Our Reporter November 25, 2012
Nigerians were taken aback by the recent news that Founder of the World of Bible Life Church and President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayodele Oritsejafor, received a private aircraft gift worth about $45 million from a member of the congregation to mark his 40th anniversary as a Pentecostal priest. With this development, Oritsejafor has added to the long list of clerics and legions of Nigerians (especially public office holders, private entrepreneurs and others) owning private jets. Statistics suggest there are roughly 160 private airplanes owned by this class of citizens.
The penchant for such expensive means of transportation, reports say, has cost the coterie of “wealthy” Nigerians more than $6.5 billion (about N1.02 trillion) in the last five years, according to reports; while private jet ownership in the country grew by 650 per cent, from 20 aircraft in 2007 to the staggering number being mentioned today. Some of the reasons flaunted to justify the morbid ostentation and profligacy, especially on the part of public officers entrusted with state power and resources, ranged from the need for privacy, fear of insecurity and ease of movement. According to industry sources, private jets cost between $40 million and $65 million; while the choice brands of Nigerians include Bombadier Challenger 60,605 Global Express; Embraer Legacy 600 – 650; Falcon 2000S – 2000EX; and Hawker Siddley 125 – 800 and 900XP.
Whereas it is no crime to own a private jet, the list and calibre of the owners raise a number of moral and fundamental questions, especially in a country lacking the most basic of infrastructure and social services, such as regular electricity supply, motorable roads, railway services, quality public schools and health facilities, etc. Even well equipped and functioning airports are in deficit, both in Abuja, the nation’s capital; and Lagos, the country’s commercial nerve centre. Sadly, too, such obscene display of wealth and affluence is being witnessed in the midst of the massive youth unemployment, poverty and destitution, decreasing life expectancy, increasing maternal and child mortality, urban squalor, decreasing school enrolment and rising killer diseases that have continued to torment ordinary Nigerians. Nigeria ranks in the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI), with more than 70 per cent of the population living on less than $2 a day.
Talking about the role of the church and the clergy in the reveling and private jets’ vanity, the House of God ought to be a sacred bosom for charity, a sanctuary for spiritual rejuvenation, especially for those in honest search of answers to life’s countless fears, worries, deprivations and afflictions; certainly not a showroom for the banal display of material possessions, or a farm from where ridiculous scandals and bloodshed are routinely harvested, which are the trademarks of countless religious houses and their leadership today. Whereas the missionaries that brought religion to the country preached and practically demonstrated how virtuous it is to give, by building free schools and churches, offering generous scholarships and training to indigenous Nigerians, and generally helping the helpless, for instance, many of today’s churches and worshiping centers have brazenly been turned to temples for conjuring wealth, with some pastors competing feverishly not only among themselves, but also against corrupt public functionaries in the race for material possessions. Many Nigerian churches own schools or hospitals which their poverty stricken members, their children or wards cannot afford because of their outrageous bills. It is, in addition, not impossible that vast sums of money church members were ‘spiritually’ compelled to cough up were used to build such facilities. Yet such churches do not pity famished church members when dispensing the opium on tithes, offerings and giving. This is inhuman and crass exploitation. It is ungodly!
We agree with Pastor Tunde Bakare that religious institutions have done grave harm to the nation; and that it is high time worshipers started demanding explanations from their leaders on their conduct with money. Religious leaders and their followers equally owe the nation explanations on why, despite the proliferation of churches and other places of worship, immorality, crimes, corruption, frauds, divorce cases, etc., have continued to multiply and fester, instead of abating. In like manner, most Nigerians voted into public office to serve end up looting the treasury and leaving the populace more impoverished. There is no way religion can sincerely retrieve its followers or the nation from the abyss when its leaders live the unrestrained and licentious lifestyles of emperors; and are scarcely sober. Such spiritual leaders should caution themselves, turn a new leaf and stop mocking the scriptures.
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