THE CHURCH IS THE ONLY INSTITUTION STANDING BETWEEN THEM
AND TAKING OVER THE ENTIRE SOCIETY – Charles Soludo
Remarks by Anambra State Governor, HE Prof Charles Soludo, at the
opening of 2025 Bishops and their Wives’ Retreat, held at the All Saints
Cathedral, Onitsha, Anambra State, Sunday 7th January, 2025. Watch
video here, from around the 1:51:00 mark.
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Finally, to your retreat.
I'm very excited that you are having this Retreat. I missed
chunk of the sermon. But I want to believe…, for me, for my own government, we
are starting our own retreat on Monday. Monday, Tuesday, we'll be at a retreat.
And that's the way to begin a new year. Where you are reviewing, “Where are we
coming from? “, Redefine, remind yourselves of your purpose, your mission, your
vision, and your KPIs, your Key Performance Indicators. And how do you measure?
Where are you and where do you want to go? We want to remind ourselves as we
start off the new year. And I was quite excited to hear that all the Bishops of
the Church of Nigeria will be meeting on a few days retreat at the beginning of
the year.
For everybody to leave from all across Nigeria to gather in
one venue. This is quite, this is serious business. Very serious business. And
I know you've chosen your theme. You are clear on what you want to discuss. I
even heard part of it at the sermon…Very revered Bishop [Ekpeh?], you know,
hammering on it. I think I heard the issue of unity, and that, and, you know,
bonding together, standing for one another, encouraging one another. Because
they say if you want to go very far, you go alone. Ah, No, if you want to go
fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, you go together. Thanks for that
message.
But I also want to add, maybe as you reflect on that, this
is a very trying moment for the Christendom, generally.
In Nigeria, and even more so in the southeast of Nigeria.
The Primate, he did mention about the pivotal role of this
particular, especially the place where we are, the All Saints Cathedral, in the
birth of the Anglican Communion, especially in the southeast of Nigeria.
But the Primate, you mentioned the very important
statistics, which is 20 million registered Anglicans. Is the same way that you
have 2.6, 2.7 billion people in the world who profess Christianity which is
about 32, 33 percent of humanity; and here in Nigeria you have, well depending
on the number, people dispute whether you are hundred and something or
thereabout in terms of Christians.
But an important question that I will leave with you is that
as you ponder, this 20 million, that’s those on the register, ….are they still
there?
It may sound a rhetorical question, isn't it? 20 million on
the register, how many are there?
And in the South East this question is even much much more
pertinent because in the South East particularly, the fastest growing religion
today is idolatry.
It’s on the upsurge, massive ascendancy… And those populating it are the Christians - the Emmanuel, Christian... even some of them
answer “Christian” but is carrying his shrine, and so on. All over the bushes
and forest, wherever these chaps are, the first thing they do is to have a
massive shrine. Now in every community, in every community in Anambra, in Abia,
in Imo, in Enugu, in Ebonyi, and so on, every community, now there is a massive
resurgence and one of the questions that I ask always... I said to somebody, I
wish I had the time. I mean, I wish I
was disposed and maybe somebody should supervise a PhD, study in theology and
all of those on this topic. And the
title will be, “Why do they leave?”
I don't know if I'm communicating.
Why are they leaving?
In other words, since this is a moment of Retreat, that the
leadership of the Church of Nigeria must pose that kind of question.
It's a time for introspection. A life unexamined is not
worth living. At point, you must be able to re-examine your purpose. Are we
still serving the purpose? Are our ways, have our ways become in conflict with
the purpose?
Or do we have a defined purpose but our means of getting
there now in conflict and in contradistinction that the people themselves see
through it and they think this is all a joke, and they are leaving?
Very, very. Somebody says, if people are seeing the Church
and so on, religion has become business.
The transactions have overwhelmed the transformations.
Does the Church still engage in evangelization?
And so now, my own government, we will be dealing with KPIs
for each MDA, the ministries, departments and agencies.
What are the key performance indicators that the leadership
of the Church provides for the ministers of the Church? In each parish, what are the KPIs? Is it the number of brick and mortar projects
that are built?
Or is it in terms of how many members who actually are on
the register are still with you? How
many persons who are non-Christians have been converted over the previous one
year? Can we have it in the register as
part of the KPIs for each parish? How
many have left?
Because…, ah, your Grace, there is something dangerous that
is upon us.
The greatest threat that we face, you know, I heard when the
prayer was made about the release of our ArchBishop, retired ArchBishop, who
was in captivity for a few weeks.
In 2009, my 78-year-old father was kidnapped, after dinner. They went to his house in the village here. Before
then, that same year, Tony Mars, the popular Tony Mars, was kidnapped. I think the next year, Poco Bros and then the
GUO was kidnapped, I think, from here, from a Church.
This trend has continued.., has continued.
And if you look at the
characteristics of the people doing this, now it's become an organized,
lucrative business empire. With Central
Command and Control, and at the heart of it all, is idolatry.
At the heart of it
all, is idolatory.
The Church itself as an institution. When you now get to the
place, we've now gotten to a position where these guys don't care about
anybody, whether you are Primate, whether you are Pope, or whether you are Bishop,
or whether you are…
Because there is a clash of
religion.
They think you are
the problem.
The Church is
the only institution standing between them and taking over the entire society.
And I leave a message with you.
When they were coming, they started off with a narrative, in
the South East. “We are here to liberate you, the Fulanis are in the forests
and everywhere about to envelope you.” They
would go to the checkpoints, kill the police, kill the soldiers, take over their
AK47, and people would tacitly, inside, be happy. Because they are the
liberators. They are supposed to be the
liberators.
Now, after they carried the AK47, how do they feed the next
day, in the bush? Nobody asked that question.
How do they continue to feed, month to month, year to year? They have to feed! They have to survive. They
have families.
Now, they come out to… grab people. Because... for ransom.
And at the heart of it all is that the first thing they have
there is their big idols, big shrines.
Over the last two years or so, that we’ve declared war on
this, before I came, eight local governments were under their total grip, we
declared war on them. The number of
shrines that we have had to burn down or bring down….. and yesterday, we had
about ten and half hours meeting, we are bringing out a new homeland security
law.
I want to assure you the Primate and Bishops of Church of
Nigeria, that, the way we want to fight this war is not just carrying gun, and
so on, and going to…., For me, it's just 40% of the problem.
The 60% is that if we don't collectively challenge and
tackle the source of the warp ideology, the ideas, that fuel this in the first
instance, that continues to enable them to have continuous supply of young
men. Young men going into the bush and
wanting to carry arms to go on a kidnap, kidnapping. And so on and so forth.
Because it is now the most lucrative business in town.
Nigeria-published data. There are about 2.4 trillion. Was
paid as ransom. Did you see that? For every one naira published, we expect,
estimate, that at least five naira was not reported. So, if you multiply that by 5, you'll be
getting more than about, at least, more than 10 trillion. Even oil block is not as lucrative.
But there is something also fueling it. And this is where
the Church also comes in. When I ask why do they leave?
The lucrative criminality?
But also, we now have a society where we celebrate something
for nothing. Where, even in
Christianity, we now preach that you can have a crown without a cross. We tell
people that you can have wealth without work. That God is a money doubler. Only pay your tithe and then you go and close
yourself with blanket. God will quadruple it in 10 times.
We are no longer telling people about responsible
Christianity. No, it is the hard one. If
you tell them “no cross, no crown”, then you will not be the popular priest.
It's when you tell them, you know, young apprentice, you’ll
become a billionaire by the end of [the year], he says, “Yes, I claim it”!
How?...How!
So, the message, I'm just saying this because we are coming
from various and in fact, part of where we are going to head to….All these
roadside Pastors and Churches and so on preaching all of these things and
trying to, you know, have people with this warped theology and Christianity and
so on. Akwuokuokuwo kotiwalako, this one and the other one. I mean, it's
just the youths. … 9.00 am, People are in the beer parlours, drinking beer.
But they expect to build a skyscraper tomorrow.
How?
When you hold people accountable! if you got wealth, people
are displaying all manner of obscene wealth. And nobody asks again, “what do
you do for a living?”
A society where you no longer ask people, “what do you do
for a living?” is a society that has no future.
But again, what I say to you as the leaders of the Church,…..
I wish I am not governor. I would have
taken this almost like, as a personal crusade. You know, because as you point
one finger, you look back and you see the others pointing at you.
I say, in about 2012, I addressed the Catholic Bishop's
conference. And I did make a suggestion, and everybody laughed. I said, you
know, in the Catholic Church we have this prayer against bribery and
corruption.
We pray it almost every…alternate Sunday. The other one is prayer against…for Nigeria
in distress. I said, okay, now you have got the third liturgy. And this applies
to all our Christian denominations. We used to have four parts of mass is
introductory rites, liturgy of the word, liturgy of the Eucharist and then
concluding rites.
Those are the four parts. I said, you now have the third
liturgy, liturgy of fund raising. Okay?
Now, and that becomes the main part of most services. The
parts where we talk about … money.
And I said, can we be the judge that then says, okay, we pray
against bribery and corruption, then an officer, a government official, whose
total monthly salary is not more than 200,000, comes to the Church and makes a
donation of two million.
Or he shows up in Church, whoever is presiding announces,
ah, now that we have this one has come in, it means our problems are over.
That was the day they are going to do special fund raising. And
he comes and pledges two million. And he said, kneel down for special prayers. How
is he going to get the two million?
That's where it starts.
And I did make a proposal, I then said, can we then lead by
saying, okay, let's make a rule. If you are in public office, we're not going
to accept any donation from you until you leave office and five years after you
left office?
Everybody laughed. More like, ah ah, how now?. It sounds
like a joke, but go to think about it.
Today during this season, in the south east, Bazaar, all
over the place. Who are the chairmen of the Bazaars? This one has come down. So,
so IK Malaysia, ah, Peter, ah, of, ah, south, south. This one, ah, what do they
do?
Even the ministers of God do not ask.
In my part of the world, we have a proverb that he who partakes
of the proceeds of …em, em..theft is also a thief.
But we can no longer pretend and be saying, no, we don't
know, we don't care. No, the society must care. Because this is at the
foundation of the criminality that is ongoing. We celebrate wealth without
work. And if the Church continues to celebrate this, a society gets what it
celebrates.
And therefore, I'm only just throwing up something, ah, your
Grace, that at your retreat. Because this thing, I feel so passionate about it.
We're going out well, we're going out after all these okiite. And akuakukoo,
and enze waanyin.
And all of those is per everywhere now. Just come, we will give you this, you'll get money. We're not teaching people to work.
How much do we do that? We launched asking people to farm to
feed. there was a time Nigeria was, I mean, they said they were having a
hunger, what? Hunger protest. That we're
hungry. And we said, no, we can't. We
must teach our people…. we met with our youth and launched farm to feed. Akaajaja,
ne buta o no manu manu. That's how what we are, stand in this part of the
world.
So please, where we go onto this Retreat since we are going
on to Retreat. This is why I'm raising these issues.
That there are deeper existential threats. Deeper
existential threats to the society itself. Because we have put our values on
upside down.
And the Church as the last man standing must not be seen to
flow in that direction. Otherwise there is no redemption. Otherwise there is no
redemption for society.
The Church must be able to stand up. We say it in Igbo. "…………...."
Let the Church be that last man to say, “sorry, evil is evil”.
Let's continue to repeat it. Let's continue to repeat it. Because
that's the only way we can rescue the future.
And I want to leave you with this.
I appreciate you very deeply. Always a pleasure. I know when I see the Primate,
and Mama Nigeria, always. The only thing they need to be telling us
today …….we hosted Adazie Chief Emeka Anyaoku who went on a tour of some of the
major projects with him. And I told him my only prayer. My fervent prayer is
that when I grow up, I’d like to be like him. Because at 92, by 18th of this
month, you won't believe it. He’s still jumping up and down, climbing the
stairs, And running all over the place, and so on.
And whenever I see the Primate, he's one of the few persons
I know who are aging backwards. They are aging backwards. Whenever you see him,
he's looking like he just went on, I don't know how to call it. But whatever
you do, Primate, apart from preaching
the gospel, you must also be preaching to us how to look like you. Always in
this healthy manner.
So I want to say, big welcome to our Bishops, please.
The little accommodation, I think I learnt it, the earlier
place we arranged wasn't comfortable, but we moved to another place. Whatever
that is, I think we'll take care of you, while you are…I mean, we contribute
the bit that we can to make you stay here as comfortable and as productive as
it can possibly be.
I want to appreciate you. God bless you.
(Transcribed by Church Arise!, 10th January,
2025)
