By Joy Adeosun
Gospel Filmmaker and actor, Evangelist Kolade Segun-Okeowo has said that there is proliferation of churches in Nigeria and Africa because the government has abdicated her responsibility to cater for the welfare of the people, Gospel Film News learnt.
Segun-Okeowo in an interview with news men disclosed that when government is not able to take care of the basic needs and amenities of the people, they turn over to God for succour. He added that: “In Nigeria, God has taken over the responsibilities of the government like many other African countries. People pray to God like let NEPA bring light today, God don’t let there be hold-up on the way today, God please help me to pay my children school fees, God give me a car, God give me a house. In sane climes, people don’t bother God with such mundane prayer points.”
The veteran Filmmaker added that when government does not do what it’s supposed to do, people turn over to God and ultimately the churches, no wonder, when Nigerian/Africans travel abroad to better countries of the world 50% of their regular prayer points are dropped, some even backslide.
Segun-Okeowo who’s also a politician narrated the story of a Nigerian pastor who once visited a Scandinavian country and preached about a big God who can give the congregation houses, cars and better jobs, thinking he was in Lagos. He disclosed that when the Nigerian pastor finished preaching, the oyinbos asked him cynically, “if that’s all your God can do? then, we don’t need him, our government has taken care of all that.”
“When next someone beside you blame churches for the woes in the country, remind him/her that it’s actually churches that are covering up for the lapses of the government, apart from providing hope, faith and psychological reliefs for the people, churches provide millions of direct and indirect jobs for the hiterto unemployed. But for the churches, picking up the corpses of suicide victims on the roads would have become a regular affair,” he concluded.
