Olusegun Oyegbami is an economist, an oil industry player, he is also the author of the book titled: ‘Reversing the Rot in Nigeria’. The economist in a recent interview with Vanguard gave some in-depth analysis of how Nigeria got into the current recession and what he thinks of Nigeria’s men of God.
First he spoke on the reason for the recession saying: “The over dependence on oil has actually led us into the situation we are in.
“Before the discovery of oil, agriculture happened to be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, and it was providing employment for the teeming population.
“But when oil was discovered, we forgot about agriculture. We have also been running the oil industry in a fraudulent manner, manipulating everything. For now, we are just deceiving ourselves on the fight against corruption.”
Then Oyegbami delved into the religious lives of Nigerians, attacking what he called ‘so-called men of God’. Oyegbami says: “When life has become hopeless for people, they want to take any chance at all costs to get their bearings right.
“It is this kind of hopelessness that the so-called men of God exploit to even render them more prostrate, and that’s why I said that politicians have destroyed people’s lives.
“They have made them to become hopeless and now, in “going to God”, they have ended up being deceived further and their situation is exploited and the society becomes even worse.
“So, my postulation in the book is that there are really no men of God anywhere, anybody who is talking of God is doing it for his own personal benefits.
“That is why we now have the so-called men of God competing with politicians in the material acquisition of wealth, such that we now have men of God in Nigeria acquiring aeroplanes and building estates, amassing material properties, which is actually in contrast to what the Bible and the Quran teach.”
The author, also spoke on the high cost of tuition in universities owned by churches, saying: “But the men of God in Nigeria do not pull punches a bit.
“They are running universities where the tuition fees are very high, because the sector is not put in proper shape by government.
“These “men of God” take advantage of the situation just to make money. That is why we now have so many churches having universities.
“The money paid by people through their noses should have been enough to provide standard facilities and quality education if government were sincerely running the sector.”
In conclusion, he spoke about the place of religion and politics, saying: “Religion has been a key factor in politics, and that is why people think a Muslim/Christian ticket will fly in the country than a single religion domination.
“Can we separate religion from politics? In the first place, religion is divisive. Religion is not actually helping society to get it right. The problem we have in Nigeria is that we are almost 50:50 Muslims to Christians in our religious orientation.
“This is a big negative influence in our developmental process. In any society where everybody is looking towards a direction, they tend to make more progress, than when you now have religious dichotomy.”
Meanwhile, only recently, a South African Pastor Rufus Phala was caught on camera given a member of his church antiseptic liquid, Dettol, to drink.
The pastor popularly known as Prophet Rufus is the general overseer of AK Spiritual Christian Church in Makgodu, Limpopo.
