"Church is a business, Nigerian pastors are fake" – Akhigbe

A former Nigerian pastor has revealed what he went through as a man of God before he decided to stop himself and family members from religious activities. Al Akigbe explained he was a pastor for up to 15 years but had to leave because the church was so blatant in the perpetration of evil which is discouraging to him.

Although he accepted that there are many privileges and money that comes with being a pastor but all the money didn’t really define his life.

He said that while he was in church, he noticed a lot of evil going on which the church leaders tried to justify it. He went on to refer to the ‘daddy GO’ as “G-hoe”.

He wrote:

I made up my mind a long time ago, to distance myself and my family from religion. Moreso, religious leaders like pastors. I don’t care what anyone thinks. It’s a choice I have made.

I don’t hate anyone. But, I don’t accord that ecclesiastical air to anyone. Because, most of them, if not all, are fake. I was myself a pastor for more than 15 years. So, I know. I have my ordination certificate, several awards for meritorious services, made impact both locally and internationally.

But, I saw the deceit, shenanigan, jujuism, scam, abuse, etc and was turned off. I became a lone voice in the wilderness crying against them. Probably, that was the reason they decided to eliminate me.

Agreed, no human or association or group is perfect. But, to be so blatant in the perpetration of evil was discomforting to me. I didn’t care about the privileges. As important as money is, it has never really defined my life. Maybe I’m weird, I don’t know.

I was in the world and knew how to do a lot of bad things. How could I be in the church as a Christian and we were perfecting the act of doing even worse evil?

When I believe something, I believe with my spirit, soul and body. My zeal for the things of God (as I thought they were), made me grow and became a church leader. As I grew in pastoral ranks, I discovered, to my amazement, that God was just a facade. Everything we did, we did for the G-hoe. Any other thing, we did for greed. And my bible condemns these things.

You needed to have known me when I was in church. This post is public and anyone that knew me can come and dispute it if I’m lying. I was always fighting what was against the people. Sometimes, during meetings, I’ll argue with the head pastor, using scriptures. And I will be told that revelation was progressive and that God talked directly to the man with the vision. Meaning: the bible doesn’t have the present information about the present direction of the church.

I’ll have some of my colleagues sent to try and counsel me. My question was always, how can we say we’re children of God and be engaging in acts that were worse than those of the unbelievers? They’ll tell me that there are different levels of grace.

If I tell people I stopped pastoring, they’ll be like, “how is that possible? Were you not called before?”

Called? People actually believe that nonsense ”call” thing? Smh.

Get it into your head now, church is a business. Just as people thought and decided to choose fashion as their line of business, so also people decided to go into church as their line of business. It’s the most lucrative business in Nigeria after politics.

They’ll start it and tell you God called them. It’s a LIE. They called themselves or their pastors that called themselves, selected them to help spread their tentacles.

That’s why I laugh when people say, a church has a board. Which kind of board is a board that is selected by the pastor and CEO to act on his behalf and as a semblance of public organisation? Do you people reason at all?

Someone wakes up one day and tells you, God called him. You believed. Busola wakes up one day and decided to narrate the story of how a pastor raped her, you refused to believe. You’re asking for the evidence. Which evidence did your pastor give you that made you believe God called him?

The big bible that he carries?

Anybody can buy a big bible.

Quite frankly, it’s a feat to be able to pull out of a church congregation. It’s even a greater feat to resign from a pastoral profession.

It’s not easy isolating from people that have become family and friends. But, I had to do it for my conscience sake.

I couldn’t stand the systematic impoverishment of people anymore.

I couldn’t bear to see the perpetuation of falsehood.

I couldn’t bear to see women abused.

I couldn’t bear to see dirty politics…dirtier than that of APC and PDP put together.

I resigned and pulled out. And since then, about 5 years ago, I’ve never been more at peace with myself. I hope to take out time to write a book on this very soon. It will be a biography. Names of people, places and events will be mentioned.

I had wanted Pastor Anita to write it herself. Let the world hear her own side of the story. But, I guess they succeeded in gagging her with legal technicalities and she might not be able to.

Well, she is not me. There ain’t no stopping me if I set my mind to do something. I don’t mind stepping on and hurting toes.