Tunde Odesola

Before my two kòrókòró eyes, I saw a flea metamorphosed into a lion. This is not fàbú, it’s true. I watched a bug grow into a beast, and I saw a small, toothy boy, whose jerry curls fluffed down his shoulders, dribbling his way to stardom. All of the flea, the bug, and the fluffy-haired boy spectacles unravelled on football pitches worldwide. I know because I’m a witness just like you.

Lionel Messi is the flea that grew into a lion. As a child footballer, his two older brothers called him La Pulgita aka Little Flea, and as he grew up, the nickname changed to La Pulga – The Flea, because of the way the football glued to his little feet.

The bug that turned into a beast is Christiano Ronaldo aka El Bicho, a Spanish nickname that means The Bug. Messi’s alter ego and defenders’ nightmare, CR7 was christened El Bicho by Spanish broadcaster, Manolo Lama, when he newly arrived at La Liga.

You know who the small, toothy lad is, don’t you? Well, he’s Ronaldo de Assis Moreira aka Ronaldinho Gaucho. The suffix, ‘inho’, was added to his name to distinguish him from the bigger Ronaldo in the Brazilian national team. And the name stuck.

Over time, the acorns of Messi, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho grew into oaks in the forest of a thousand players, distinguishing themselves with countless awards, trophies and soccer milestones, with Messi emerging as the Greatest of All Time.

In their idiom, the English say, ‘Good things come in small packages’. In their wisdom, the Yoruba warn, ‘Though the needle is small, it’s not food for the chicken’. The flea is small. The bug is small, too. So is ‘Inho’. But they’re all mighty in their smallness.

The flea doesn’t fly. Because it’s wingless. But it jumps. When the flea jumps on the scrotum, the wise call on wisdom – it’s better to suffer the sucking pain than to swat the flea on its perch, hit or miss, the scrotum will shriek in agony; cracked eggplants are useless, please, beware.

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A confrontational chicken has landed on the swingy rope of Nigeria’s Christendom, neither the chicken nor the rope is at rest anymore. Christendom needs wisdom to unlock the proboscis of the flea from the flesh of its host. Otherwise, things will get messier, and the essence of the ongoing doctrinal interrogation among Nigerian Christian clerics will only burn in the crucible of hate. But this shouldn’t be the case. At the end of the doctrinal exchange, the message of Christ should be clearer for people to understand. That’s the only way the ongoing ‘war’ in the body of Christ won’t be futile.

One fake, childish and empty-barrel preacher in Edo State, Sule, who calls himself Man of God, describes controversial Uyo-based cleric, Abel Damina, as a short man. Were Damina a footballer, he probably would’ve ranked alongside Messi, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, with Sule cheering him on amid shouts of La Shortie!

I got to know Damina this year after he dropped nuclear missiles on prosperity gospel, a doctrine which has pauperised many Nigerian Christians, turning them into cash cows lactating on the altars of greedy clerics – akin to the sons of Eli – Hophni and Phineas – who hijacked the choicest meat sacrifices offered to the Lord at Shiloh. Priests of Israel, Hophni and Phineas, who conveyed God’s messages to His people, also had sex with the women who served in the Tabernacle just like many idolised Nigerian clerics do today.

In today’s Nigeria, church rats are no longer poor; they now wear designer clothes, shoes, and glasses, and sit cross-legged in front rows of the pews, along with big cats in government, who have looted more than enough for generations unborn, and are ready to remit their tithes so that blessings may abound. Also among the front-row occupiers are criminals such as murderers, oil thieves, Yahoo-Yahoo kingpins, rapists and election riggers – known to church leaders, whose mouths have been sealed by filthy lucre.

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The hard-line posture struck by Dr Abel Damina against orthodoxy in Nigerian Christendom is not new. He has some silent Nigerian Christian revolutionaries, many of whom have gone before him while some are still practising. The audacity with which the Founder and President of Abel Damina Ministries International is tearing apart the curtains of Nigeria’s Holy of Holies is what is unsettling. Shortly, I’ll tell you why I love Damina to keep up the good job.

Talking about religious heretics, Marcion comes to mind. Marcion was an early Christian theologian and evangelist, who preached in Rome around 144 AD, expressing his belief in the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus Christ into the world as Savior – as opposed to the ‘malevolent Demiurge or creator God, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament’, whom he rejected. But Damina identifies with both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

A silent revolutionary in Nigeria’s Christendom is a Baptist believer who goes by the simple title of Brother, not Archbishop, not Supreme Evangelist or Lord Bishop or Most Superior Evangelist or General Overseer. His name is Brother Gbile Akanni. Unlike Damina, Akanni is neither loud nor arrogant and has been preaching the gospel since the 1970s. He’s based in Gboko, Benue State.

Unlike many Nigerian celebrity clerics, Akanni’s modus operandi is Christlike. Like Jesus – his Lord and Savior – Akanni doesn’t demand tithes or offerings in his meetings. He runs a big school for children of missionaries and the underprivileged free of charge. Akanni, whose source of income comes from support from members of the public, who share his vision, doesn’t run a church. Akanni’s outreach is Peace House and he provides his indigent members with transport money.

Another uncommon preacher in Offa, Kwara State, Prof Duro Adegboye, left Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, as the Dean, Faculty of Science, to embark on his missionary journey. His ministry, Gospel Unlimited, has mentored great Nigerian gospel leaders such as Panam Percy Paul. Dedicating his life solely to the service of God, octogenarian Adegboye doesn’t demand tithes or offerings in his programmes and he also caters to the welfare of his members.

The Head, of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Jesus House, Huntsville, Alabama, USA, Pastor Peter Oyediran, is another selfless cleric, who uses personal funds and time to win souls for Christ.

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In a telephone chat, a friend and newshound colleague-turned gospeller, Gbenga Osinaike, described Akanni and Adegboye as men of God with outstanding works that depart from prosperity gospel.

The Publisher of Church Times Nigeria, Osinaike, who disclosed to me some of the evangelical contributions of Akanni and Adegboye, agreed that Damina has a firm grip on some doctrinal issues but called for moderation in his approach.

For me, I think if there was a party to be cautioned in this imbroglio, it should first be the bandits in shepherds’ clothes who prey on the masses who visit their churches to pray. By the time the fox is chased away, it would be clear that the chicken had no reason for clucking so loudly if not for the intruding fox.

The truth is that Damina has made many Christians, religious scholars and non-Christians to study the Holy Bible more for clarification on many of his teachings, which initially sound implausible but upon further interrogation become plausible.

Before Damina, there was no public display of doctrinal teachings of the scriptures on the scale the bald preacher has elevated it, shedding light on canonical issues with profound understanding and pedagogic simplicity.

The doctrinal tussle on prosperity gospel, which Damina has smashed to smithereens, I’m sure, would have witnessed a reduction in tollgate taking, sorry, tithe taking in churches across the country.

I agree Damina is haughty, aggressive and sarcastic, vices not approved by Christ Jesus but the rot among Nigerian celebrity clerics is so repulsive that I’m in support of Damina if his approach will drum reason into the greedy ears of Nigeria’s big-name clerics, especially.

Nearly all the yeyebrity clerics preach the vindictive gospel of God, who is ready and willing to kill if the worshipper doesn’t part with tithes and offerings, making the discernible Christian think that mosques are run without neck-breaking financial contributions because the money mosques realise don’t go to feed the insatiable greed of Daddy and Mummy, along with that of their spoilt children, relatives, concubines and babalawo.

I dare say Damina needs a measure of audacity to face the principalities in high places in Nigerian churches. I believe he has plenty of it, though. When popular cleric, Pastor Sam Adeyemi, openly repented from his belief in tithe, nobody called him names because his renouncement was considered gentle and unobtrusive. But for Damina, who’s not Lagos-based, and not tied to the apron strings of any renowned godfather, his audacity was seen as arrogance even when young prosperity gospelers ‘flexed’ and called him names.

There has been no backlash within Nigerian Christendom against all the clerics bringing the gospel of Christ into disrepute but when Damina spoke against tithing and prosperity gospel, he became an enemy of the gospel. I love you, Damina. Carry go!

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