Despite initial misgivings concerning the real intentions of the promoters of on-going National Conference, it has since kicked off with some very interesting issues already on its front burner. One of such issues is the one that deals with subjecting religious bodies to taxation.
The current debate on taxation of religious bodies should be seen as a wake- up call by religious leaders in the country, a reflection of the mood of some Nigerians in respect of the ungodly activities of some of them . It is generally believed that some of the religious organisations in the country have become business empires of their leaders who have become cult –figures being worshipped as gods by their followers. Some of them have been accused of subjecting their followers to lives of penury and distress while they continue to live in unbelievable opulence and extravagance.
The call for taxation of religious bodies should, therefore, be seen as a manifestation of current thinking in the land that some of them are mere business conglomerates established to oil the insatiable thirst of their leaders for material acquisition. It is, indeed, paradoxical that some religious leaders, who preach the transient nature of the world to their followers, now go to any length to acquire worldly opulence. Years ago, calling for religious bodies and their leaders to be taxed, would have been regarded by many as a blasphemous move. However, current trend within our religious organizations has shown that lots of them have sacrificed piety on the altar of mundane pursuit.
It is, for instance, immoral and unjustifiable for religious bodies to establish institutions of learning that charge fees that are beyond the reach of majority of their members. In the pre-colonial and colonial periods, when European missionaries introduced western education into the country, what they offered was fee education. Their ultimate goal was to massively educate the people. Indeed, most modern day religious leaders benefited from the free education programme of the early missionaries. It is, thus, ironic that same people could preside over organisations that are taking education beyond the reach of the ordinary folks.
By and large, the lesson to take away from the controversial issue of taxation of religious organisations is that religious bodies and their leaders should focus more on re-building the collapse spiritual fabric of the society. It is ethically wrong for some of our religious leaders to display extreme affluence in the face of so much poverty, hunger, frustration and impoverishment in the society. Instead of encouraging pointless display of materialism, they need to work hard to ensure the regeneration of waning divine principles such as contentment, selflessness, discipline, integrity and love within their organisations, and the society at large.
Tayo Ogunbiyi,