Prof. Charles Soludo, Anambra Governor
By Clem Oluwole
Lately, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, the Executive Governor of Anambra State, has been in the news for a very good reason.
He has stepped up to stop the practice of turning the churches into a Holywood Theatre.
There is no mistake here. The Holywood mentioned here should not be confused with the popular Hollywood that nestles in faraway California in the USA.
We also have the Indian version called Bollywood, and our own version is referred to as Nollywood.
The Holywood is my coinage for churches in Nigeria where make-believe miracles are staged and attributed to the Holy Spirit.
Pissed off by the claims by some “men of God” to heal all manner of illnesses or disabilities under the sun, the erudite Professor has launched a major crackdown on miracle workers or spiritual crooks, accusing them of staging fraudulent healings, operating fake churches, and extorting vulnerable citizens.
Consequently, the state government has arrested several individuals, including eight pastors, and formally arraigned and remanded them in a correctional facility for trial.
The miracle-working clerics are Bishop Emeka Nwankpa (Chapel of Faith); Ndubuisi Nnachukwu (Omega Dominion); Peter Chukwu (Messiah Adoration); Chinedu Egwuonwu (Citadel of Grace); Ebele Nnachukwu (Jehovah, Mighty Than All); Miracle Iruoma, Chukwukadibia Ogwuama, and Ekeleme Chris Ugochukwu.
They have been charged under sections of the state’s Homeland Security Law and the Advance Fee Fraud Act.
They were accused of using hired actors to stage miracles and obtaining money under false pretenses.
The prosecution is led by the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Tobechukwu Nweke (SAN).
As a precondition for their freedom from the calaboose, Gov. Soludo publicly challenged the clerics, who claim to possess supernatural healing powers, to prove their abilities at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, and set them free of their challenges.
He said once that is done, they will be allowed to go home and continue the good work.
They have until mid-June to demonstrate their extraordinary powers, or the music will play on.
So far, the detainees have failed to prove the governor wrong.
This Soludo’s approach should extend beyond Anambra state.
The war against these Holywood operators should be waged on all the churches across the states.
And no one should vouch for any man or woman of God until they visit hospitals in their various locations outside crusade grounds to heal the sick and even raise the dead chilling in the mortuaries!
Jesus Christ, in whose name they claim to perform their miracles, went from place to place preaching and healing the sick, casting out the devil, and raising the dead.
These make-believe peddlers, well-schooled in the art of deception, have done incalculable damage to the psyche of (gullible) Nigerians.
Many of them have been brainwashed to the envy of zombies.
Jesus Christ never sold anointing oil, soaps, body creams, holy water, handkerchiefs, stoles, mantles, etc., to anyone during his ministry in exchange for cash or any form of kickback.
Neither did He monetise healing.
“Freely ye receive, freely ye should give.” That was His commandment.
But these folks have turned gospel into a commercial enterprise. And that he who works under the shed must eat under the shed.
So, they use all (deceptive) means possible, including intimidation, arm-twisting, threats, and fictitious narratives to fleece their followers of their hard-earned money.
Posing as carriers of the Holy Spirit of a demanding God(?), they bamboozle their members to part with their prized possessions.
These include houses, landed properties, the only cars they have, as well as their business capital, to be sown as seeds to advance the work of the Kingdom or to own mansions in Heaven.
There was this smooth-talking pastor of a Pentecostal church I was attending in Jos.
One Sunday, he told a lie to the congregation about a businessman travelling from Jos to Onitsha to buy some goods.
When he got to Keffi, he encountered the Holy Spirit who ordered him back to Jos to sow the cash in the church.
He obeyed. And lo and behold, two weeks later, the money came back to him threefold.
Another man was asked to sow his only Mercedes car as a seed in the church because God wanted to bless him with a better car.
He surrendered the key to the pastor. After three months and no replacement had come, he told the pastor he wanted his car back, since it appeared God was not yet ready with a better one.
Meanwhile, the pastor was using the car for family errands, and the sower and his family were pounding the town with their feet.
The pastor looked at him with pity and advised him to exercise a little more patience, assuring him that when the day was about to break, it would get darker.
After four months and no better car came, he involved the police to retrieve the car from the pastor.
Of course, the gullible member had to exit the church.
There was another victim who was asked to sow her sewing machines in the church in return for a more prosperous business.
The woman obliged the request without consulting her husband who set up the business for her.
When the man got wind of the fraud, he flew in from Lagos, stormed the pastor’s wife’s shop where the machines were being used, and retrieved the items, helped by a mobile police officer.
In the early 2000s, the media space was awash with the story of a cashier of a 5-star hotel in Lagos, who wanted to make heaven after listening to a sermon by his pastor.
He fiddled with his employer’s account and sliced off N30m. When the bubble burst, he led the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to his high-profile father in the Lord.
When the man of God was asked to return the stolen cash, he told the meddlesome interrogators that the money was not meant for him.
In his words, ”The cash has been handed over to God”. However, when the anti-graft men breathed down his neck with a threat of arrest, he quickly retrieved the money from above and handed it over to the EFCC men.
We want leaders like Soludo to sanitise our religious space and save Nigerians from the shackles of these neo-colonialists using the pulpits to extort the hapless Nigerians.
The lesser men of God now cooling their feet in detention pending the fulfillment of the conditions handed down by Soludo, were just aping what the top guns in the business are doing day in and day out.
Back in the day, parents were fond of ramming prestigious courses down the throats of their kids.
Medicine, architecture, law, engineering, etc., were among the courses parents pound their chests like gorillas in sheer pride for their kids.
Not anymore! Today, the pulpits have been taken over by qualified medical doctors, lawyers, architects, academics who have abandoned their professions to establish mega churches because that is where easy money can be made by perambulating on the altars, spewing fabus and working counterfeit miracles.
They have amassed so much wealth and built auditoriums so massive that they would make edifices like the Maracana Stadium in Brazil or the Wembley Stadium in England to look like practice pitches.
It is an irony that churches in countries that shipped their religion to our land are facing decline in congregation.
Whereas, auditoriums on the African Continent are bursting at the seams almost on a daily basis because church programmes are held not only on Sundays but also on week days, and even during working hours!
Dyed-in-the-wool congregants would abandon their offices or momentarily shut down their businesses to attend church programmes.
The ultimate aim is not to gather them to worship God who does not live in physical structures built by men (Acts 7:48; Acts 17:24), but to rake in their non- taxable IGR or internally generated revenue to sustain their lavish lifestyles.
It is hoped that the development in Anambra state will open the eyes and free the minds of gullible Nigerians.
They should begin to interrogate the system that profits from commercialising the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The teachings of these con artists package poverty and lack as a passport to Heaven where their treasures are laid.
But the wealth of the GOs, bishops, reverends or whatever titles that suit their fancy are stored here on earth for their maximum enjoyment.
Above all, there is an urgent need to regulate the establishment of churches besides registering with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
A situation where someone will just wake on the right side of his bed and declare that he has been called by God to start a ministry should be outlawed henceforth.
You cannot try that nonsense in Rwanda under the watch of gangling President Paul Kagame.
