Pastor Adeboye’s prophecies for 2016 are no different from his previous ones – he has managed to keep everything fuzzed up and has avoided being specific so as not to incriminate himself in the future. However, there is one item on his list that requires scrutiny because I believe it shows Pastor Adeboye to be a manipulative person. I shall return to this in a moment.
First, let us build a quick picture of the man. Pastor Adeboye is probably the most influential pastor in Nigeria. His church has branches in almost 100 countries around the world, with an estimated 14,000 churches in Nigeria alone. The Redeemed Camp is responsible for perennial traffic congestion on the Lagos-Ibadan motorway because of where it is situated and the sheer size of the congregation that worships there.
Whether the church has done enough to forestall this problem and alleviate the sufferings of road users is a subject for another day.
Pastor Adeboye’s fund raising methods are a cause for concern. He announced plans in 2013 to build a church auditorium of approximately 3km in length. To fund the project, he told his followers: “We need N1 billion from ten people . . . We also need N100 million from those who can afford it. Please see my secretary.” How many hard-working people with unquestionable source of income would dole out money on a project like that which will not yield any returns for them?
This behaviour encourages corruption – the thieves who steal our commonwealth will see this as an act of buying penance from God. Pastor Adeboye is importunate – he never tires of using mental gimmicks to persuade his members to give him money.
Only last month, he was reported to have told them: “Let me tell you the truth, the only reason we still take offerings is to get you out of poverty. When you give offerings you’re sending money to heaven.” A few years ago, he claimed that he drove his car without fuel from Ore to Lagos to a thunderous applause from his congregation.
It beggars belief that anyone would believe this story. To complete the picture, take a look at his 2015 prophecies and decide for yourselves whether he made any ground-breaking predictions or if he just played safe by refusing to make specific statements.
Notice that he had prophesied: “Daddy (referring to God) says all over the world insurgencies will be considerately weakened.” The terrorist activities of jihadi groups like ISIS, Boko Haram (BH) and al-Shabab in 2015 do not support this prediction. This observation alone completely invalidates his claim of speaking the mind of God.
Let’s return to the 2016 prophecies which can be found on the church’s website, Pastor Adeboye prophesied that, “a new sexually transmitted disease will surface.” But he does not disclose that he received this revelation from newspapers and medical journals.
British researchers announced late last year the discovery of a “new” sexually transmitted disease (STD) called mycoplasma genitalium.
It is worth noting that pastor Adeboye does not give the name of the new STD and its causative organism like researchers always do. Does God whom he claims to speak for not know this information? Why does he not specify where, how and when the disease will surface? How bizarre for an omni-benevolent God to announce the emergence of a new disease but not the cure?
Curiously, God was also silent about BH and the abducted Chibok girls, the fall in the price of crude oil and its effect on our economy, the agitation for the state of Biafra, climate change, the conflict in Syria.
Pastor Adeboye’s prophecies portray God as someone who is always silent on the issues with real implications for our daily existence. That, of course, is based on the assumption that God exists and that He speaks to the pastor. I could never understand how someone can know the mind of an entity they cannot even prove exists.
What is obvious is that pastor Adeboye, like the rest of his fellow prophets, relies on the BBC, CNN and other news media to formulate his prophecies.
The reason this situation bothers me is because literally tens of millions of Nigerians believe that God speaks through this man. Accordingly, the choices they make in life are guided by every word he speaks. Collectively, Adeboye and his fellow pastopreneurs have turned a generation of Nigerians into magical thinkers and have destroyed critical thinking.
Even our universities and other centres of learning are not immune from their destructive influence – believe it or not there are professors who believe that prayers can make a car drive without fuel just as pastor Adeboye proposed; that diseases can be caused by evil spirits; that witches and wizards are responsible for infertility; and so on.
Thankfully, the days of lying to Nigerians are drawing to a close. Information is the greatest weapon against ignorance, fear, superstitions and exploitations. Nigerians now have access to the internet and can easily cross check facts. By this time next year, we would know if a new STD has been discovered and if indeed God speaks to Pastor Adeboye.
SAHARA REPORTERS
END
It is just strange how Raymond Ijabla will just take all this sort of energy to criticise with such a resentful mind set another man who is carrying out his own God given assignment. There is virtually nothing constructive in all of your right up Raymond Ijabla,and interestingly in all of the beautiful lectures Pastor Adeboye gives the one thing you could remember was his talk on giving,but even that is biblical.
You also need to know that biblical principles are all related,you don’t choose what to accept. You either take it as a whole or you don’t take any at all.
As per traffic along the Lagos Ibadan express way,there are occassions where there will still be serious traffic even when the RCCG church are not hosting any Programe. I think we should look more at fixing the bad roads along that stretch and creat more alternative routes,and that is a core assignment for the Federal Goverment,so I think it will be unfair to blame Pa Adeboye.
May God help us all.
Mr Ijabla, it is obvious you want to be seen, you are looking for whom to use to gain your cheap popularity. We have seen you. Over this matter you have failed pls try again later.
Mr Jimi Disu I have a question for you.
Remember the saying:
“IF YOU ARE NOT FOR ME, YOU ARE AGAINST ME”
“SHOW ME YOUR FRIENDS AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE”
By posting this write up on your blog, where do you stand.
Mr.Ijabla,can I conclude you are either an atheist or an agnostic from your write-up?. If your answer is in the affirmative,I’m afraid there’s no how you’ll really understand the mystery of the gospel. You can’t give what you don’t have. However,I agree with you on one of your submissions;’pastorpreneurs’..their emergence is only one of the signs of the endtime.
You wrote about him being manipulative,questioned the way he raised fund for the building of the 3km by 3km auditorium,cited the perennial traffic gridlock on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway,sarcastically questioned his claim of driving on an empty fuel-tank,authenticity of his prophecies etc.
How is Adeboye manipulative? Is it by making reference to the bible that “God says if you do this,you’ll get this”? I’ll want you to know that giving is optional.if you believe in the mystery of sowing of seeds(which you don’t),no one is going to force you to do it. People have been doing it and seeing results;just as the bible ‘commands’..
Talking about the 1 billion naira auditorium,what’s so fussy about that? You mentioned the estimated number of branches they have in Nigeria (and abroad),what is 1 billion naira from 2013 to 2015 with the population of the members worldwide? At least you can’t boast of having an ‘in-house’ knowledge that the money was donated by 10 people. As part of the convenant God had with the founding father of RCCG,the late Rev. Akindayomi(go and read the history of RCCG maybe you’ll appreciate a little of God’s wonders),money meant for any project will be sourced from within the church..or have you seen any advert via the print or electronic media where the general public was called to come for some launching of some church projects or where envelops are given out to be stuffed with money? Lest I forget,the auditorium is being used as I speak(or is it type?)
The fact that our psyche had been subjected to daily reports of looting,mismanagement,embezzlement etc of public funds had beclouded our senses of reasoning that there aren’t legitimate businessmen/women in Nigeria that can donate clean money. What a pity.
As an atheist/agnostic,I believe you are more disposed towards towards empirical scince(s) than miracles?if your answer is in the affirmative,then my explanation to you can be likened to someone trying to fill a basket with water..there’s a yoruba cliche that says “iroyin o to af’oju ba” which can be translated as “seeing is believing”. You need to be where God is operating for you to believe..driving on an empty tank is just amongst the minutest of what God can do..I have a question to ask you; “what do you call events/happenings that defies established scientific laws”?
Prophecies are meant to alert people and keep them on there toes. Some(the negative ones) are meant to be averted with prayers while some are said to make one strive harder to archieve the “juiciness” of it.
There are times when discretion is needed when delivering prophcies. You don’t come all out with guns blazing saying it verbatim.rather you coin it a la parables,but with the message not lost.
The death of one of Nigeria’s despotic rulers was prophecized in parables that “this year something will happen(that will shake the nation)and people will greet one another ‘a happy new year’..did you witness the ‘jubilations’ that followed the announcement of his demise?
Your submission on terrorism shouldn’t be a problem to tackle here. From the homefront,you can’t say the activities of the Boko Haram had not been weakened,taking 2015 as the base-year for our case-study. Or are you going to say the BH heinous activities took a more devastating form in 2015 than it had been from the onset?
I’ll suggest you roll with God this year with an open mind and I’ll bet you that you’ll write a sequel to this your write-up.God’s ways are beyond human physical comprehension. I rise!
Africans are in their own category. They are like crabs, they pull down themselves. I am not a member of the Redeemed Church, yet I am very familiar with the church. To start with Pastor Adeboye does not have to deceive anyone or manipulate anyone. I have had a rare pleasure of meeting him one-on-one, this was arranged by Pastor Adewole, Jesus House, Chicago IL. Keep in mind this is a man who had a thriving vocation as a Lecturer at Unilag before he risked it all to be a “mere” interpreter of Yoruba into English for the founder of the Church. He took an unknown church to world prominence. That is not a small potato, that is huge. Please if you guys don’t know what to write about — I will suggest that this writer use his time helping to bring to book people who are stealing Nigeria money in the billions.
Thank you veeeeery much, please tell them!!!
Only God can judge all of us.
Dear Mr Raymond,
I wonder what the meaning of Ijabla is. Sounds like something from Mars.
The bible says touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm.
Seem you are out to do just what God rebukes.
May God have mercy on you.
If you are so brilliant, kindly go and use your time to discover the cure for HIV first, after that, proffer solutions to Nigeria’s economic woes, then end by showing us all the new way to heaven.
Once you can’t do any of the above, I suggest you rest and go set up an NGO for widow.
GBAM
May God help us and show us d way it is well