My apology to the Roman Catholic Mission

I want to use this platform to apologise to the Nigerian Roman Catholic family. Why? It is a long story. You see, I was born into the Baptist family. My old man (God bless his soul) went by the name John. And his friends attached “the Baptist” appellation to his name because he was a committed Baptist man. He was an elder at the First Baptist Church, Kumasi, Ghana and patron of the church choir. As his first son, he wanted me to be an active member of the singing machines. But I failed him. Singing has never been my hobby. You can hardly find me listening to music. In fact, left to me, musicians would starve to death. I tell you!
I was rooted in the Baptist system throughout my childhood but my interest began to wane when I stepped into my early teens. There was this experience that threw a wet blanket on my “Baptistism”. It all started during one of my long vacations in Jos. My brother-in-law wanted me to look like a mature boy one Sunday when he passed his undersized “jumper” to me with an oversized cap to match. I emerged in the auditorium of the First Baptist Church situated along Adebayo Street, Jos, cutting the picture of a kid with a divine mission to unify Christianity and Islam. But what I got for that infantile effort was disgrace and dishonour. While bouncing along the aisles in search of where to fix my little arse, my head suddenly became empty. I had forgotten to remove my cap. And the janitor, rather than tapping me by the clavicle and asking me to take off the cap because I was not in a mosque where the Muslims wear their caps in worship, he used the janitor’s stick to yank it off. All eyes fell on me as the congregation, inclusive of the reverend, giggled. I swung around, rescued my cap and stormed out of the hall in anger.
Sometime around the mid-70s, I found myself gravitating towards the Catholic fraternity. I was in the system until early 1990s when I joined the born again bandwagon. Those of us on this side of the divide are of the belief that orthodox Christianity is a journey to Gehenna because those that are trapped there are not born again. A branch of Church of God Mission (CGM), founded by the late Papa Benson Idahosa, located at Alheri, Zaria Road, Jos, was my first Pentecostal destination where I rose to become the president of the men’s fellowship. I have been to several other allied churches thereafter.
However, my problems with the Pentecostal family are its myriad of idiosyncrasies: deception, manipulation, fund-raising, and make-believe tongues. I will give you a tongueful instance. During one mid-week service at the CGM, I watched our pastor’s driver, an Urhobo man, saunter into the auditorium in a very casual manner and before I could blink my eyes, he broke into tongues: “…..ro-bo-bo-bo! ro-bo-bo-bo!! ro-bo-bo-bo!!!” Was it because he was an Urhobo man? Then, how about an Offa man like me breaking into “fa-fa-fa-fa! fa-fa-fa-fa!! fa-fa-fa-fa!!!?” Or an Ijaw man dissolving into “jaw-jaw-jaw-jaw! jaw-jaw-jaw-jaw!!” until he breaks his jaws!
I made a lot of friends in the Catholic circle.  And I was a visible parishioner at the St. Louis Catholic Church, Jos. The late Catholic Archbishop of Jos Archdiocese, Dr. Gabriel Ganaka, had my 2-Volume comic book “Share A Laugh” in his collection. He was very fond of me. Most of my Catholic friends were extremely unhappy that I jumped ship. I tried to convince some of them to jump along with me into the world of light. They turned down my invitation with a flip-up of the nose.
It is about two decades now that I embraced the Pentecostal system. Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who was a product of CGM is currently mired in a dollar-arms scandal. His private jet, acquired strictly for evangelism, is at the centre of the monumental scandal that blew into the open in South Africa. Ayo is the first Pentecostal pastor to represent us in the umbrella body of the Nigerian Christendom, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) hitherto occupied by the so-called non-born again Christian leaders but whose leaderships were free of scandal. Our main man became the CAN president in 2010. Two years later, the Catholic bishops became pissed off because, according to them, Pastor Oritsejafor had begun to deviate from the set goals of the spiritual body by swimming in political murky waters… not for lost souls. They withdrew their membership. Two years after the bishops jumped ship, Pastor Ayo offered them the last laugh.
Pastor Oritsejafor deserves all the darts that are coming his way. His allusion that the enemies of Christianity are after him is absolute bunkum. What has Christianity got to do with veering away from evangelism into “mammongelism”? I don’t know how he is going to wriggle out of this web of dishonour. My problem with most of our Pentecostal pastors is that they fail to realise that he who comes into equity must come with clean hands… and like Caesar’s wife, they must be above suspicion. The $9.3m arms deal scandal is Pastor Oritsejafor’s cross. He alone should bear it. May God have mercy on him… just as I am asking the Roman Catholic Mission for forgiveness for being judgmental of the system. Right now, I am seriously considering returning to my Baptist roots. Because only God knows who is worshipping Him in spirit and in truth.
Just as I was rounding up this piece on Monday night, the airwaves went viral with the news of the seizure of $5.7m loaded in suitcases in South Africa for another black market arms purchase when the dust over the $9.3m scandal is yet to settle. The former apartheid enclave won’t believe their luck. Nigeria, what a country!