In
October 2011, the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, was in South
Korea as a participant in an international conference on church growth
organised by Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest Pentecostal church in
the world. The photo-op that accompanied the report captured Dame
Jonathan kneeling before the founder of the church, Pastor David Yonggi
Cho; her bejewelled hands in his hands.
The First Lady was enacting what has come
to be recognised as what she and her husband do best since they got to
office – a public display of godliness that turns every church pulpit
into a soap box. In the photo with Cho, she cut the perfect image of
piety and religious devotion, but only if you didn’t know better.
Fast forward two years. She returned to
South Korea to collect an honorary doctorate from Hansei University. The
university said it honoured her for her “many good causes” and that she
was a “defender of the poor” in Nigeria.
In her citation, she was described as “a
humanitarian who has dedicated her life to working for the less
privileged in Nigeria and Africa especially for women and children.” The
irony of celebrating her philanthropic activities does not factor into
account that as First Lady she had no business doing what the state is
mandated to do for its citizens, let alone being honoured for the same.
The entire affair would have been just laughable if it were not curious
that her other side, the political part of hers, which has earned her
opprobrium, is not available on the Internet for any and everyone to
read.
Dame Jonathan, on her part, received the
“award” with “surprise.” She said she was just “doing her own thing” in
Nigeria not knowing someone faraway in Asia noticed. She promised to do
more good works with God’s help.
The interesting part of Dame Jonathan’s
honorary doctorate was that the awarding institution is co-founded by
Cho, the same man of God she visited two years earlier. Cho is even the
Chancellor of Hansei. He described her as “selfless” in order to justify
the honorary doctorate.
Recently, Cho was, wait for it, sentenced
to jail for corruption. And that was when some things about the award
and the way they showered her with empty praises began to make sense.
To say every man has a price is jaded
philosophising. What is news here is that for 14 years, an elder in
Yoido Church said he beseeched Cho to end his unethical practices.
Despite praying for many nations and individuals, Cho could not do the
needful for his own salvation.
Cho, 78, has been a pastor far longer
than Nigeria has been an independent country. He started his church in
1958 in the midst of an economic crisis. Both the country and the church
rose to prosperity together. His church boasts some one million
members/attendees. Cho is a prosperity preacher who took his own message
too seriously.
Now, he has been convicted of financial
misappropriation to the tune of $12m and directed to pay back $4.6m. He
was also stamped with racketeering and tax evasion, and subsequently
sentenced to three years imprisonment. He should be going to jail with
his first son, Cho Hee-Jun, a mini-Cho whose list of sexual scandals and
financial impropriety is longer than a leg but his sentence is
suspended.
Three losers here: Nigeria for wasted
resources devoted to the “prayer” photo-op; Dame Jonathan for being a
dupe and, Cho for his crimes.
South Korea, in this story, is clearly a winner.
It takes moral courage to “touch the
Lord’s Anointed”, especially one that has become a cultural icon like
Cho. Who would have dared that in Nigeria? Cho says he has learnt that
the pursuit of materialism is useless. Quite a humbling experience for a
man who has spent decades preaching about God but the takeaway is that
he was taught this lesson.
He will hopefully spend the rest of his
life learning that being called by God does not immune one from
responsibility. If he were a Nigerian, this might be a needless lesson
because here, pastors get away with non-accountability and even boast
about it. Last year, Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo of COZA church, Abuja, was
accused of marital infidelity. This alone should be enough for the
church to investigate him to demonstrate moral standards existed in
their church.
What did Fatoyinbo do when the story
broke? He trivialised the allegation and fibbed during a church service.
In one breath, he said God told him not to respond. Moments later, he
said he was packaging a “robust reply.” Since then, he has not deemed it
fit to tell us whether he had sex with his church member or not. He
continues to pastor his church to the background song of devoted
worshippers who throw around Bible verses about not judging another
man’s servant. The point, however, lingers: If we fail to question our
pastors’ excesses, we will carry over the same attitude to our political
leaders.
People try to draw a line between the two
vocations saying pastors are called by God, and not elected by people.
What they forget is that we carry over attitudes from spiritual spaces
to the secular. By the way, since pastors/churches have become a huge
part of Nigeria’s political culture, they are no longer sacrosanct. Who
holds them to account on issues of corruption?
It is bad enough that Nigerian churches
and mosques do not pay taxes, they still get import waivers thereby
denying the country revenue. Who says because they preach against sin
they cannot be corrupt? Cho has pastored for longer than half of the
world’s population has existed, yet he still used the devil (or the
devil used him, whatever!). Who still thinks that “anointed-ness”
immunes you against your own human failings?
The family that established global televangelism through satellite station, Trinity Broadcasting Network,
racked up a massive corruption record that would make even the devil
quake with envy. We know these things because they live in relatively
accountable societies. In Nigeria where pastors are never pressured for
their “robust reply,” how do you keep them in line? And which agency can
develop the balls to start scrutinising the activities of these “men of
God” when the President and his wife openly fraternise with them?
by Abimbola Adelakun
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