made them big economic players in the south of the
country, tying them inextricably to the local political class.
Pentecostalism, which traces its contemporary roots to
early 20th Century America, is today one of the fastest growing Christian
movements worldwide. Followers stress the direct experience of God and the Holy
Spirit in their lives. Through "gifts of the Spirit," the devout can
be imbued with the ability to speak in tongues, heal disease, and prophesize.
According to Pew Forum researchers, some 280
million people identify as Pentecostal worldwide. That number doubles when
including all followers of "Charismatic" Christianity — those
belonging to other denominations that incorporate elements of Pentecostal
beliefs and spiritual practices. There are more than 100 million Pentecostal
worshippers in Africa. In Nigeria, more than quarter of the population and
roughly half of all Christians identify as Pentecostal or Charismatic.
Underpinning Pentecostalism's rapid growth in both the
developing world and the US is the appeal of "prosperity gospel": the
idea that material and financial betterment reflects God's approval.
For many Africans, Pentecostalism's materialism
coheres with a conception of the spiritual world as manifest in everyday life.
"Forms of Christianity that were brought to
Africa in the 19th Century tended to be very Western in their worldview,
concerned with the dualism between mind and spirit, between this world
and that world, between matter and spirit," Teresia
Hinga, Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University and an expert
on African religion, told VICE News. "In African understandings, that
dualism is not there."
'They
have put their money in all kinds of investments. They have become major
economic players because they serve as employers.'
The promise of wealth and good health from Pentecostal
pastors has filled their coffers with money from some of the world's poorest
faithful.
"New Pentecostals are saying poverty and misery
do not belong to the people of God," explained Hinga. "Somewhere down
the line there are distortions, a twisting of this to commoditize religion and
take advantage of people who are keen to get out of poverty."
Pastor David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith World
Outreach Ministry, also known as Winners Chapel, is the wealthiest of Nigeria's
Pentecostal pastors, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at some $150 million.
The Faith Tabernacle, Oyedepo's 50,000-seat church, is Africa's largest. It
sits inside a roughly 10,000-acre campus near Lagos that includes a university
and various businesses.
Winners Chapel says it employs nearly 20,000 people in
Nigeria. Oyedepo, meanwhile, maintains a fleet of four private jets.
Festivities for Oyedepo's 60th birthday last month
included former President Olusegun Obasanjo and military dictator Yakubu Gowan.
"You can see that everything this man touches turns to gold,"
Nigeria's Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina told revelers.
Chris Oyakhilome, founder of Believers' LoveWorld
Incorporated and a suspect in a $35 million money laundering case involving
tithes and donations from his parishioners, is said to be worth as much as $50
million. In Forbes' 2011 ranking of the
wealthiest Nigerian pastors, T. B. Joshua was third, worth a paltry $10 to $15
million.
As charities, the churches do not pay taxes, nor does
the government require them to provide a detailed accounting of their holdings
in Nigeria and overseas.
"The income generated through tithes and
offerings is enormous, and much of this money is put in banks and
invested," Afe Adogame, lecturer of world Christianity and religious
studies at Edinburgh University, told VICE News. "In fact, some of the
Pentecostal churches have set up their own banks. They have put their money in
all kinds of investments. They have become major economic players because they
serve as employers."
Pastors like Oyakhilome and Joshua also oversee vast
media empires that include newspapers and TV stations. Their reach extends far
beyond the confines of Nigeria's borders, and has given rise to a new religious
class of tourist visiting the country's ever-expanding mega-churches — and
providing the local economy a much-needed economic boost. Among those tourists
were the 84 South Africans killed in September.
Pentecostal money, as well as spiritual practices
filtered through decades of African worship, have in recent years begun flowing
back into the US. Enoch Adeboye, pastor of Redeemed Christian Church of God,
dedicated a 10,000-seat, $15.5 million religious center in north Texas earlier
this month. The organization says it has 720 churches in North America, and
some 15,000 followers in the US alone.
Some American Pentecostal churches are now incorporating
the once unheard-of practice of laying cash offerings at the feet of pastors,
Anthea Butler, professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania
and a researcher of Pentecostal trends, told VICE News. Critics say the
spectacle resembles idolatry.
"There's an idea of 'don't touch the lords
anointed,' which is really a spiritual cover meaning don't ask the pastor about
anything he's doing because he's God's man or woman," said Butler.
But Butler says many who observe Nigeria from afar
fail to appreciate just how integrated the pastors are in society.
"It's about capitalism," she said.
"They are no different from the banker in Europe or the guy on Wall
Street."
The scandals involving Joshua and Oretjafor have
prompted calls for greater oversight of pastors, and it appears that some in
the government are listening. Nigerian officials have tentatively begun to
consider some kind of taxation scheme to capture their profits. In August,
British authorities reportedly barred Oyedepo from entering the United Kingdom
and said they were investigating his church's charity status in the country.
But observers who are accustomed to political
expediency trumping transparency in Nigeria are cynical about the likelihood of
reform.
"When Goodluck Jonathan goes to see T. B. Joshua
after he blocked government officials from digging people out and made an
international incident, but he doesn't see the parents of over 300 girls who
get kidnapped by Boko Haram, it tells you that Pentecostal and prosperity pastors
wield a lot of power," Butler said.
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