Sallimichegani
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.- Martin Luther King Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye must be the closest thing to a Nigerian Pope we have ever seen on these shores. Such is his personal charm and aura of clerical authority that millions of people are willing to literally lay down their lives for the man everyone affectionately calls Daddy G.O. At Heathrow airport a few years ago, I was a privileged witness to a terminal theatre (what else does one call it?) of some sort as tens of people lined up to shake the man of God’s hand (does that give you some special talisman?) and others drooled adoringly from a respectable distance. I am told this is the norm everywhere he goes. Pastor Adeboye is the austere man of God with all the paraphernalia of a rock star, swooning audiences and all.
Still, I had misjudged the level of popular idolatry of Pastor Adeboye until a few weeks ago when I published an essay on the Redeemed Church’s decision to purchase a private jet for its revered general overseer. Inasmuch as I was mildly shaken by the ferocity of the attacks and threats to my person, I was more disappointed that majority of respondents to the essay had missed its central point: The decision to buy a private jet worth so and so in a country with so and so percent youth employment (a large number of whom happen to be hapless adherents of the Redeemed Christian Church of God) epitomizes the widening gulf between the leaders of Nigeria’s increasingly influential Pentecostal class, and the mass of the people. Furthermore, that decision cannot be understood unless one sutures the emergence and exponential growth of the Redeemed Church itself to key developments in the Nigerian socio-economic and political space within the past two decades. Among this are the carnival of orgiastic consumption made possible by the oil boom; and the rising authority of religion and religious leaders in the context of the disorderly withdrawal of the state from economic life.
Due to these and other developments which space will not allow me to expound, political leaders, low on legitimacy because of their inattention to the common, have seen religious leaders as the most direct route to popular approval. This dynamic accounts for the high levels of social flirtation seen between many state governors and religious leaders. In this pattern of woeful mutual back-rubbing, politicians visit religious leaders and attend church services so that they can be seen as God-fearing; pastors crave photo ops with politicians because of the obvious social advantages of perceived proximity to power. While the most influential of such religious leaders actually have a straight line to the government house, perhaps the most notable social transformation in Nigeria over the past decade is their seamless transition into office holders in all but name.
Read Also: Pastor Adeboye leads Prayer Walk against killings and insecurity in Nigeria
This logic was on full display last week as Pastor Adeboye, the first among equals within the Nigerian Pentecostal elite visited (in the manner of a state governor or Minister) the Ajaokuta Steel Rolling company, arguably the most compelling monument to the failure of the Nigerian postcolonial elite. According to newspaper reports, Daddy G.O., following an official briefing (sic) promised that the company’s bad days and horrible image will soon be a thing of the past because he was going to put it as a priority in my prayers and I am sure God will take control. Really? You mean, Pastor Adeboye, that your supplication to God is what we need to make a steel producing company finally decide to produce steel? What about NEPA? And NIPOST? And what about Nigerian roads, hospitals, schools? Is prayer also the solution to their problems? If the assumption is correct, that all you need to bail out an underperforming social institution is prayer, surely, Pastor Adeboye must admit, given the state of things in Nigeria, that millions of hours of supplication have so far gone unnoticed. For Nigerians are a prayerful lot, prayerful, in fact, to the extent that many now attribute the fact that things have not completely collapsed (not that things have improved, mind you) to the power of prayer. According to this distorted logic, the problem is not that under-five mortality rate is 187 deaths for every 1,000 births, for instance, but that it could have been as bad as 278, which is the figure for Sierra Leone, a country officially at war until very recently.
But that is the nub of the anti-politics of the Pentecostal class, perfectly emblemized by Daddy G.O. It is a world of indefinite presence, where there is no context, no history, no human agency, and definitely no accounting. It is the chief reason why Daddy will bring up Ajaokuta without mentioning that its inability to produce steel is because it has been raped continuously. That is why the loudest thing about pastor Adeboye in regard to the serious issues in our politics today is his silence. For a man of his influence and visibility, Pastor Adeboye is curiously morally aloof. You want to know what Daddy G.O. said about Yar’Adua’s stolen election? Nothing. The brazen evisceration of the popular will in Ekiti state? Not a word. But definitely coming soon to a newspaper front page near you is the inevitable photograph of Segun Oni, the purported governor of Ekiti state pressing flesh with Daddy. Just as Jonathan Goodluck, the vice-president (where is he these days?) did before him. Just as many state governors and government functionaries, wafting on the odour of stolen elections and ill-gotten wealth, have done.
There is good news elsewhere though. In the same week, newspapers reported on the Most Reverend Peter Akinola’s angry dissection of Nigerian politicians. That is one man (Tunde Bakare is another) who is not for turning; who will not allow his church to become a social laundry for vote stealers. Right on, reverend!
