RCCG Pastor Ozikpu’s Claim that Osinbajo influenced his Sack over Sowore Revolution Protests: Matters Arising

Written by Obinna Akukwe

The claims by an administrative pastor with Redeemed Christian Church of God, Elias Ozikpu that he was sacked from the church after his participation in the ‘Revolution Now’ protests pioneered by Omoleye Sowore, under the Lagos Province 48, headed by Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is very worrisome.

Elias Ozikpu also alleged that all his numerous letters for his six months’ salary arrears prior to his sack to be paid, copies of which he sent to VP Osinbajo and GO Adeboye, is yet to be attended to.

I advise the RCCG leadership that sacking a pastor for participating in a protest in Nigeria filled with evil government officials as a matter of policy, is not right. Protests are means of bringing the attention of evil rulers to their responsibility. The church should even lead in such. I advise relevant authorities to bring back the sacked pastor, pay his entitlements and not muscle activists within their fold because one day the church will need people like Elias Ozikpu.

Elias Ozikpu is an activist and a professional playwright, novelist, essayist and polemicist.

Read Excerpts of Pastor Ozipujun’s Complaints Below;

As I set out to recount this first-hand experience of mine, my intention is to establish three cardinal points in line with the subject matter of this disquisition: the first is that as humans, we have a moral obligation to resist injustices of all kinds, regardless of where such injustice emanates.

The second is that we have the right to exercise our fundamental rights, including the right to openly demand for a better country. The third and the most crucial is that we must never be afraid of the antics of those who are at the service of our oppressors, and who see divergent opinions as a threat to their principal’s reign, and are readily available to “punish” such threats within the confines of their limited powers.

We have recorded very sound victories against the most brutal oppressors in the past. This case cannot be different. We will defeat all oppressors, even when they come cladded in religious robes!

I deduced from their line of reasoning that the Administrative leadership of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Lagos Province 48, did not understand that, just like every other human being, I was born with all the inherent fundamental human rights that everyone else is entitled to, including the right to protest. And so after years of working with the organization (RCCG Eternal Life Parish, Area 002, LP 48) as its Administrator, my relationship with higher authorities of RCCG irreparably crumbled when, on August 5, 2019, I was illegally arrested, brutalized and subsequently detained with fellow activists for daring to demand for a better Nigeria at the #RevolutionNowprotests.

Upon our release from illegal custody, I returned to work and was reliably informed by concerned colleagues that administrative leaders from RCCG Lagos Province 48Headquarters, a body of RCCG branches which operate under the leadership of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, had instructed our Parish Pastor at Eternal Life to dismiss me on the grounds of my participation at the protest. I laughed it off, and firmly informed them that if another #RevolutionNow protest held the following day, I would be there. And I meant it. They said they gathered that the Parish Pastor declined to effect the dismissal order against me, insisting that I had done nothing wrong to warrant a warning, let alone removal from office. According to my colleagues, the Parish Pastor further informed them that I had only exercised my right and that there was nothing wrong with that.

As parish pastors in RCCG have autonomous powers to independently decide the composition of their workforce, their bid to actualize their clandestine aim crashed on a giant brick wall and crumbled right before their own eyes. Realizing their monumental failure, they reluctantly receded but not without laying ambush.

Months later, the Parish Pastor at Eternal Life who had defended me resigned from RCCG, leaving my colleagues and I behind. Authorities of RCCG Lagos Province 48 instantly responded by posting another pastor to the parish, Mr Alex Okoh, who, interestingly, is the incumbent Director-General of Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in the ruling APC’s anti-people regime led by Major-General Buhari and Professor Osinbajo.

On the day of his introduction, Mr Alex publicly announced to the congregants, without any prior notice given to me, that he had arrived with a new Administrator. Indeed, the plot had reallythickened and my prominent role at #RevolutionNow was the final straw.

It was through these furtive schemes that RCCG eventuallydeposed me and immediately had me excommunicated with no explanation before and even at the time of writing – approximately three months later!

After the successful execution of their coup d’état that morning of March 15, 2020, I waited ad infinitum – for a period of more than two months to hear from RCCG authorities and the rationale for acting in a manner that is supposedly abhorrent to the tenets of the organisation. Curiously, no explanation of any sort could be elicited. It was as though nothing had happened! I then wrote to them, demanding to be compensated and all unpaid salaries of six months cleared, but that correspondencewas consciously ignored.

On May 27, 2020, I visited RCCG Lagos Province 48Headquarters in Banana Island to serve a reminder of my previous correspondence in which I copied Vice-President YemiOsinbajo and the General Overseer, Pastor E.A Adeboye. Lagos Province 48 Administrator, Mr Clarence Haidome, who was to receive Osinbajo’s copy, was on seat at the time of my arrival. He refused to receive the letter on the pretext that he had not “officially resumed” work! I did not understand what that meant seeing that he was right inside his office. Later that day, I scanned the letter and sent to him via WhatsApp, but MrHaidome ignored it. I also sent him the PDF version of the letter via email, he ignored it too. Mr Clarence Haidome was forced to acknowledge receipt of the letter only when, a week later, I sent him another email in respect of the matter, copying the General Overseer and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

“Dear Elias, this is to acknowledge receipt of your mail. Thank you,” he wrote in what was a forced response.

It is crystal clear that without copying the General Overseer in the email under reference, Mr Haidome would never have acknowledged receipt of the letter. To be working in such an environment and be so unnecessarily insensitive is a curiousantithesis, to put it mildly.

Eternal Life’s new pastor, Mr Alex Okoh, later called me upon receipt of my second correspondence I served on them. Hehastily accused me of being “rude” during the conversation formerely telling him that he and other RCCG authorities had acted arbitrarily without recourse to due process and without the slightest compunction. He got overly enraged and said that I wasbarely the age of his second son and that he could not tolerateme. He then irately terminated the call and has since refrained from contacting me in spite of my pending correspondences before him.

What is more baffling is that despite their violent vandalisationof the doctrine of procedural due process in a desperate attempt to depose me, RCCG authorities have refused to pay any compensation due to me, and have equally refused to pay theaccumulated salaries of six months! All letters written to that effect have been received, read and abandoned.

As I prepare to pen part two of this treatise, I challenge the relevant RCCG authorities to rebut the facts stated in this essay. In fact, they are by this essay reminded that they have a right to issue a rejoinder. They should, however, back whatever claimsthey intend to make with documentary evidence just as I intend to do from part three and four of this series, including givingfurther details on why Mr Clarence Haidome ignored mymessages, etc.

The degree of impunity in the country is disturbingly alarming! It doesn’t get better when a higher dose of it comes from those who are expected to guard morals.