Veteran musician and social crusader, Charles Oputa, alias Charly Boy, made headlines two days ago after claiming in a podcast interview that 99 per cent of pastors in Nigeria are useless! The 75-year-old maverick entertainer based his assertion on the failure of the clergymen to tackle Nigeria’s political leadership over the biting economic hardship and the metastasising insecurity in the country. If you are a social listener, you’ll agree that it’s not the first time such sentiment has dominated online discourse.
Nigerians believe that the disposition of heavyweight pastors to the maladministration of the country is: “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. Well, that’s some iteration of faith which entails saying the opposite or discountenancing negative happenings – not to live a lie but as a counterforce! That’s why believers talk about calling things that be not as though they were! And would not lend expression to what they don’t want to see. But that’s not even where I’m going with the caption that brought you here; the crux is still afoot. Read along.
It is true that Nigerian pastors, given their huge following, wield enormous influence in society. Their refusal to challenge the political establishment impoverishing the masses is consistent with how Jesus went about his earthly ministry. The use of “masses” rather than their “members” or “congregation” is deliberate, as you shall find out shortly. Yes, these men of God are only emulating the pattern of the Master who blatantly refused to be at odds with the civil authorities of His days. This turned out to be the major reason His Jewish people despised Him and wouldn’t have Him as the prophesied Messiah.
The Jewish elders went as far as trying to set him on a collision course with their Roman overlords with the trap question. This was when they sought Jesus’s opinion on their payment of tax to Caesar, the emperor. “They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” (Mark 12:16-17). If Jesus with all the prodding, pressures and expectations to spearhead an insurrection against the Roman regime, remained a Lamb, why should His present-day successors in Nigeria do otherwise?
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Charly Boy dismisses the pastors as useless for not speaking truth to power. If they aren’t, how about the Truth they’ve been declaring all along – which is the Gospel of Christ? A holistic sermon packs the truth that can make public officials to do right by the people. Interestingly, the Area Fada would, in the same breath, say, “I may live in Nigeria, but Nigeria does not live in me. I don’t believe like you. I don’t want to think like you people. I’m not in the same class with you people. I come from a different space and time.” This characterisation is actually more fitting for the pastors he called useless. Scripture makes it clear that their citizenship is not of this world – the closest they are is global citizens, not Nigerians per se.
They understand that there is so much that can be done to repair the systems of this world; hence, they wisely opt not to dissipate energy. “We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19 NLT). Why should these pastors who embody what is greater bother about the world they’ve overcome (1 John 4:4)? Someone may say if not for their sake, then in the interest of their followers. This brings us to my deliberate use of “masses” instead of “flock” or “congregation” earlier. It remains the case of “Like priest, like people.” Those connected to the grace at work in the lives of these well-regarded pastors obtain the Kingdom Citizenship that exempts them from what outsiders are passing through.
It is akin to the stark difference between life in Goshen and life in surrounding cities during the Ten Plagues of Egypt. It was the same country, yet different lived experiences. That’s how the Covenant of Exemption and Operating by Heaven’s Economy works. Why should a congregation who have so consolidated their relationship with God that they enjoy special protection (Psalm 91:7) and inexhaustible riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19) be bothered about bad governance in the secular space? The losers may just be followers who aren’t genuinely connected and conservatives who were recently up in arms against the one who vowed never to follow a poor pastor!
The indifference of Nigerian Christian clerics to malfeasances in Abuja’s three-arm zone and public bureaucracies may seem egocentric or self-absorbed, but these pastors aren’t precluding the suffering masses from finding solace in the lifeboat that their ministries represent. They dare not because Jesus Christ – the Source – is for everybody, like Jelly Roll recently told the world. Christ made it clear to them in Matthew 10:8, “Freely you received; freely give.” As it were, it is those who lack an understanding of divine provision who would accuse God’s genuine servants of profiteering from their prophetic or pastoral mandate.
So, rather than join the agitation for a better-governed society like activists would want them, these pastors preach for everyone to board the Ark of God, where there are abundant supplies and protection from what is destroying those who would not come in. They are therefore not useless but useful to society and the Kingdom. Their usefulness is definitely not in sparring with those controlling the levers of government at every turn. After leading a protest or criticising an unpopular government policy, would that spell the end? Charly Boy apparently wants these pastors to perpetually be in the trenches heckling the government of the day.
Indeed, the task of showing people the path of life and bringing them to God’s presence, where there is fullness of joy, and His right hand that provides pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11), is so demanding that it leaves these pastors no time for activism. Therefore, Charly Boy and his likes have better looked elsewhere when seeking prominent and eminent personalities to recruit into holding the government accountable. As Jesus Christ succinctly puts it, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).
The peace and prosperity that is the lot of believers in this plane cannot be a function of any government functionary! It is just like the Samaritan woman whose faith was in the well dug by Jacob, which she noted served the patriarch, his children, and livestock. “Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:13-14).
VIS Ugochukwu is a Sage, Storyteller and PR Strategist who engages with readers via Twitter (now X) @sylvesugwuanyi.
