Charles Grassley was feisty, furious and firm. Nobody expected a Conservative Republican to challenge American evangelicals on matters of faith. But the Iowa Senator did. In November 2007, Grassley announced that his Senate Finance Committee was investigating six powerful pastors: Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyers, Kenneth Copeland, Eddie Long and Paula White.
The committee wanted to determine if it was true that these pastors’ ministries had inappropriately diverted donated church funds into buying private jets and Rolls Royces accompanied by fat salaries and allowances. The pastors fought back; and the case dragged on for three years with a mumbo-jumbo 61-page recommendation. The allegations and the noise immediately disappeared on the radar of public discussions till today.
Jim Obaze, a pastor, and a thoroughbred professional accountant, may be the Charles Grassley of Nigeria.
Very legitimate concerns had been expressed in Christian circles about the lifestyles of some men of God. And Obaze was the executive secretary of the purifying agency of the government known as the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria set up through a Senate bill in May 2011. The FRC was saddled with developing and publishing accounting and financial reporting standards to be observed in the preparation of financial statements of public entities in Nigeria.
When Obaze beamed his searchlight on the church, there was a pervasive uproar. But the executive secretary said he was not investigating any pastor. No one in the church world believed him because of a brewing beef and feud between him and the pastor of the church organisation he once belonged to. He insisted he was only asking for transparency and accountability.
Obaze’s FRC desired that any entity which collects money either from the banks or investors must render stewardship: “…government business is to protect its citizens and citizens are the ones putting their money in all these not-for-profit organisations… and if they pursue non-charitable activities like running schools, hospitals, airlines and all of that, we want them to account for those ones separately as profit-making entities“, Obaze declared.
A seeker of accountability and transparency, however, must of himself be accountable and transparent. It only makes the fight sweet and savoury, and depicts the fighter as one with solid moral standing. The challenge Obaze had was that the codes upon which the body operated were allegedly singlehandedly written by him and his appointed Technical Committee arrowhead named Victor Odiase of the Island Club. Inputs into the new structure of codes by stakeholders and idea contributions by professional and interest groups were shunned. The attendant noise was stentorian. The supervising minister of the agency was afterward swamped with petitions and protests from all corners. Allegations that necessary voices in the discourse were shut out of participation were awash. But Obaze strutted on in defiance.
The Governance Code 2016 of the Act encompasses the private, the public and not-for-profit sectors under which the church falls. The Code of Corporate Governance for the Private Sector (the “Private Sector Code”) is mandatory while that for the Not-for-Profit entities will be operated on a ‘Comply or Justify non-compliance’ basis. The Minister of investment and Trade, Okechukwu Enelamah, under which the FRC functioned, ordered that the Code be suspended until he had an opportunity to review it. But Obaze, understandably, did not relent in his pursuit of faith organisations. He demanded that pastor-businessmen pay their fair share of taxes. I agree with Obaze.
I, without any apology, side with Obaze because teachers of morals do not have to be told to do what is right. Nigeria will be right when we all, not just politicians, do right. Asking any church to pay taxes on profits from investments is not asking for too much. Developed nations of the world derive their incomes from taxes. Credible churches and pastors should not have issues with giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. After all, churches demand or muzzle tithes and offerings from their parishioners.
In church systems all over the world are unscrupulous men and women. These ones relish unfettered flamboyancy, they hate financial responsibility, and abhor transparency and accountability. Donations in cash and kind to the church are their personal gifts. All church properties belong to them and their families. Free money, unmitigated power and lousy authoritarianisms are their fancies. As the church grows, so grows their greed. They set up for-profit companies and businesses under the cover of not-for-profit. A church must not have an airline, hospitals, banks, schools, farms, and all manner of businesses from where a whiff of financial profits are generated and not pay a dime in taxes. This is ugly. And God hates ugliness. This practice, however, occurs all over the world especially in the US where I believe Nigerian pastors cloned the idea.
I am almost certain that pastors who fall in this category are fewer than the very many ones who are sincerely doing the work of helping the needy and feeding the poor. Unfortunately, the good ones too are caught in the crossfire of public ridicule and keelhauling. We salute those men and women of God who put their lives on the line daily for others to have meaningful lives.
It was not only the church that fought Obaze. Investors and shareholders in the capital market hit the wrestling mat with him; so also was an enraged Muslim community. When President Muhammadu Buhari throttled him out of office a few days ago, investors applauded his booting. They believed that his executive actions were counterproductive to the effort of the government repositioning the market for optimal growth. Obaze in his brawly personality confronted the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment. The two, we heard, never saw eye-to-eye. For about two years, the FRC had no Governing Board. It became a one-man show. Did this man have too much power? Many people think so. Give any human being that much authority, the world becomes his own. Obaze became so powerful he was nicknamed “Super Regulator”. And in that swagger, he waltzed and trounced around Nigeria and the world like an untouchable royalty.
Battle with Obaze also became political. Remember he was appointed under former President Goodluck Jonathan. And he is from the Niger Delta. From Day 1 of Buhari’s administration, top All Progressives Congress men warned the President about him and other appointees from the immediate past administration. They believed many of them are moles set to maul Buhari’s agenda and goodwill. And when Nigerian politicians step into a case, it grows a hunch-back.
If you called Obaze “Mr. Controversy”, you are in the vicinage of accuracy. Controversies trailed him. He nailed bank chiefs and got into a squabble with powerful Lamido Sanusi, former CBN Governor now Emir of Kano. He was always fighting something and someone. Why was he fighting that bad? Love of country? Love of self? Love of profession? Or, just plain pride when power and authority came big? Nobody knows.
The questions many now ask are that if this was a patriotic Obaze zeal to rid Nigeria of rubbish, where was he between 2012 and 2015 when the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation withheld and spent N3.7tn oil revenue without budgetary provision and approval? Where was he when out of N8.1tn generated, only N4.3tn was remitted to the federation account? Where was he when Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance spent $2bn from the Excess Crude Account between November 2014 and May 2015 without approval? Where was he when the cost of running the NNPC became much more than running the Federal Government? What about the 8.5bn fraud in the Joint Task Force Operation Pulo Shield in Yenagoa; and the N2.6bn scam in NIMASA? Why didn’t Obaze make the cleansing noise about the stench? These are some of the questions. and only Pastor Jim Obaze can provide the answer.
Punch
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