Tornado Obj, the other day, rifled through the churches, upsetting a clearly winded Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The thing though about bitter truth is that no matter how much you grate, in agony or in distaste, that truth must be told, for your own good.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to be sure, not exactly himself Mr. Squeaky Clean, in perceived corruption, cronyism and allied matters, nevertheless told Christendom Nigeria what they don’t ever want to hear: on corruption, the Nigerian Church has fallen short of its own moral glory.
Like the Biblical equivalent, when God Almighty looked down and found everyone fallen short of glory, and the cleanest were but a filthy rag, what is left of the Nigerian Church, as far as corruption-tolerance is concerned, is nothing but a can of worms — every pun intended!
Obasanjo just told Nigerian Christendom what everyone knows, and everyday tells the Church, though high pastors resort to sophistry to cover their shame (and further expose their moral nudity): though on corruption the Nigerian Church should have been the hallowed and revered partner of the Buhari Presidency in this life-threatening morass, it has chosen instead to be hollow and empty.
The reaction of the leading lights of the church, to the Obasanjo brutal shellacking, has been predictable: crass finger-pointing.
O, the guilty party are not the Catholics and the Orthodox, the earliest partakers of the Christian grace, before the free-wheeling and prosperity-mouthing Pentecostals, who tend to be nothing but Pente-rascals!
That might well be true. CAN, under Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, was the Rasputin of the Jonathan era, with its free-wheeling sleaze. Why, the man of God, and CAN’s revered president, had his own fair share of scandals: witness the Nigerian aircraft, caught in the vortex of the arms-cum-currency smuggling scandal in South Africa.
The aircraft was traced back as Oritsejafor’s private jet. Ay, the man of God claimed it was leased to some third parties, and all that. Well, no one has disclaimed his claim, and he would appear on the clear on the legal front.
But on the moral front, where the Church ought to play with messianic aggression, Oritsejafor didn’t exactly come out like the proverbial Caesar’s wife — that should be above all suspicion.
Neither did CAN. The last time Hardball checked, the Christian body maintained a shameful silence. Perhaps, CAN was too busy “eating” under their adopted “Christian” president! After all, it isn’t good table manners to talk while eating!
Still, scapegoating the Pentecostals — as penterascal as they may be — is rich. After the ouster of Jonathan and the advent of Buhari, Father Matthew Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, was a notable Catholic that tried to rattle-dazzle everyone, that Buhari should “forget the past”, simply because Jonathan had done a “fantastic” job!
Despite all the flak the good bishop got from an outraged public, Hardball did not see him back down from that high horse, which temper, if not the exact intent, was perceived as corruption-friendly, if not outright tolerant — simply because the person, under fair strictures, was a Christian, and his presidency, a Christian presidency, whatever that means?
Is that not the ultimate corruption of Christian thinking itself?
Even Anthony Cardinal Okogie’s retort that Obasanjo was part of the evil he so much declaimed was neither here nor there. Yes, Obasanjo grandstands a lot, on morality and allied matters, simply because he is blessed with a captive but gullible audience.
But his forte is real-politik, not morality. The church can’t plead such luxury.
Let Nigerian Christendom wake up to its moral and spiritual essence or, eternally keep mum. It is the time to stand up and be counted — or the Nigerian Church should admit it is more a willful and merry part of the corruption problem, than be part of a solution to it.
