I AM A CHOSEN Trend as Symptom of Post-dogmatic Nigeria

I’m fascinated by religion as an evolutionary adaption for social cohesion. I may have talked about religion ad nauseam. It’s not just because I find it interesting but also because of the unavoidable downside of repeating oneself in a country like this. It’s a given that as a social commentator, you’re going to have to comment on the same set of issues because Nigeria has no new problems. It’s not a land of novelty. It’s a land of intergenerational angsts though admittedly, the angsts only ever seem to get worse successively. They aren’t new in their essence but new in their degree of expression.

Even if you tried, it’s impossible not to comment on religion in a country that prides itself in sprawling worship centres filled with mammoth crowds. No matter how you try to be impervious to the subliminal programming of religion, it’s impossible to escape it as you are daily inundated with the copious airtime pastors and imams get on TV and radio, the garish church posters that form annoying collages on bridges, medians, buildings, and everywhere you turn your head, itinerant preachers in popular intersections and parks, annoying WhatsApp statuses that remind you WHAT GOD CANNOT DO DOES NOT EXIST every morning, or all-night prayer shindigs (called night vigil in church parlance).

My views on religion are pretty clear. In the African experience, religion is mostly exploitative. I believe it is one of the orthodoxies that should be challenged for Africa to be ushered into a much-needed age of enlightenment. It’s funny how in the West, writers and social commentators wax nostalgic on the good old days when religion held sway as they now see the explosion of what they call woke ideology, extreme individualism, and what seems like a crisis of meaning. The Substitution Hypothesis has been coined to describe this phenomenon. By contrast, however, religion is well and alive in Africa. But Africa is the worse for it.

In a deeply religious society, chances are religion is given special status. It’s immune to mockery and intellectual interrogation. Doing that is considered sacrilegious and that’s why blasphemy laws exist in some cultures. For the longest, religion in Nigeria was treated in similar manner. It was not fashionable to criticise clerics or creed. Even if your concerns were apparently valid, you were told to leave judgement for God or that criticising so called men of God was an insult to God himself. Religion was thus left to defraud gullible and vulnerable miracle-seeking devotees without let or hinderance.

Interestingly, religion is getting challenged today all thanks to the internet. More and more, Nigerians are ridiculing the hyperbolic studipity that goes on in religious circles. Everyone from Enoch Adeboye to Odumeje gets lampooned every other week for their risible claims. Unlike their parents, millennials and Gen Zers are not afraid of some fictitious divine judgement. They call out bs when they see it, not minding whose feelings get hurt. Admittedly, most of this lampooning is motivated by the perks likes, comments, and reposts confer on viral posts. But aren’t the wild claims we hear in religious centres motivated by vested interests too? The difference is the later hurts vulnerable devotees while the former at worst makes people laugh and at best provokes our thoughts.

The Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Revival Ministries is the latest victim of internet trolling. Called Chosen for short, the church first came under my radar about a decade ago, but I didn’t think much of it then. When I got into college, I began to hear about their culture and quirks. The church combines the puritanical norms of Deeper Life Bible Church and the sensationalist claims of the Aladura bloc. Like Deeper Life, Chosen members claim heaven is their ultimate goal and like the Aladuras, they are notorious for sharing jaw-dropping testimonies that defy logic even by religious standards. One of the quirks of the church is the compulsory wearing of a green bib that serves the dual function of advertising who they are and a protection against spiritual and physical harm. They wear it on anything from suit to iro and buba not minding if it infringes on fashion and sartorial sensibilities. Everyone from Okada riders to professors wears it proudly. In a sense, the bib is an equaliser as it does not distinguish between the high and lowly.

The first Chosen testimony that came under my radar was of a woman who claimed she had not refilled her gas cylinder in three years after she glued a Chosen sticker on it. Since then, I’ve come across more clips of farcical miracle claims made by bib-wearing Chosen members. In the past few days, many such clips have circulated on X, TikTok, and other social media platforms. Comedians have made skits dramatising these testimonies in even more absurd and sensational ways. Chosen members have a shtick when they are confronted with any challenge: they repeat “I am a Chosen” (for some reason pronounced choosing) three times and they follow it up with “the God of my pastor power”. In one of the clips I saw, a man had testified how God rescued him from kidnappers after he repeated “I am a Chosen”. He spent up to two hours with the kidnappers but was eventually released. Though the rest of the church was happy for the miracle, the pastor moderating the testimony reprimanded him for not asking “where is the God of my pastor power” per the instruction of the founder, Lazarus Muoka. He wouldn’t have spent two hours in abduction if he had simply affirmed “the God of my pastor power” or asked, “where is the God of my pastor power”.

The God of my pastor power makes no semantic or grammatical sense. It’s a slogan that can only be invented by a megalomaniac cult leader. To be fair to Lazarus Muoka, religious leaders generally have an overinflated sense of self-worth. And that’s why their followers call them daddy, papa or some similar worshipful titles. Religious leaders are cult leaders and Lazarus Muoka’s-mandated the God of my pastor power is a prime example of a narcissistic godlike personality who controls an army of minions.

I’m glad these pastors now know their bs gets called out. Every now and then, some of them threaten some divine punishment on trolls. Sometimes, they claim that the trolling is a sign of the devil’s agenda against the church and that believers should not be a part of it. But the threats and emotional manipulation don’t work anymore.

Has the trolling changed anything? Maybe not. Maybe it won’t. It doesn’t mean the people who go to these churches will all of a sudden have a change of mindset because the internet is trolling them. If anything, one could argue that all the trolling may have a boomerang effect because more people may end up going to these churches instead. Trolls essentially are giving these churches free advertisement. Also, these trolls may be hypocrites as they may not be willing to lampoon their church when it’s their turn. That’s a fair point.

Mocking religion is not the ideal. Interrogating it is a preferred alternative. Admittedly, culturally, we are not there yet. That’s because Nigerians do not celebrate thought leaders who intellectually deconstruct social trends. Comedy is the only tool to get the attention of Nigerians, and that is why comedy has been spectacularly successful. Beyond the mockery and trolling, there is the need for showcasing a wholesome version of religion. The Christian community cannot continue to play the Ostrich. I am a fan of Christianity. There are many great aspects of the Christian faith. But charlatans like Odumeje, Jeremiah Fufenyin, and Lazarus Mouka, unfortunately, have dented the image of the church. The Christian community needs to have a doctrinal civil war. The fraudsters need to be called out. Otherwise, every church and pastor gets tarred with the same brush because their silence would be viewed as complicity. But in the meantime, trolling is all we have to expose the corruption in the church, and I can’t complain. It’s better than doing nothing.