By, Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe.
Winston Churchill once said: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” The Holy Bible commands us in Isaiah 41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
The case of Pastor Enoch Adejara Adeboye, the General Overseer of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) is clearly embodied in a popular saying among Anioma people, “Wa dika atu udene ukpolo, o ma-ma na o na-esi njo” (unless you stone the vulture, it will not realize it’s smelling ugly).
Here I address Pastor Adeboye as an individual and General Overseer of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), not the Church as the body of Christ. I do this without prejudice to the fact that my laptop is still in the Redeemers Camp’s Guest House, where I ran to for refuge while being pursued by agents of Directorate of State Security (DSS) in 2018, but was later betrayed by the Church officials there.
However, I have not forgotten that when I wrote a letter in November 2017 to all the Christian leaders in Nigeria titled “A Call for Reflection on the Future of Christianity in the Face of the Surging Threat of Islamization”, warning them of the present Muslim-engineered insecurity Nigeria is facing today, it was only Pastor Adeboye that responded with a letter dated 5th December 2017 with reference number “ref.ara/051217/4/enc”, titled: “Re: A Call for Reflection on the Future of Christianity in the Face of the Surging Threat of Islamization”, and signed personally by him.
So, in addition to my legal action against President Muhammad Buhari in Suit No FHC/ASB/CS/11/2016 over his planned jihad-style islamization of Nigeria, for which reason I am in exile today, I timely informed the Nigerian Christian leadership of the impending danger of Islamization and increased attacks against Christians sponsored by Nigerian Muslim leadership. But did they take my warning serious? Pastor Adeboye’s response was a mere acknowledgement and nothing more. Think of the number of Christians who had been slaughtered by Muslims since November 2017 when I wrote the warning letter.
This is also without prejudice to the fact that when I arrived stranded in Kigali, Republic of Rwanda on July 2022, after fleeing from Republic of Togo and, was abandoned by my two Igbo kinsmen who were contacted to assist me, it was two Yoruba Pastors of Redeemed Christian Church of God in Kigali that came to my aid on first contact and provided me with financial assistance for two-week hotel accommodation.
It is equally instructive to note that on two occasions I found myself in danger and requested assistance from Bishop David Oyedepo’s Living Faith Church (Winners Chapel) Pastors I was rejected. Their reason was that they could only help their members and such members must be financially up to date in their branches.
First was when I arrived at Maiduguri in early August 2018 from Republic of Cameroon through Gamboru Ngala, where I slept for a night at the massive refugee camp there, just adjacent a military Garrison. This was after fleeing from Cameroon to Central African Republic and deported back to Cameroon. By the time I arrived in Maiduguri, which was my first time, it was already dark without knowing where to go.
I requested a Keke (Tricycle) rider to take me to any Christian Church. I was thereafter taken to Winners Chapel. By the time I arrived at Winners Chapel it was already past 9 pm and luckily enough they were having a Youth program. I was later instructed to leave the Church premises by the Church security officials after being rejected by the Pastor few minutes to 11 pm.
As I stepped out of the Winners Chapel without knowing where next to go, I remembered with nostalgia one of my classic “Ancient and Modern” hymns during my days in Anglican Boys Grammar School, Akwukwu-Igbo, “Guide Me, O My Great Redeemer.”
As I moved down the lonely part of an unknown land towards the major road, which was about a kilometer away, another Keke rider approached me from nowhere and said, “Oga where you dey go this time? You no know say Maiduguri dangerous?” I told him to please take me to any refugee camp. Luckily, he lived in one of the refugee camps and was going home at that point. When we arrived, the gate was already locked with many people stranded for returning late.
I then waited till the Ebira-born Police Commandant of the Refugee Camp from Kogi State had admitted all the people into the camp. Luckily enough he was a Christian, otherwise it would have been a different story. After narrating my ordeal to him, he said he would put himself in trouble if he allowed me to stay, but that he would consult the civilian Camp Chairman. Fortunately the civilian Chairman was not in his house that night.
He then turned to me and said, “Well, as a Christian I will not leave you alone at that point of the night.” Thereafter, he handed his own form mattress to an Inspector of Police named Vitus Ejika from Imo State, with whom and another Inspector named Justin, a Yoruba, I slept for the remainder of the night. That was the first time I slept lying straight on my back for more than seven days.
The second rejection was in Freetown, Republic of Sierra Leone, where I was again rejected by my Igbo kinsmen and finding myself stranded, I approached the Pastor of the Winners Chapel there. Like the one in Maiduguri, he rejected me again on the ground that he was instructed to assist only members of Winners Chapel who are financially up to date in their branches. However, it took another Yoruba Pastor, Evangelist Victor Ajisafe of Sanctuary Praise Church to accommodate me in his Church for one month before I fled to Dakar Senegal through Guinea-Conakry by road.
Although I might not like my ugly experiences in the hands of the Winners Chapel Pastors in Maiduguri and Freetown, but I cannot deny the fact that in the context of the reason why I am in exile today— that is confronting Christian Genocide, persecution of Christians and Islamization, Bishop David Oyedepo has remained a vocal and fearless Christian opposition leader against Christian Genocide, persecution of Christians, Islamization, and current despoliation of Nigeria by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his petty Yoruba Muslim cronies; even though more is still desired from him. This is not the case of Pastor Adeboye.
Let me therefore state clearly that as a professional historian, I do not write out of ethnic consideration, fear or, to please anybody. I write with utmost conviction, what I consider is the truth about a given episode in the history of mankind so that it will be recorded for both the present and future generations that this was what one historian wrote about his country during his time.
It will also be recorded that those against whom I write today were alive when the truth about their actions as men of God and leaders of the Church in Nigeria was dispensed appropriately to the people. As Pope Leo XIII rightly stated, “It is the first law of history that it dares say nothing which is false nor fear to utter anything that is true, in order that there may be no suspicion either of partiality or hostility.”
On November 17, 1993 General Sani Abacha overthrew Chief Ernest Shonekan’s Interim National Government. His words were as briefly mechanical as they were authoritative:
“The Interim National government is hereby dissolved. The National and State Assemblies are also dissolved. The State Executive Councils are also dissolved. The Brigade Commanders are to take over from the Governors until Administrators are appointed. All Local Government Councils stand dissolved. The Directors of Personnel are to take over the administration of the Local Governments until Administrators are appointed. The National Electoral Commission is hereby dissolved. The two political parties are hereby dissolved. All processions, political meetings and associations of any type in any part of the country are hereby banned. Any consultative committee by whatever name called is hereby proscribed.”
General Abacha’s words presents one outstanding lesson to current Nigerian politicians. They lack of a sense of history and so cannot learn from what they are ignorant of.
Today, some people tend to cast aspersion on Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu for the events of January 15, 1966. But let us take a brief look of what he said on that memorable day and compare it with what is happening today:
“Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10 percent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers or VIPs at least, the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds.”
Can Major Nzeogwu be faulted in any manner from the above statement, given the stream of the current political circumstances in Nigeria?
Immanuel Kant stated in his Critique of Pure Reason that, “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”
Let me state without the least equivocation when speaking about the cerebral equations and sacrificial instincts of Nigerian Church leaders that, there are some Pastors in Nigeria today who can command me to put my finger in the fire in matters of the defence of the Nigeria Church and I will willingly obey them without looking back.
For instance, if Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor calls me anytime and says, “Tony I want you to put your finger in that fire near you for the case of Christian cause in Nigeria”, I will do it without question; not because he is a Pastor or man of God, but because he is a Pastor with a difference; a Pastor with undiluted moral principle, sacrificial instinct, untainted patriotism and zeal for the defence of the Church in Nigeria; and above all, a Pastor with knowledge, senses, understanding and reason, in the tradition of Immanuel Kant.
The point is that given my circumstantial experiences in my present state of struggles against Christian Genocide and persecution of Christians in Nigeria, I do not have any reason to judge the acts of men through the obnoxious lens of idiosyncratic ethnic bigotry. Those who unquestionably stood and, still stand for me in the course of my present struggles, are people from the least expected ethnic groups, at the top of which are the Yoruba.
My position in Nigeria today is therefore not whether you are Igbo or Yoruba but whether you are a Christian or a Muslim. Although, as our people would often say, “there is no land without lizard”, or to state it in Christian parlance, “there will always be a Judas in every twelve apostles, I still rank the Yoruba as number one among the ethnic groups in Nigeria I can entrust with an AK 47 rifle behind me, while walking unarmed in the front for a common cause.
I still believe that were my Yoruba-born political godfather Dr. Frederick Faseun to be alive, this intractable security cankerworm called kidnapping, Fulani banditry and Islamic terrorism would not have stepped into an inch of Yorubaland.
My position has always remained that, the Yoruba by their sacrificial creativity and calculated adventurism—politically, intellectually, economically, religiously and spiritually, created the present modern nation called Nigeria and, only the Yoruba can still destroy the same nation if they decide to do so today. This is why Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s brazen Ahithophelian rebellion against God’s spiritual estate cannot go unanswered.
There is no denying the fact that Pastor Adeboye is an instance in a complex case of psycho-spiritual syndrome driven by a psychopathic sense of political repayment entitlement without commensurate sense of moral judgment in accordance with the diktat of Christianity.
Here is the source of the political repayment entitlement. A Pastor of his Church, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, was Vice President of Nigeria. Currently, another Pastor of his Church, Mrs. Oluremi Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is the wife of the President. Pastor Adeboye is therefore like a little boy with cooked delicious mushy yam soaked in fresh palm-oil who will always do the biddings of the farmer who gave him the yam.
So when on June 23, 2026, Pastor Adeboye defended President Tinubu’s failure combat the raging insecurity in Nigeria, he did not speak as Pastor Enoch Adejara Adeboye but as the little boy with the delicious cooked mushy yam soaked in fresh palm-oil. In his often noted tactless utterances, he was reported saying:
“I need to make this one clear: I don’t support those who are accusing the president of not doing enough. When the commander-in-chief has given instructions to his subordinates, he has done his bit. You don’t expect him to go and put on khaki and fight.”
The above statement does not contain any form of ambiguity in the matters of interpretation and intent. The statement is an undiluted mind-boggling construct driven by a conscious mindset fixed on the crucible of discomfiting religious infallibility. It will therefore amount to roguish stupidity for any Pastor or member of Redeemed Christian Church of God to tutor Nigerians on the meaning and intent of the above statement by Pastor Adeboye.
In fact, anytime I am confronted with this sort of political hocus-pocus by supposed men of God who often equate their words oracle of God, I remember Soji Omotunde, now a Pastor of the same Redeemed Christian Church of God, when he wrote in the defunct African Concord issue of 5 October, 1992:
“A nation that is not ready to learn from the pitfalls of the past is existing on borrowed time. It might, sooner or later, exhaust all the luck earmarked for it. In the catastrophic free fall that would follow, not even those who presume they are enjoying today would be spared.”
This brings us to Matthew 12:37 and 37: “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Again, 1Peter 4:17 tells us: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begins at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” So Pastor Adeboye is not excluded from God’s judgment.
This is not a matter of seeking recourse to Psalm 105:15 and 1 Chronicles 16:22, where God commands us, “saying, ‘Touch not mine anointed, And do my prophets no harm.’” No! Not in the case of Pastor Enoch Adejara Adeboye.
For Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s case, we are not only consoled but consolidated scripturally by 1 John 4:1 through the following prophetic injunction: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
In accordance with the above word of God, Nigerians have tested Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s spirit and found it to be false. It does not in any manner matter whether his Church—Redeemed Christian Church of God is the largest Pentecostal Church in Nigeria or the world. After all, the Bible tells us in Matthew 7:13-14:
“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” So people should forget the size of their Churches.
I am not saying that all the members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God will go to hell-fire for being led by a false prophet. But Christians should not play deaf and dumb when their Pastors or General Overseers brazenly lead them astray from the word of God.
Yea! Pastor Adeboye may possess all the tinctures of a sublime man of God—facially innocent in carriage, queer pious dispositions, gentle-looking holy-man-style physiognomy, soft and disarming elocution, anointing-driven evocative sermons and above all, infectious but competitive propitious evangelism; yet beneath all these is a man of chameleonic character, clandestine subtlety and outward spiritual showmanship.
A man of delinquent empathy, superficial emotions and, manipulative charm, in April 1, 2023, Pastor Adeboye said to Nigerians: “Hear it with anointed ears, I am not and I will never be a politician. I am called to be a Pastor.” The question is what do we call a man of God who makes more statements of political lies than he preaches the word of God?
The Bible tells us in Matthew 7:15–16: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” Let us take a brief look at some rotten fruits of Pastor Enoch Adeboye.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God has been battling to convince Nigerians that the viral photo showing Pastor Adeboye bearing a placard was not a protest against President Goodluck Jonathan but a “Prayer Walk” against insecurity in Nigeria, during President Buhari’s time in 2020. Ironically, everything about the said “Prayer Walk” concerning Pastor Adeboye has been the same picture. Were there no video clips about the event in 2020?
Anyway, whether “Prayer Walk” or “Protest March”, so long as it was a demand to redress an abnormal political situation in the country with Pastor Adeboye bearing a placard, the question is why has he not done the same under President Tinubu, if indeed he is a sincere man of God?
Pastor Adeboye cannot equally deny writing a petition to President Goodluck Jonathan and collecting one million signatures for one million-man protest over rising cases of the same insecurity and kidnapping in Nigeria in 2010. The petition which was dated October1, 2010 reads in part:
“We, your subjects and citizens of this nation whose signatures appear hereunder, greet you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and congratulate you and every Nigerian on this auspicious occasion of the Jubilee of our nation. As we mark our 50th anniversary as an independent nation, we are faced with the emergence of kidnapping as the latest Nigerian night mare and one of the most serious threats to our common wellbeing, no one is safe. We cannot afford to celebrate, clinking glasses and congratulating each other when a horrendous decimation of the most vulnerable is picking up a pace and our stock of human capital heading for the abyss.”
For those addle-brained members of Redeemed Christian Church of God who will always defend their General Overseer even when he is dragging them downhill to the abyss, see “Kidnapping: RCCG Petitions Jonathan…to Stage One Million-Man Protest” Punch October 11, 2010.
This was the same Pastor Adeboye who referred to Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the “Abraham” of Nigeria. The Guardian issue of 25 October 2022 stated in President Bola Tinubu’s words, “The day my wife was ordained Pastor in the Redeemed Church, I was there. Pastor Adeboye gave me Abraham, I said what is the meaning? He said watch out, the father of nation.” Let Nigerians judge if this statement was not a rotten fruit from a false prophet.
In August 2017, Pastor Adeboye visited Muhammadu Buhari in a London hospital was aware that the real Muhammadu Buhari died in the same London Hospital in the same 2017. He went further to betray Prof Yemi Osinbajo by forcing to accept the perpetual position of Vice President after the death of Muhammadu Buhari instead of taking over as President under pressure from Tinubu by threatening to lay curse on him.
In July 2022, Bola Tinubu in the company of his wife Oluremi Tinubu secretly met with Pastor Adeboye for his endorsement and subsequent blessing of the Muslim-Muslim Presidential ticket. It was agreed during the meeting that Pastor Adeboye should not join other Pastors and Christians to criticize the Muslim-Muslim ticked.
Although Pastor Adeboye attempted to deny such meeting through a statement by his Church, but the flimsy reasons adduced by the statement clearly betrayed him. The statement reads inter alia:
“It has come to our notice that some news outlets are reporting that a meeting Between Pastor E.A. Adeboye: The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God Worldwide and the former Governor of Lagos State Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu was held few days back at the Redemption Camp where our esteemed father in the Lord was said to have supported the preferred candidature of the Party the Former Governor is a member of. This is to inform the general public that 1) Pastor E.A. Adeboye is under the authority of God, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), and as such will not speak on behalf of Christians on issues regarding policies. 2) Pastor E.A. Adeboye and the RCCG have not and will not endorse any candidate for the 2023 General elections in Nigeria. 3) The news reported by Daily Post is false. Daily Post and other News Outlets should desist from spreading false information about Pastor E.A. Adeboye and the RCCG as it defeats the code and ethics of Journalism and the full weight of the law will be employed if such happens in future. God bless you.”
Meanwhile, it is on record that Pastor Enoch Adeboye on January 7, 2023, told members of his Redeemed Christian Church of God to get their PVCs ready and wait for his instructions on whom to vote for. Yet he lied to Nigerians that he is not a politician.
On May 9, 2023, Pastor Enoch Adeboye spoke through his Special Assistant Pastor Dele Balogun commanding Nigerians to pray for Bola Ahmed Tinubu because he is the one to fix Nigeria. In his words:
“Let us pray for the incoming government that God will support it and give it the Grace to do the right thing. Thank God the president-elect has promised to fix Nigeria. If God helps him, Nigeria will prosper in his hands.”
How far has God through the prayers of Pastor Adeboye helped President Tinubu to fix Nigeria?
This is the same Pastor Adeboye who is now telling Nigerians that the same Tinubu cannot fix the current security situation in Nigeria because, even though he is the Commander-in-Chief of Nigerian Armed Forces he cannot carry rifle to fight terrorists in Sambisa Forest. Please who among the members of Redeemed Christian Church of God should tell their GO that a General does not need to be physically in battle to win a war?
It should be recalled that when Pastor Enoch Adeboye visited the Kaduna State Governor Alhaji Uba Sani on February 11, 2024, he confessed that Nigeria’s problem has become a spiritual matter. In his words:
“I have come again this time around because it has become more and more clearer to us that the problem our nation is facing is more than political. Our problems will require a bit of spiritual solution.”
By the statement there is no doubt that Pastor Adeboye was inviting God’s intervention, this time not through his fake prayers but by a third force. And of course he was right in that deposition because there are Biblical precedents. Daniel 2:21 referring to God our Creator states: “And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:” Pastor Adeboye by his justification of President Tinubu’s ineptitude is calling for this season of change. Indeed this was what Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, JSC, meant when he made the following statement:
“If you are a judge and you are corrupt where do we go from here? Then everything has come to a halt. If the legislature is corrupt, you go to the judiciary for redress, if the executive is corrupt you go to the judiciary for remedy, if the judiciary itself is corrupt where do you go from there. That is a question, where do you go? To God whom you don’t see? To history which is past? To the future that hasn’t come? Today is here, so let us use it.”
Of course what Justice Chukwudifu Oputa failed to add is that when the three arms of Government fail the people, God will have no other choice than to invite the Fourth Arm of the Government—the Military, to take over. This is what Pastor Adeboye is paradoxically prophesying in the tradition of Prophet Balaam, son of Beor.
Dr. Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe is the Odogwu of Ibusa, Delta State. He is currently President, International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN). Formerly Director Centre for Igbo Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he presently lives in exile in Republic of the Philippines as a result of religious persecution in Nigeria. Email: nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com