How pastors fleece church members

 “Stealing, stealing, oh stealing, steal­ing in the name of the Lord… My fa­ther’s house of worship has become a den of thieves, stealing in the name of the Lord.”

This is a part of a lyrics, ‘Stealing in the name of the Lord’ by a Jamaican reggae artist, Max Romeo in his al­bum, ‘War in Babylon’ released in the early 80s.

Judging from the realities in today’s Christendom, Romeo was clairvoyant. His message, which barely attracted attention then, has become full blown and taken the centre stage in Nigeria.

Jesus Christ had after his resurrection called one of his disciples who had returned to his fishing profession, “Simon Peter, lovest thou me more than these… feed my lambs… feed my sheep… feed my sheep.”

Conversely, today, the sheep and the lambs are not only feeding the shepherds; the shepherds are literally drawing blood from them. Some of the experiences of people lay credence to the message of the Jamaican reg­gae artist.

James Nwafor, a furniture maker in Oha­fia Abia State, attends a branch of a Pentecos­tal church that has its headquarters in Ajao Estate, Lagos.

In December 2009, he struggled and bought a Mercedes Benz V booth 230 mod­el to among other things boost his business image.

On June 26, 2010, when his church was marking its anniversary thanksgiving service, coincidently, as he drove in to the church premises and was parking his car, the guest pastor who was just alighting from a commercial motorcycle saw and probably took note of him.

During ministration, the guest speaker called out Brother Nwafor before the con­gregation and told him that God has singled him out for unusual favour and uncommon blessing.

He told him that God said, “ You should use your car and sow a seed into the life of the resident pastor and by the end of Octo­ber, 2009, that God was going to bless you with the latest edition of Toyota Prado Sport Utility Vehicle (jeep).” He quoted 2 Chron­icles 20:20, “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established, believe also His prophet so shall you prosper.”

He brought a bottle of olive oil and anointed his forehead for financial favour, declaring, “ whosoever that set his eyes on you would go out of his or her ways to fa­vour you.”

He asked him to stretch out his hands; he also anointed his hands, declaring, “ With these hands, you would be signing multi million naira cheques.”

Continuing, he asked him to remove his shoes and socks and anointed his feet, de­claring “ everywhere you go if there was no door, God will create doors for you.”

While the congregation was watching with keen interest and chorusing ‘Amen’ to the prayers being made to their brother, Nwafor’s wife and some church members were uncomfortable.

At the end of the prayers, he asked him to surrender his car key. As if under hyp­notic influence, he handed over the key to him. The pastor told him to watch and see, stressing that the doubting believers would learn a lesson from him.

The change of ownership of the car was properly effected the following day, the res­ident pastor who hadn’t even a bike started driving the vehicle and after three months, he sold it, added some money and bought for himself the 2003 edition of Toyota Camry.

Meanwhile, as demonstration of faith, Nwafor bought a car key holder in antici­pation of the promised Toyota Prado SUV. Members were counting days waiting for October when their brother would bring the brand new jeep for dedication and thanks­giving.

October came, there was no news of the vehicle, 2011 came and passed, the same 2012, 2013 and 2014, and nothing hap­pened.

At some point, Nwafor, who said the scale had fallen off his eyes, recollected the church thanksgiving day in 2009, how the guest pastor alighting from Okada saw him parking his car and it dawned on him that the pastor did not actually hear from God. Last February, he called it quits from the church.

Nwafor’s experience is a tip of iceberg on how some pastors fleece their members.

Ambrose Nwiwu’s story in the hands of a minister of God is chilling. He was a manager at a branch of Intercontinental Bank, Enugu. He lost his job following the acquisition of the bank by Access Bank few years ago. He was paid severance al­lowance, which he hoped to invest and con­tinue to live a comfortable life.

He said somebody who was coming to his desk for some financial transactions introduced him to one ‘powerful’ man of God, who has an interdenominational prayer ministry in Enugu.

“The first day I went to see the pastor, he told me much about my life, and that certain charms had been buried in my com­pound at the village in Imo State. This he said, was the reason I lost my job and the next thing was going to be my life.

The pastor told me the urgency of ex­huming and destroying the charm before I lose my life through an automobile ac­cident.

“He told me he would go with me with his prayer team comprising about 20 ‘war­riors’ for all night prayers and thereafter dig out and destroy the charm and that I should bring one million naira.”

Since fear is the key that unlocks the pocket of the rich, he said he could afford to pay the amount in order to be alive; more so, as he had been paid severance al­lowance, so he did not hesitate to give the money.

“ I gave him a cheque for one million naira, which he paid into his account in an old generation bank. We went to my com­pound in the village. My house is fenced and nobody lives there and we were in the open court and thereabout 2am during the prayer vigil, the pastor said he had spotted the point where the charm was buried.

“ I was asked to go and bring shovel, I went and brought shovel and he started digging while prayers were still going on and about seven minutes, he shouted, ‘Je­sus’ and wanted to fall clutching an object – a carved wooden effigy about six inches long with red and black clothing materials, and cowry shells all tied with a black rub­ber band.

“He told me that the red material was the job I lost, while the black was the impend­ing death.”

The pastor told him that the effigy would not be burnt in his compound so that the smoke will not come in contact with anything in the compound, and said, “ he would take it to Amansea River, which is the boundary between Anambra and Enugu states for destruction and requested another N500, 000. I issued another cheque to that effect.”

While this was going on, Ambrose didn’t tell his wife, Helen or any of his relations. Many months after, in the course of discus­sion with his wife, he told her that the job he lost was not ordinary, that it was spiritual manipulation and if not for one ‘powerful’ man of God, he would have been dead.

He narrated the whole story to Helen. She shouted and cried that it was not real and later carried out her own investiga­tions. She found out that the man who in­troduced her husband works with the pastor and probably had told the pastor about him.

She found out that her husband wasn’t the first to have fallen prey to the pastor. Ambrose then realised he was duped.

In retrospect, Ambrose said, the effigy with everything tied on it looked fresh, un­like something that was supposed to have been buried for sometime.

Also related is the story of Everest Onu who was living at Rasheed Babatunde Street, Okoko, Ojo, Lagos, before he was transferred to Abuja.

He was a member of a white garment church and was having constant headache.

One Saturday morning, he called his two brothers in-law to come to his house.

When they came, he told them how his Shepherd while praying for him over the constant headache brought out seven dog teeth, seven pieces of broken bottles and seven pieces of cowry shells.

According to Everest, the Shepherd said, his co-tenant was responsible and wanted him to die.

His in-laws, were baffled and demanded to see the opening on his head where the objects were extracted, but he flared up and asked them why they doubted his shep­herd, who hears directly from God. They left him.

Manipulation started, immediately Everest received his monthly salary, he would first go for prayers and sacrific­es in the church and returned home empty. He depended largely on his company’s staff bus to go to work.

His wife and children started suffering to the extent that the last child of about three months had kwashiorkor.

The wife was on the neck of her brothers for sustenance. It got to a point, the burden of their sister became unbear­able to the brothers, and they confronted the shepherd, who had been collecting Everest’s salaries for prayers and sacri­fices. That ended his ordeal as he left the church for Catho­lic church where his wife belonged before their marriage.

Idowu is one of the editors of a national newspaper. According to him, one day, while in the office, his mother called him over the telephone and started crying that her pastor said there were plans to kill him and that she should bring N700, 000 for prayers to avert the calamity.

“My mother asked me to bring N500, 000 to add up to the N200, 000 with her for the prayers. I told her to forget it, as my life is in the hands of God and nobody can kill me unless God permits.”

He said his mother was very uncomfortable and went ahead to give the pastor N200, 000.

“When she called to tell me what she had given money to the man of God, I told her that she was on her own be­cause her pastor knew that I could afford that amount and that was why he wanted to put fear into us.”

Ogbu was a chief superintendent of police in charge of a police division in Lagos. He was in his late 40s when he suffered a stroke in his office.

He was taken to the hospital and some progress was re­corded, as his speech was partly restored, but was still find­ing it difficult to walk. His family started moving him from one church to another prayer house.

According to him, the churches and prayer houses fleeced him to the extent that nothing was left and he start­ed selling both movable and immovable property.

“This church would prophesy and told me who was re­sponsible for the stroke and demanded money for prayers and exorcising the demons which caused the stroke and sending the arrows back to their sender.

“ Another would say different things all together. This incoherent prophecies continued until I decided that I have had enough and would not go anywhere again. Now, herb­alists are attending to me and I am getting better.”