Religion

The retired Arch- Bishop of Doula who has been an open critic of the CPDM regime has accused Prime Minister Philemon Yang of refusing a frank and sincere dialogue with Anglophones in Bamenda.

He believes that government is playing a double standard game against the angry lawyers and teachers. Preaching dialogue and at the same asking the population to make nonsense of the twin sit down strike by sending their children to school when issues still remain unsolved is counter productive.

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Rita Akana

11.Dec.2016

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A pastor of a church has been sentenced to one year in prison for convincing a 13-year-old girl to undress in the absence of her parents, to caress and suck her breasts.
The newspaper Kalara of on December 5, 2016 called the girl “Mami“. Her mother says that on the morning of May 25, 2015, back from the market, she had to knock for more than twenty minutes before Mami came to open it. Once inside, she found her daughter in the company of the pastor of her church.

Living in the same district of the city of Yaounde, the latter said to have come to charge his telephone. “The house was messy, toilet paper everywhere. In view of this, I imagined that he had sexual intercourse with my daughter,“recounts the mother. Asked, Mami tells her mother that the pastor asked her to undress and sketch a traditional dance. It was during the dance that the “pastor took advantage to caress the breasts, which he then sucked.”

The parents immediately filed a complaint against the pastor for rape. However, there was no medical certificate attesting to the rape. “The man of God“, about fifty-year old, admits to having caressed and sucked the little girl’s breasts. He says he came to his church member’s house to charge his phone and the conversation with the girl turned to sexuality. An act he regrets today. He also states that the little girl undressed of her own free will to provoke him.

The newspaper reveals that the High Court of Mfoundi, in Yaounde, on December 2, recognized the pastor, guilty of the corruption of youths.
He is sentenced to one year in prison and will have to pay court fees amounting to 52 050 FCFA. In case of non-payment of these expenses, he could serve an additional 6 months in prison.
He will also have to pay 500,000 CFA francs to the girl’s parents for compensation for the damage suffered.

Cameroontoday

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Rita Akana

07.Dec.2016

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 A Nigerian  pastor from the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Akolade Arowolo, has been sentenced to die by hanging for the murder of his  wife, Titilayo.
Pastor Arowolo could not hold back his pains after the court ruling, he burst into a fit of prayer. Titilayo worked with Skye bank, whilst her husband was employed. Prosecutors were able to present compelling evidence that led to the conviction of Mr Arowolo and his sentencing by Justice Lateefat Okunu of the Ikeja High Court, he was handed a death sentence. Justice Okunu held in her over three hours judgment that evidence before the court proved that Arowolo actually murdered his wife in their matrimonial home.
 
Testimony in the form of a forensic report from Prof. John Oladapo Obafunwa, a pathologist, was what the court used to determine that there was no way the deceased could have stabbed herself to death. Immediately after the judgment, Arowolo fell down in the dock and started shouting “Jesus have mercy.” PM News reports that Prof Obafunwa testified that his autopsy report revealed that Titilayo was killed through 76 knife stab wounds.
There were claims by Pastor Arowolo, suggesting that his wife was possessed and inflicted injuries on herself. He noted that the knife wounds affected Titilayo’s left eye, right eye, upper chest area, right chest and collar bone. Prof. Obafunwa pointed out in his testimony that the deceased could not have inflicted such wounds on herself. To further prove its case, prosecution invited some of Titilayo’s family members who testified that Arowolo and Titilayo had always had a troubled marriage.
The family members included Titilayo’s father, George Oyakhire; sister, Ijeh and mother-in-law, Mrs Adetoun Yeside Oyakhire. The three witnesses testified that the couple lived a cat and mouse life. They claimed that the family had at several times, settled serious fights between the couple. None of the witnesses however saw what actually happened on the day Titilayo died.

Nigerian Media

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Rita Akana

22.Nov.2016

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In a Facebook post, self-proclaimed prophet Lethebo Rabalago claims a pesticide called Doom can heal people.

The company that produces Doom warned of the risks of spraying the substance, while a government commission urged anyone affected to lodge complaints.

But the pastor has defended his actions, telling the BBC he is using unconventional methods to heal people.

 

The country has seen a wave of practices where church members have been subjected to unorthodox rituals to receive healing.

In photos circulating on Facebook and Twitter, Mr Rabalago, who runs the Mount Zion General Assembly in the Limpopo province, is seen spraying the insecticide directly into the eyes and various body parts of his congregants.

 

He told the BBC's Nomsa Maseko in Johannesburg that he had sprayed the face of one woman because she had an eye infection and claimed the woman was "just fine because she believed in the power of God".

He also claims the spray can heal cancer and HIV.

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Rita Akana

21.Nov.2016

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I want us to imagine for once, what it takes to become a General in the Army anywhere in the world. Recruits battle through the ranks and probably never make it far until retirement or some untimely death does them part from the coveted profession.

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Indeed, in recent days, Nigeria has been celebrating the life of one Lt. Col. Abu Ali, who is reported to have displayed exceeding gallantry in the battle to wipe Boko Haram off the face of the Nigerian political equation. His bravery and daring confrontation of the enemy in utter indifference to the risk of death that finally and painfully caught up with him was said to have been unequalled in the recent military history of Nigeria. From the rank of a Major, he was granted accelerated promotion to the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel in recognition of his selfless service to his motherland. You heard that right. Lieutenant Colonel!

Now, let us take a brief look at military insurgency in the same Nigeria. Often fighting for a cause they can hardly explain, militants are generally financed by clandestine sources, mostly politicians. They are armed. They are provided hasty combat training and made specialists in hit-and-run sabotage acts. Damn right! Sabotage acts often under the cover of darkness. This is hardly an act that qualifies for description as gallantry and exceeding bravery! But guess what: they are almost all “Generals” in their self-imposed military ranking. Not Major. Not Lieutenant-Colonel. They are Generals. Some call themselves General Togos. There are General Kokoris and there are General Kpomos, you name it.  

Happily, however, the general public knows just what to make of such Generals. Namely, little or nothing at all! They are Generals of immense nuisance value.

Now let us sit back and examine the evangelical world and see the common grounds that these men of God cover with the militant Generals. The scriptures that told us the ordainment of Prophet Moses through the ages to the miraculous and non-biological conception and delivery of baby Jesus, gave us stories of exceptional circumstances.

Today, however, and all over Africa, Prophets and Apostles litter the streets like water sachets hawked on camel backs with no God to tell us any exceptional story. Gone seem to be the days, when God sent prophets to work miracles that saw the splitting of a sea down the middle to have his children march straight through the solid grounds. Gone seem to be the days, when God made prophets walk on water or make them turn water into wine.

We live in an age of taking the bull by the horns in a spate of self-elevation. Who has time to wait for God these days, to work exceptional wonders? Who has time to wait for God’s wonders when people can speak some gobbledygook jargons to qualify as speaking in tongues?

Like a General Tombo Kpomo, some fellow will simply wake up these days, and declare himself a Prophet while his congregation sings “Praise The Lord”! Like a General Gala To Go, some fellow will wake up in the dark of night and proclaim himself a General Overseer with no one knowing what he oversees. Bishops and Primates have become adorable titles for fraudulent Pastors proclaiming fake visions. Never mind though that the word Primate also stands for apes and monkeys. They assign themselves dubious titles to intimidate their unsuspecting followers in African churches that grow like mushroom in a process of self-imposition.

The growing pressure of fulfillment and proof of self-worth has been ravaging the self-styled Men of God since the start of the craze and pushing them into extreme and unconventional actions. Showcasing material wealth as signs of God’s blessing, poor members of the congregation are sweet-mouthed into providing the last of what they own in material possession, to promote “the work of God”. Never mind though, that their own poverty continues before their very eyes, while the pastors and primates live in a different world, robustly blessed by God, which is the money of the peasant folks. And the same peasant folks cheer them on, on the high grounds of material vanity and lordship.

Coming from the background of sorcerers and fortune-telling, the teeming majority of Africans – rural and urban – is used to a life of highlighting the Supernatural. They know the healing hands of the “Native Doctor” and they know the pervading fear of coven gatherings at night beneath Iroko trees and the succulent pawpaw tree around the corner of the street. The same pawpaw that Costa Rica and Nicaragua will export to Europe for useful hard currencies in foreign trade, will be left to waste away in Africa because some fortune-teller has declared the pawpaw tree a coven for nocturnal witch-gathering.

Today, the influence of native doctors, fortune tellers and self-proclaimed witches and wizards has witnessed a massive pushback. They have been ostensibly replaced by the flamboyance of flashy preachers who now communicate directly with God, often in their dreams and in the privacy of unknown intoxicants. The competition to outshine each other in the quantity of expensive designer clothes that they wear, the flashy cars that they drive and the private jets that they fly, have all been outrageous enough. They also struggle to outdo each other, in the uncontrolled contest to foretell the future and the depth of their direct contact with God.

It has gone so bad, that a most notorious and very prominent Nigerian con artist with a reputation for slapping purported witches before running cameras and thousands of followers in his own church declares publicly that he intervened to rescue a man from the wrath of God. He warns the public against criticizing the unaffordable and outrageous fees that he charges in a Church university that was built by the sweat and contribution of his congregation. He does not attempt to find ways of making the university affordable, precisely, to those peasant folks, upon whose sweat the university was built. No. He threatens critics with the wrath of God for criticizing outrageous fees that were fixed by God. Yet his followers adore him and hold him high like he was Jesus in his second coming.
In the usual competitive mood, the second notorious Nigerian character, who never wishes to be left behind, engages in dubious predictions, often, of incidents that have come and gone. T. B. Joshua (or the “The Blasphemous” as some sharp-tongued critics have now translated T. B. to mean), has gained notoriety for often foretelling the obvious and stressing that he predicted events after they occur. After reportedly seeing bizarre visions of fighter jets flying over his synagogue in the year 2014, when observers saw the collapse of his synagogue as a consequence of substandard construction, T. B. Joshua has gained special notoriety in public perception ever since. For one, fighter jets are owned only by the state and no one knew any reason the state would have to throw bombs on T. B. Joshua’s synagogue. He ended up either being ridiculed or spiritually elevated by adoring supporters.

Indeed, it did not come as a surprise to many when the same T. B. Joshua came up only a few days ahead of the presidential election in America, to prophesy what public opinion polls have largely publicized through local and international mainstream media outlets. The self-styled prophet announced a direct message from God to him in his private visionary adventure that a woman would be the next President of America. Even more interesting, however, is his reaction to the devastating disgrace handed his prophecy and the scientific opinion polling of the mainstream media. As we now know, the President-elect is not a woman as everyone expected, who did not have the gift of receiving inbox messages from God. All of a sudden, T. B. Joshua now says that his misadventure of trying to sell the results of opinion polls as prophecy was deep spirituality that only spiritual persons can understand. After all, Hillary Clinton won a majority of popular votes. Never mind though that he foresaw a female President and not popular votes.

Sometime in early 2016, Nigerians were also thrilled to the circus show of another self-styled Prophet or was it an Apostle of God, who goes by the name Suleyman. Moving round the circles of his preaching podium in the fluency of an average and pedestrian school dropout, with the slight protrusion of a stomach that seemed filled with palmwine and snacks, he prophesied the imminent death of a Governor. It was the Governor of his State, who announced moves to regulate the actions of fake pastors and prophets. But the Governor has remained hale and hearty ever since and till the present moment. His congregation cheered him on while the intelligentsia condemned this wayward act of wishful assassination.

This is the state of worship in Africa today that has strongly served to discredit the Christian religion. State of the art hospitals, quality orphanages, old peoples’ homes are never on the to-do-list of church leaders, when they ask their congregations for special donations to launch a project. They build massive church edifices while progressive nations improve infrastructural edifices. The scientific community of intellectuals in progressive societies discovers new feats year-in, year-out. They invent new vaccines. They invent weapon systems for the defense of fatherland. They sponsor progress in scientific research works.

Unfortunately, many Africans excel in holding vigils and fasting and deceiving themselves that they are spiritually superior to advanced nations. They shut out their brains in the belief that the exceptionality of spirituality, which no one else but they alone, understand, will catapult them to the laps of the most-high God. They are comparable to suicide bombers, who dream of countless model virgin brides in their imaginary paradise. They willfully permit exploitation by preachers, who enjoy their heaven on earth and promise the suffering congregation, heaven after death.

This is nothing but the pathetic story of the prophecies and fake prophets of the folks that ask for them and the end is not in sight.
Frisky Larr is the author of “Africa’s Diabolical Entrapment” that explores the negative
impact of religious commitment, on the progress of Africa. Watch out for the upcoming book “Lost in Democracy

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Frisky Larr

16.Nov.2016

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The founder of the Synagogue Church Of All Nations, Temitope Joshua, has come under barrage of criticism from Nigerians on social media over his prediction of the winner of the US presidential election ahead of the November 8 poll.

Prophet TB Joshua during his church sermon on Sunday, November 6, predicted a narrow victory for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party presidential candidate.The purported prophecy moves inline with the US presidential polls which have all along put Hillary Clinton on a narrow lead ahead of Donald Trump and shades doubts on its authenticity.

“Ten days ago, I saw the new President of America with a narrow win,” he said in his prophecy “The new President will be facing several challenges over many issues, including: passing bills, attempts to possibly pass a vote of no confidence on the new President.

The boat of the new President will be rocked,” he added.

But it seems T.B. Joshua’s latest prophecy has angered some Nigerians who challenged him to offer predictions on the economic challenges in Nigeria, the Boko Haram insurgency and many other problems facing the country.

Some also cast doubts on the authenticity of Joshua’s prophecy, and questioned why the cleric did not foresee the collapse his own church guest house collapsed in 2014. Others suggested that TB Joshua was predicting a win for Hillary Clinton because polls have put her ahead of her republican rival, Donald Trump.

On Facebook, a TB Joshua follower had this to say:

Naij.com

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Mbi James

07.Nov.2016

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