A governor and his prophet

Austrian-born German politician, Adolf Hitler, started his young-adulthood as a seminary student with the intention of one day becoming a priest. During his spiritual journey, he was hedged off-track and became one of the most heinously wicked men in the annals of world history. Why did he renege on his first love?  Why did he back off from what he was once passionate about? Did he see or hear something in the assembly of saints that made him sick to his stomach? We may never know. But what many of us know is that religion has done similar things to very many people, white and black, all around the world.

The video of a prophet’s hour-long sermon I watched last weekend brought agony to my spirit.  The prophet was an invited guest speaker in a special church service in a Ghanaian city. During his sermon, the young prophet gave an unambiguous account of how he had, for many years, and through perverted prophetic mumbo-jumbo and sham shibboleth, deceived unsuspecting and vulnerable church people, coaxing them to giving him money because “God said so”.

Although the prophet did not go into the grits of his prophetic voyage, what drew my attention was his confession about an eight-year relationship he had with a oil-rich Niger Delta governor. The prophet had in many of his meetings in many Nigerian churches all around the world publicly named the governor and always called him “a friend”. In the video sermon, he gave a vivid account of how the governor had on a regular basis splurged on him heavy amounts of money which, according to him, belonged to the people of the state. Money that was meant for building roads and alleviating sufferings of the people was wasted on this prophet. How was he able to get the governor to cough up so much money? The prophet knows that Nigerian politicians fear death; all he did was to mention names of the Governor’s political foes and adversaries who wanted him dead. The more the prophet sounded believable, the deeper the governor dug into the state treasury to spend on clairvoyance and without limit.

Men in political power in Nigeria are wont to seeking spiritual protections from prophets, pastors, overseers, bishops, apostles, Imaams, babalawos, and marabouts against death that will ultimately come. Many of these characters are on their payrolls. Oh, what a waste of the commonwealth on frivolities and nonsensical in the name of democracy! The prophet however said in the video that he had since repented, and that God had forgiven him. I forgive him too.

Many marriages have been destroyed under perversions of false prophets all over the world. Instructions and directions that are not of God have been given by men who prophesy for the purpose of getting gains. Readers, there is nothing out of place where a Christian or Muslim governor, President, or anyone seeks spiritual counselling and guidance from leaders in their houses of faith. Iron sharpens iron, the Holy Book enjoins.  But all over the Nigerian terrain are Pastors, Imams, and Prophets who have become de facto Personal Assistants to politicians just to get them to ‘support the vision’. We have sighted them in Villas and mansions. They are joined-in-the-hips with these men prophesying lies.

The deceptive words spoken by thimblerig clerics as prophecies or divinations embolden these leaders to keep looting the treasury.  Not too long ago, a National Security Adviser to a former President reportedly spent about N2bn of government funds to secure the services of marabouts, Muslim “holy men” who are believed to possess supernatural or spiritual powers to pray for his boss to win the last presidential election. The money went down the drain.

Clerics must understand that politicians are looking up to them for spiritual leadership and direction. They are willing to submit to them for guidance in running the government with the fear of God. But these con-men in cassocks and turbans have abdicated those roles and assignments for measly pots of porridge. I have seen and heard a lot about our houses of faith especially in Nigeria, a nation that can easily pass for the most religious on earth. Despite the nation’s intense and fiery spread of religious tents and camps, corruption and greed, selfishness and hypocrisy continue to dominate the landscape. Perpetrator politicians and leaders have no one to look up to for examples. Religious organisations and their leaders we should look up to for solutions have become annoying parts of the society’s problems.

Amidst innumerable number of churches and mosques in Nigeria, the country remains decrepit and derelict. Many big religious edifices around are run by profiteers and mercantilists. Kingdom work is now dirty business. Many men are fishy. Very few are fishers-of-men. Service to God must not be about the pursuit of gold.  The works of our hands, when done right and righteously, will bring financial comfort.  Men called by God are designed to be fathers to politicians. Even where some of us have chosen to participate actively in running the government in different political capacities, we were consecrated to live and work above board to the best of our human ability. Hobnobbing with politicians with the intention of scheming for donations and exemptions from requisite import duties and other shady deals is a disgrace to the very important work men have been called to do.  When our Houses of faith get it right, and clerics do what is right, then politicians and all of Nigerians will act right. Until then, the status quo of filth and failure will continue in a country taking ten steps forward and one hundred backwards.

We honour men and women of God scattered all over our nation who are doing awesome work of help and relief on the mission field. Many of them you may have never heard or seen on the television. They may have no access to the Internet, no Twitter account, no Facebook page and website, but they possess character, integrity and commitment to lifting up the repressed and oppressed in squalour and helping the helpless. Men with impeccable character and integrity, who say what they mean and insist on what they say even if the weather is not commodious, I know.  Men who do not attempt to help God with miracles from the oracles, and signs and wonders that make many families sigh in pain and ponder. True men and women of God they are. And they deserve our salute.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and Lutheran pastor. Against Hitler’s 1930s and 1940s evil euthanasia agenda of millions of Jews, this man of God stood firmly and resolutely.  No one else around that time had the boldness to confront the terror, and for that, Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned for more than a year. He was later killed by Hitler. The time is now that our religious houses and leaders must stand against what ails the society and not become harbingers that cuddle or promote it. Men of God must stand with the agenda of God and for the people. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begins at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?