* Resists law to regulate churches
* Accuses govt of jealousy over prosperity of churches
* We won’t tolerate your lawlessness, Presidency warns
Presiding Bishop, Living Faith Church Worldwide, David Oyedepo has decreed that the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu should allow churches to also open on weekdays in the state.
In Lagos, churches only open on Sundays and mosques on Fridays.
But Oyedepo, on Sunday during worship service at Canaanland, Ogun State berated the Lagos State Government for not allowing churches to open on weekdays, describing it as strange.
He said: “I also heard something very strange last night that Lagos churches open only on Sundays. If I heard well, the markets open every day, public transport opens every day. Is Nigeria still a circular state? Churches in the north open everyday.
“My sincere advise to the authority is that please, review your stand. Since the SS3 students resumed, is there outbreak? The churches in Kano opened about two months now, is there any outbreak? Kogi opened earlier on, any outbreak? Before the church will turn to somebody’s pocket, it is time for God to act.
“We will keep on hearing from heaven the latest from this altar as God liveth. So I decree the opening of churches for all weekdays in Lagos. A woman said in Ota market, ‘we that go to sell in the market are the ones who come to church to worship’.
“I told you sometimes past that I hope this is not an anti-church virus? Not I hope, I said it is an anti-virus. An end has come to every form of assault against the church. Freedom of worship is restored to our nation, from the north to the south, from the east to the west.”
Besides contesting government’s power to restrict opening of churches, Oyedepo also kicked against the application of the Company and Allied Matters Acts (CAMA) in churches.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed CAMA into law on August 7, 2020.
Under the law, religious bodies and charity organisations will be strictly regulated by the registrar-general of Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and a supervising minister.
CAMA provides that the commission may by order, suspend the trustees of an association or a religious body and appoint an interim manager or managers to coordinate its affairs where it reasonably believes that there has been any misconduct or mismanagement, or where the affairs of the association are being run fraudulently or where it is necessary or desirable for the purpose of public interest.
But the fiery preacher said such laws are borne of out the government’s jealousy about the prosperity recorded by the church.
Oyedepo questioned the rationality behind subjecting churches to the same laws as companies, describing the church as God’s heritage on earth.
“The Church is God’s heritage on earth. Molest the wife of somebody and you will see the anger of that person. The church is the bride of Christ. You know how a strong man is when you tamper with his wife. The church is the body of Christ. We are under obligation to give warnings to wicked rulers so we could be free from their blood,” he said.
“The Church works on the pattern delivered by God not the pattern of man. Government has no power to appoint people over churches. This is a secular nation. The church is the greatest asset of God in this country. Please be warned. Judgment is coming. The Lord says I have been still but now I will arise. Anybody that is in this deal is taking poison. This will never work. I am waiting for a day when anybody will appoint a trustee over this church… You can’t gag anybody. We own this country together.
“It is only in Africa that people who are over 80 years still run around to become president. I know that it is the prosperity of the church that is making them jealous. But I am going to live to see an army of many winners soar greater. In this church shall emerge one of the largest concentration of giants on earth.”
But predictably, the Presidency fired back at Oyedepo.
An aide of President Muhammadu Buhari on New Media, Ms Lauretta Onochie, propmptly warned the Oyedepo that his utterances amount to lawlessness.
Onochie, on her Twitter page, declared that Oyedepo will have to live by the laws in Nigeria or manufacture his own country.
Her tweet read: “Hope this is not true. If it is, Oyedepo will have to manufacture his own country and live by his own laws.
“As long as he lives and operates within the entity called Nigeria, he will live by Nigerian rules and laws.
“He will do as he’s told by the law. Enough of lawlessness.”