Lagos cleric, Prophet Lai Bamidele, has taken most church leaders in the country to the cleaners, saying many of them suffer integrity deficit.
Bamidele, who is General Overseer of Glorious End-Time Evangelical Ministries, a church with headquarters in Oko-Oba, Lagos, said if the churches had been playing their roles effectively, criminal activities in predominantly Christian societies would have abated.
Speaking with The Point, Bamidele said the recent bursting of the Badoo ritual-killing syndicate in Ikorodu, a Lagos community, was a clear evidence that most men of God often looked the other way when rich, ritual killers sauntered into the church to contribute huge sums of money without defined jobs.
“While many other factors contribute to crime, I am of the belief that many men of God in this country are liable in the way they encourage people of shady character to bring money, without bothering to find who such persons are.
“Integrity is the hallmark of success in life. The leader we are having in this country today lack integrity.
“It has also entered into churches. Pastors don’t preach righteousness again; they do not speak holiness again. Just like how Daddy (Enoch) Adeboye (General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God) spoke in the last Convention, pastors only preach prosperity. When they bring money, you don’t ask them where they got the money from. You will say ‘God has blessed the church’ and that is why the church is polluted today.
“There is no more truth in the church;, even if it is blood money, as long as it is fat, you will collect it.
“Until the church of God starts saying the truth, we are going nowhere as a nation,” he warned.
On the Badoo phenomenon, Prophet Bamidele tasked the Lagos State governor, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode, to up his game in terms of security, stressing that the governor had performed creditably in the area of provision of amenities but that he appeared weak in terms of security.
“In all fairness, Ambode has performed very well in infrastructural development. What he has done in two years surpassed all that Fashola did in eight years. Give it to me and all members of my family, we will vote for Ambode come 2019, to go for a second term.
“But the issue is that, the governor appears weak in the area of security. Unlike Fashola who curtailed criminals effectively, we are yet to see much from him” he observed.
The cleric also advised ailing President Muhammadu Buhari to use the quietness of his privacy in London to reflect on “where his administration had missed it.”
He particularly deplored “the way the President courted Senate President Bukola Saraki and allowed him to upturn the zoning formula arranged by the All Progressives Congress and then hijack the party structure from those who worked for the election of the President.
“The President missed it the day he said, ‘I am for everyone, I am for no one’. Even, if he meant it, he should not have said it because it was not politically expedient. Look at how these strange elements have messed up his government.
“His (Buhari’s) anti-corruption war has been defeated as thieves are going scot free while the judicial system has been largely compromised,” he lamented.
Bamidele also warned those he described as ‘cabal’ in the Buhari administration to “be mindful of their evil plots against Vice President Yemi Osinbajo”, saying, “Osinbajo was put in his present position by God and anyone that attempts to undermine him or work against him will incur the wrath of the Almighty.”
