Christian Association of Nigeria president takes a swipe at churches being built with ill-gotten wealth

CHRISTIAN Association of Nigeria (Can) president Reverend Samson Ayokunle has lashed out at members of the clergy who receive ill-gotten wealth and use it to fund the building of their churches asking them to think again.

Over recent years, churches have become a conduit for corruption in Nigeria, with many of them becoming recipients of embezzled funds and the proceeds of other crimes including armed robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking. Last month, famous kidnapper Evans was found to have donated to the church, while earlier this month, a drug kingpin from Anambra State was discovered to have built a church in Ozubulu.

Reacting to the trend, Reverend Ayokunle has warned such donors to desist from giving money to the church as such donations incur God’s wrath, rather than attract blessings. He noted that people will be very wrong apportioning blame to the church because it had no right or powers to monitor its members.

Reverend Ayokunle said: “What Can is doing is to let people know that if they bring any money that God does not sanction, they will rather receive curse upon themselves instead of getting His blessings. Our people should stop bringing illicit money to the church, it is not acceptable to God and we should double our preaching on such things.

“At the point where you begin to doubt what is brought is now the problem, it is very difficult to determine the point to do so because you don’t know the worth of each individual. However, if someone who is a public servant or people working with organisations that have every limited capacity and if they begin to bring very outrageous amount to the church that is where the church should begin to raise concern and do what is necessary."

He advised members of the clergy to check and see if the amount people are bringing is bigger than the work they are doing and then if that it they case should ask if there are other sources through which the Lord is blessing the person. Reverend Ayokunle added, however, that this also raises suspicion because some people may begin to be very angry at the church believing that it is nosing into their affairs or is suspecting them for doing no wrong.

“It is a very difficult situation but the church needs to preach from time to time that people should check the sources of their money and that if anybody gets money from dubious means to the church, it would attract no blessing to the giver. In the case of the Ozubulu church, it is even very much difficult when that person is not within your vicinity.

"I don’t think the church has the blame, the person that is giving is the person that has the blame. The fact that they built the church does not mean that they should kill inside the church as the church didn’t sign any pact with them that if you build for us then you come and kill yourselves or other people inside the church," Reverend Ayokunle added.

He also pointed out that people do not put money in tithing cards again because they say what they are giving are between them and God, so it is difficult for the ushers to know who dropped big amount. In addition, the Can president said where people are working with big corporations where their earnings can be traced, nobody has the right to go to the bank to say they want to see the person’s statement of account.