I deliberately ignored a church service on 3rd January, 2012 to join Seun Kuti, Dede Mabiaku, Barrister Femi Falana, Mrs. Ganiyat Fawehinmi (wife of late freedom court dramatist, Gani fawehinmi) and others in the anti-fuel subsidy removal protest rally, Lagos.
I deliberately ignored a church service on 3rd January, 2012 to join Seun Kuti, Dede Mabiaku, Barrister Femi Falana, Mrs. Ganiyat Fawehinmi (wife of late freedom court dramatist, Gani fawehinmi) and others in the anti-fuel subsidy removal protest rally, Lagos.
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My parents already spent their lives ruminating on the placating church doctrines that shut their mouths from asking questions about pervasive cheats. They prayed and fasted until they practically were conditioned into the like of praying mantis, while the bad government
and the church leaders pilfered meager income.
What the heck is it about religion that we have to lay down our good living to enrich the religious leaders? Is this in obedience to the order of ‘take up the cross and follow me’? This reality throws us into the memory of Fela and his prophetic, satire afro-music which is ribald at the way pastors live luxuriously on the church goers.
Brainwahed, our fathers would always retun on their kneels and close their eyes when other cheats had been concluded before they got up or open their eyes. Their kneels turned black with scar from dailing kneelings.
After all, religion is only a method of worship, nothing more. God can be worshiped in different ways, and God is happy about the variegation of worship methods that reflect Him as God over different languages and cultures, whether Islam, Christianity or whatever. As individuals,
we could invoke God even right in our rooms. These religions are merely perfunctory arrangements and institutions to make system of worship more spicy – nothing more!
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As a result, spiritual leaders turn themselves into thin gods and swing their fraudulent arms over unsuspecting worshippers to milk them further dry after government successfully stole people’s wealth. Our absolute submission to the dictates of spiritual leaders has further carved colonial governance into series. Government defrauds the citizens, and in search of salvation or comfort, citizens run to ‘God’ only to be further brainwashed by pastors that their problems are spiritual.
Banning false demons, church leaders instruct the poor victims of government socio-economic rape to entice ‘God’ with big offerings so as to provoke ‘God’ into action on their behalf against
the supposed spiritual enemy. You will grow inevitably irascible if your pastor asks you to deny yourself of good meal and luxurious things you could afford with the little you have after government’s rape, and the next day you find your jobless pastor riding on jeep, after putting together all offerings paid by you and other victims of the government and the church.
Yes I know many indoctrinated church-ians and beneficiaries of the church scam will read this and end up with their usual church mis-lectured scriptural maxim; ‘touch not the anointed of God’, but I always wonder if the rest of us (150 million people) are anointed of the devil. Religion, which is only a method of worship, is the root cause of our gullibility, divide and underdevelopment. Without any denial of the existence or supremacy of God, Nigerians’ have only
failed to understand that they can be Christians without being Church-ians. Of course, we believe in the cause of Christ, His gospel and the preached Kingdom of God/Heaven, but we reject the cheat perpetrated using this cause. It is a sin for Pastors to use the name
of God to enrich themselves and subject God’s people to abject
poverty. They are therefore not of God, we are the children of God and
they are the errand-men of the cheat devils in God-like appearance (by
their fruits you shall know them).
Now that Nigerians are finally signing up to demand total freedom from
all forms of oppression, both from the evil government and their
church/mosque accomplices, it will serve us good to comprehend some of
the reasons we are deserting them:
- Church Leaders (especially pastors) are co-looters and cheats.
Corrupt government employs religious luminaries as their cat’s paw to
plug into the lives of poor masses. Many Christians voted Jonathan
because the shoe-less man visited and ientified with the RCCG herd,
and they perceived him as a holy, humble man, and therefore was God’s
answer to the yearnings of the people. Courtesy of his ostensibly
‘humble’ appearance, the RCCG overseer marketed him to the
church-ians. Long before now, the RCCG overseer had prayed that
presidents will visit and worship with his denomination, and that has
made it really difficult to communicate the truth with the Aso-Rock
incumbent.
- Religious leaders earn referral commissions by pulling crowd for the
ruling class and mollifying citizens to ‘leave everything to God’ when
it turns out that government cheats the people. Obasanjo gave import
waiver worth N20billion to RCCG at the expense of financing good
roads, electricity, education and general development. This Father
Christmas gift still doesn’t make Redeemers University for Nations
(RUN), the Higher Institution established by the RCCG and attached to
the church to give free education to even its church members.
- It cannot give the salvation Nigerians desire at any point in time.
Pastors are not practical solutions, but will only ask us to return on
our kneels and repeat same prayers of ages back (forward ever backward
never). The fact that we are not dead for refusing to go to cross-over
vigil into 2012 (as a result of bomb threat) goes distant miles to
prove that their prayers are powerless
- God already answered our prayers, all of these repetition is calling
God ‘deaf’. When the Israelites demanded freedom from their
oppressors, they prayed fervently for years but no miracle happened.
The only miracle God gave to them was someone to lead them in a battle
and on a long journey to freedom. This simply shows that prayers will
not spur heavens to stop endemic corruption in Nigeria. It has not
worked anywhere and it will not work in this case. Heavens only help
those that help themselves; heavens only helped the Israelites after
they already began the walk to freedom and they got stuck at a point
where it was obvious that the red sea would not allow them proceed,
and then, it was necessary for the ‘supernatural’ or ‘heaven’ to help
them. Nigerians should spot the signs; the next phase should not be
the repetition of the first phase. God has answered our prayers long
before now, and we should proceed to ask our freedom.
- Why is the voice of the church missing at this crucial time that
they should lead us? As we take to the streets to demand freedom from
imposition of removal of fuel subsidy, the pastors have left us on our
own and are enjoying themselves. They must be busy composing the next
sermon to pacify us next Sunday, further breaking down the big lump
Government could not force down our throat into simpler morsels, and
then feed us well until we want no more. They will back it up with
biblical passages and weave ancient anecdotes into their sermons,
proving that it is the way to save for the future and make development
occur. I’m sure they will also tell congregants that it is the
blessing of God in disguise and that it only takes the wise to
understand it.
Meanwhile, Pastor E.A. Adeboye promised to ‘lead the fight’ if
Government failed to give us free and fair elections. We are yet to
hear his voice even when it was utterly rigged.
Now that we are collectively demanding for the stay of the only thing
that makes the common man survive in the country, and yet, where is
the voice of the church?
The brainwash that ‘God loves cheerful givers’ caused our parents to
work hard to the advantage of paying the church.
Now, here we come. One can only fool some of the people all of the
time, or all of the people some of the time, but can not fool all of
the people all of the time. We have trekked enough to the airplaning
of government officials and jetting of the pastors; we have fasted
enough for them to enjoy west burger; we have suffered enough for them
to survive and we have subsidized enough for them to spend – enough is
enough!
Government sponsors religious leaders to calm us so we can absorb the
cruel effects of what makes them happy; it also sponsors the police to
kill us if we emphatically demand for our rights; it sponsors some
miscreant groups to detonate bombs at corners of the northern parts to
make us blame the desperate Islamic sect, Boko Haram in order to
distract our attentions from critical state issues.
If the government will continue on its citizens’ rape agenda and the
churches will not add their voices, then it is enough of coughing out
our poor income as offerings and tithes. If the churches in Nigeria
believe that we can always scale down our little earnings to cope with
the latest fuel hardship, then they should also understand that no
sermon will make the masses pay tithes and offering because it will be
used to purchase fuel. If we have to adjust our spending, then we have
to adjust our tithing and offering!
Forget about Malachi 3:10, God is not wicked. It is not a concealed
truth that the tithe money doesn’t ascend to heaven, but is spent on
the church physical facilities and by the pastors on their livelihood.
Muslims in the north are already cooperating with us in this struggle,
and we therefore call on the pastors to add their voices at this time.
If a pet feeds with one, but does not bear pains with one, what
friends are we to make with the pet? If our church pastors fail to
share in our pains, then as for me and my house, we will ignore it and
serve God individually.
It is no more time for repeating prayers, it is time to act! It is
time to approach the red sea and make our past prayers part the sea!
It’s now time to walk the walk!
It’s now time for freedom!
Activism mode activated!
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