Some fraudsters are also on the pulpits and are using 419 tricks to get people to buy into their nonsense and, in the long run, they cash out and live big because of the gullible
By Olukorede Yishau
It has been quiet of recent from her end. But not totally quiet. There are many like her too spewing nonsense in God’s name. Many have nicknamed her Mummy G.O. Her name is Evangelist Funmilayo Adebayo.
In her world, it is a sin to be a football star, a comedian, a break-dancer, a pair of jeans wearer and a COVID-19 vaccine receiver. These strange beliefs of her are spread through her videos, which are everywhere on social media. Aside from these ridiculous claims, she also says anyone who cut his hair low to the extent that his scalp shows has successfully bought a free ticket to hell. Perfume and necklaces wearers are also hellfire-bound, according to this interesting character.
Her reason for committing the break-dancer to hell is that its originator, the late Michael Jackson, got power from the land of the dead.
She claims Nollywood actress, Tonto Dikeh, is not a human being by birth, and that whoever listens to the music of Tiwa Savage will not make heaven. And if you are a beneficiary of the American Visa Lottery, there is no rapture for you when Jesus returns.
“I can say Roll-On is good but do you know Sure! Sure! Very simple but highly demonic. There is a perfume called Iris, if you use that perfume, I’m telling you, the spirit of fornication will come upon you. There is another perfume called Happiness, very cheap with fine odour, many people know it. My dear, if you have started using it, something different will be happening to you, and you will never please God that time,” she adds to her list of doubtful claims.
A mobile handset is a tool for communication but this wonderful madam says: “All of you children telling your parents to buy handset for you on your birthday, you’re asking for the ticket to hellfire.” Haba!
Mummy G.O. does not have the exclusivity of spewing nonsense in the name of our Father in heaven. Like our mother in the Lord, there is another clown, also a woman, who claims that anyone who has dreadlocks will automatically go to hell. Her interpreter interpreted dreadlock as ‘irun were’ (an insane person’s hair). She claims that in the spiritual realm the hair represents snakes. This same clown also claims that not paying bride price will lead the defaulter to hell. She even used a model, a woman, to show that when bride price is unpaid, it hinders the wife’s progress in life.
There is also the popular Indaboski Pahose, the Southeast-based Prophet Odumeje, who relishes showing us funny theatrics, including getting the devil to visit his church and his technical team interviewing the devil, who boasted that he was the first pastor standing up to him. This man’s theatrically violent performance is only one example of bizarre practices that have crept into Christianity. I have a feeling he will make a good actor if only he will try out his talent in Nollywood.
Aside from men and women who spew out all manners of nonsense in the name of our Father, there are those who also commit all manners of atrocities in His name. One of such is Michael Oluronbi, who is now in jail in the UK. Oluronbi saw nothing wrong in having sex with his church members. Painfully, some of them were kids so it will not be out of place to describe him as a cradle snatcher.
Oluronbi is the definition of evil. The self-proclaimed pastor, who is a trained pharmacist, was convicted by the Birmingham Crown Court, United Kingdom, for sexually assaulting six girls and a boy. Some of the girls, who are now adults, are siblings.
He raped one of them in her mother’s bedroom and her room downstairs where the church’s altar was when mother was working at night. One of them had five or six abortions in the space of five years.
To add salt to injury, Oluronbi’s wife, Juliana, aided his evil ways. She was also found guilty and is awaiting sentencing any moment from now. Some of the victims said Mrs. Oluronbi took them for abortions on two or three occasions.
Oluronbi’s evil started in the 80s in Cherubim and Seraphim Church of God (Ayo ni o), Edgbaston parish, United Kingdom. The church was on Gillott Road in Edgbaston, Birmingham in the 1980s and belonged to Juliana’s parents.
In 1989, Oluronbi broke away with about 40 members to set up his own Cherubim and Seraphim Church of God. A single mother of six offered him the sitting room of her family home in Winson Green, Birmingham, for service.
Some of Oluronbi’s victims are the children of single mothers. His first move was to sow a seed of discord between the woman and the father of her children. Oluronbi said he saw visions that her kids’ father was a bad person and ensured he was banished from the house.
“I did not want him as a husband. I wanted him for his prayer, his guidance. He was a pastor of the church and I wanted him for the security of my children,” the woman told the police. But Oluronbi wanted more and he got it. After succeeding with that, he started a sexual dalliance with her but the evil in him made him reach for her daughters, and he was able to convince each of them not to reveal their affair to the other.
Aside those who have psychiatric issues, I seriously believe that some fraudsters are also on the pulpits and are using 419 tricks to get people to buy into their nonsense and, in the long run, they cash out and live big because of the gullible.
Religion is the opium of the masses. In it, we find solution to everything we do not understand and it is not about to change. What should, however, change is the avalanche of ‘were alaso’ (sick but well-dressed folks) on the pulpits. Their place is in psychiatric wards and not on the altars. These clowns are just lucky that our Father is merciful and does not strike like the god of thunder.
Trusting God is not akin to suspending one’s brain, and serving God is not synonymous with being gullible. Certainly, having faith has absolutely nothing to do with being stupid. Every man of God is first a man. Like the rest of us, they make mistakes. It is wrong for anyone to sublet his or her life to them. We must always use our brains.
My final take: Our society is a place where people who should be receiving serious psychiatric attention are roaming the streets free and not a few of them have found themselves on the pulpits. The unfortunate part of this scenario is that they have an audience who not only believe them, but also put into practice the nonsense they spew regularly.
• Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author of’In The Name of Our Father’and’Vaults of Secrets’.