The parish priest of St Peter’s Anglican Church, Lekki Lagos, Rev. Asoliye Douglas-West, spoke with Sunday Oguntola on national issues. Excerpts:
Do you buy the insinuation that Nigeria will change once the church is fixed?
I will not subscribe to that shade of opinion or sentiment. Such insinuation is preposterous and incautious. There is nothing absolutely wrong with the church as an established institution. It is dynamic and it is connected to the world. If there is any problem, then it has to do with a fraction of the people who populate and operate the instrumentality of the church.
The church is simply a microcosm of a larger system that is dysfunctional almost approaching a simmering atrophy. It is the individuals that operate the Nigerian system that need to fix their orientation and method of doing things to be able to change Nigeria.
As a people, do we have ethos? Yes. Do we have values? Yes. Do we have creed? Yes, I could enthusiastically say we do but acidic decadence has eroded our values and mores. Do we fear God? No, we do not fear God and we do not love ourselves.
Some say the church is part of the problems in this country, do you share such sentiment?
The church is an integral part of the whole and the sum of the whole has been denuded of its moral fabric and malnourished of its character content. Now it requires the entire composition of our society to reconstruct its orientation and methods of doing things. In commerce, people pursue profits without morality; In governance, politicians pursue victory and operate the system without principles; similarly in the church people appear to be fanatically religious without a content of spirituality.
If there is a fundamental problem bedeviling the sustainable progress of the country, we have all in diverse ways contributed to the failing and failure of the society. At some points, individually or collectively, we had acquiesced, connived, collaborated, compromised or benefitted from a dysfunction and degeneracy of the system.
If Nigeria is to change, what are things the church should start doing?
The challenges facing Nigeria cannot be written off by the goodwill of one institution. The desire to change Nigeria for good has to be a collective action. Nevertheless, the church has not ceased from performing its statutory role in contributing effectively to nation building. It is a moral barometer of society.
Deviations occurring in isolated incidence of irreligious rascality and recklessness perpetrated by some wolves pretending as members of the church do not and cannot repudiate the important role played by the church both in spiritual and physical terms.
The church has neither stopped praying nor working. We connect with the world and attempt to influence the environment by remodelling people’s orientation to follow the standards of God and set good example. We must accept the fact that there is an attitudinal bankruptcy and performance deficit in the balance sheet of the nation.
As a player in the oil and gas sector, why are ordinary Nigerians yet to benefit from the so-called petrodollars?
What obtains in the socio-economic framework is an aberration. We have a reverse order of the 80/20 rule working in our situation. Less than 20% of the population reaping more than 80% of the resource harvest. Conversely more than 80% of the people are economically stringed up because they are perpetually excluded from the mainstream of economic paradise.
There is an institutional weakness that supports this obnoxious structure. What is the meaning of FAAC? Federation Accounts and Allocation Committee. It is a system whereby treasury secretaries from the states converge under the chairmanship of the federal exchequer to receive revenue allocation on a monthly basis.
Such revenues when collected are surrendered to the governors who solely determine how the funds should be misappropriated and expropriated according to their whims and caprices without recourse to the fiscal prescriptions of the appropriation budget. The governors are running the states as though public governance is a private sole proprietorship enterprise.
No legacy to bequeath and no communal aspirations to fulfill. There is no sense responsibility and accountability. In the manner of existing structure and dispensation, petrodollar benefits cannot be extended to the vast majority of the ordinary people. They are hewers of woods and fetchers of water. We have a system where the operators of the institution of governance perceive themselves as feudal lords while the governed are treated as vassals.
For instance, nobody or group has ever careered themselves to challenge the governors (incumbent or expired) how well or badly they have spent the funds accruing from the 13% derivation and/or ecological funds to benefit or detriment of the various communities where oil is mined.
There are plans to revive debates on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), what are your thoughts on how the bill can work?
Strong currents of conflicting interests, bad faith, and mutual suspicions have permeated the debate. The supposed good intents and purposes of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) are being threatened to be extinguished. Further enlightenment and assurances might be required.
Don’t you think you could have done more for God if you were pastoring on a full-time basis?
I continue to maintain my position that a full time practice in the pastoral ministry would have rendered me underutilised and limited in my capability. I have acquired a professional training and exposure that had sufficiently equipped me to assume a versatile role. Doing more or less for God depending on the robe or collar I wear at any point in time borders on the perspective a bystander would evaluate my function.
Secular or pastoral, I am doing the work of God and accruing benefits to humanity for as long as I demonstrate competence, diligence, commitment and passion. Realising the amount of energy and potentials I possess, it is expedient to engage myself in multitasking enterprises as effectively as possible promoting the work of God.
Your church is one of the emerging forces in the Anglican Communion, what do you really do differently?
There is really nothing to be done differently. We are not acting a script. The church is absolutely one foundation where Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. The prescriptions and standards governing our conduct and expectations have been clearly spelt out in the Bible.
The service we render is homogenous without distinction and the result being anticipated is universally the same which is the message of salvation. What you describe as doing things differently may be essentially contained in the manner of delivery and approach or packaging which may be orthodox or neo-orthodox or evangelical or a hybrid of different classifications.
Regardless of the methods and perspectives, keeping the eye on the ball requires us to focus on the one irreducible truth – preaching the gospel to enable adherents of the faith earn salvation.
What is on the mind of God for Nigeria at this time?
Let those entrusted with the mantle of leadership tear down the stronghold of pervasive corruption and set the people free from the captivity of poverty and deprivation. We pretend to know God but we do not love and serve Him. We shall continue to grope in the dark and remain the woods not until we turn to God and seek His righteousness.
In the heart of your heart, do you believe genuine Christians can survive in the murky waters of Nigeria’s politics?
I know only one type of Christian. I do not know which genre is genuine or counterfeit when it comes to practicing Christianity. Performance is of universal application because there are defined indices or criteria to measure it.
The murkiness of the water was deliberately created to subvert and retard the effectiveness and efficiency of the system.
A Christian who earnestly desires to serve God can survive in the murky waters of Nigerian politics. The path to honour and enduring success cannot be easily short circuited. There must be unfeigned willingness and preparedness backed by capability to do the right thing on the part of those seeking for political inclusiveness.
