The African Church, arguably Nigeria’s oldest indigenous church, was a child of rebellion. It was birthed in protest and grew in discord and became firmly rooted in crisis. Unfortunately, 124 years after the legendary Jacob Kehinde Coker led over 600 parishioners out of St Paul’s Anglican Church, Lagos, to form what is today known as The African Church, the church has not been able to do away with its unenviable toga of a church in perpetual discord with itself and its soul.
Whenever these crises rear their ugly heads, evangelism, the sole aim of any church, takes the backstage. Lawsuits, counter suits and legal brickbats become the order of the day. And the loser is always the church. But the greater loser is the body of Christ. The church and its leaders quickly forget the main reason they were called in the first place. Politicking, ruthless subterfuge and dirty machinations take over.
There are two worlds: the Profane and the Sacred. In between these two worlds of immense extremes is the church. The job of the church is to take as many souls as possible, if not every soul, away from the profane world and prepare them for the sacred world. In other words, the church is supposed to be a buffer zone between these two extreme worlds. But if you look at the African Church since 1987, in fact, the sinful world might need to learn one or two things from the church in terms of political chicanery and operational malfeasance.
One of the timeless hymns of the church (The African Church has so many hymns, which other denominations don’t even give it credit for) is the “O God of Bethel”:
O God of Bethel by Whose Hand;
Thy People still are fed.
Who through this weary pilgrimage;
Has all our fathers led.
Our pilgrimage has been a weary one since the church was founded on October 13, 1901. But most of this weariness is self-inflicted. At the root of the fundamental flaw of the church is the fact that it was a church practically founded by the laity. In fact, after it seceded from the Anglican Church, a clergyman was invited to come and conduct its first service at Rose Cottage, in today’s Broad Street, Lagos.
Since then, the laity has maintained a grip-like control over the church. While a clergyman remains the spiritual head of the church and the humourous honour of being the head of the Church Conference, the church’s highest decision-making body. Everyone conversant with the church knows where political power within the church lies. Therefore, it is a common thing in the church to see a clergyman genuflecting before a powerful lay member to get the promotion that will be carried out, ironically, by another, but this time, a superior clergyman.
Let me say, before this piece rankles many within the church (which I know it will), that there is no church, even Deeper Life, where there is no politics and infighting. But The African Church is like a mini-Nigeria: we don’t know where and when to draw the line when playing politics.
In May 1987, in the sleepy town of Ilesha, in the present-day Osun State, the church literally went up in flames. Again, the cause was not any canonical issue or reconstitution of the church’s liturgical order. Far from it. It was the furore generated by the choosing of the church’s, wait for it, lay president! At the centre of it was the late Chief Samuel Ayoola Dada.
Born in 1926 in Itapa-Ekiti, Dada was a graduate of Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, where he read Mathematics and Latin and graduated in 1957. Dada was a consummate churchman and a man of modest means. He was for a long time the conference secretary of the church. He felt he had paid his dues and should be rewarded as the lay president of the church. Perhaps, he took things for granted, and the ‘Lagos Group’ felt he was not qualified to be. Their reason: he was not a resident of Lagos, or so they said.
It was even deeper than that. The ‘Lagos Group’ also had a weapon, a justifiable one for that matter, against Dada. They stumbled on an itinerary drawn by Bishop Michael Jawolusi, now of blessed memory, where he planned, preposterously, to go and “visit the new lay president of The African Church, Chief S.A. Dada”. This itinerary had been drawn even before the conference, where Dada was supposed to be elected. Not appointed. The implication of that was that Dada and his loyalists had already held their own conclave, seen the white smoke and their own ‘Nabemus Papam’ had already produced Dada as the lay president. Rumours had it that the episcopal elevation of Jawolusi was facilitated by Dada. Naturally, the late Jawolusi was Dada’s clerical protégé.
The crisis lasted for five years, but it set the church back by 25 years. Court cases upon court cases were the order of the day, and those took their toll, naturally, on the church while this avoidable crisis lasted. There was no growth, physically and spiritually. The late Bishop Oluwole Ajediti, consecrated in 1968, became the primate of the ‘Ibadan Side’, while the late Bishop Solomon Oyawoye, a reputable scholar and the first PhD holder to be made a bishop in the church, became the primate of the ‘Lagos Group’.
However, the biggest beneficiaries of the crisis were clergymen. Promotions, especially episcopal ones, became so common and two for a penny. Many who, probably, would have never become bishops if the church had remained one, were promoted to the episcopate. This was on both sides. And when the conflict was to be resolved, part of the horse-trading was that all promotions carried out by both sides should remain.
But there was one thorny issue: the issue of who would be the primate. The Primate of the ‘Ibadan Side’ was the late Bishop Olawunmi Opeyemi (Ajediti had retired by 1992, and Opeyemi, being the most senior bishop in Ibadan Side, became the primate). Opeyemi, from Ekiti State, was over 65 and belonged to the generation of teacher pastors who rose through the ranks in the church’s clerical service. Whereas Oyawoye was young (57 years old then), charismatic, a doctoral degree holder and urbane. It was no no-brainer then that Opeyemi would be the one to step down. He graciously accepted this, and his entitlements were paid.
The church heaved a sigh of relief. But the fair weather would last a little over 20 years before another crisis would come up.
When Primate Oyawoye retired, he was succeeded by Primate Onadotun Onanuga. Then came this queer decision that clergymen had to retire by age 65. It was one constitutional amendment that has created a situation whereby the church now has arguably more retired clergymen than those still in service! That is a discussion for another day.
Onanuga’s tenure was not without its issues. And at the centre of those issues was the promotion of some archdeacons to bishops. Again, I would not dwell much on that.
After Onanuga came Josiah Emmanuel Udofia from Akwa Ibom. It was a breath of fresh air. Not because Udofia had the charisma of Oyawoye or the elegance of Onanuga, but the fact that it was the first time the primateship of the church would go outside Yoruba land. From Primate Lakeru to Emmanuel Motilewa Olulode to Adeola Aboyade Cole to Ademulegun, it had always been Yourbas. But the church, with its indestructible penchant for crisis, came up with the idea that the primate must retire after 10 years in office, irrespective of whether he is 65 or not. And the law, strangely, was made retroactive, which meant Udofia had to leave office just a couple of years after that law was passed.
The church practically broke into two with the South-South members practically creating their own ‘African Church’ and Udofia becoming their primate! As usual, court cases ensued until sanity prevailed. And that was until some lay leaders of the church started another attritional war with the current primate, His Eminence, Osayande Olayinka Abbe. There was a court case against the primate alleging that he forged certificates. An injunction was passed that he, the primate, should not carry out any promotion or consecration of bishops. But his traducers, interpreting that to mean that he could not carry out the functions of his office, believed he had been automatically suspended, and an acting primate could come on board. That was how Most Rev. Augustine Odufuwa became an ‘acting primate’.
Yet, the current crisis had its roots in the botched attempt to choose the lay president of the church last year. According to the constitution of the church, the outgoing lay president, Babatunde Odufuwa, was not qualified to contest for the office when he did in 2019 since he was then still a serving vice-lay president of Lagos Central Diocese (he must finish his tenure before he could contest) but the powers that be in the church waived that and he emerged. But when Kunle Jaiyesimi, a successful corporate executive, was to contest, he was told that he was not qualified for the same reason that was waived for Odufuwa. Meanwhile, Oduguwa, an eminent lawyer and the chancellor of the church was immensely qualified for the highest lay office in the church, but some concerned members of the church felt he was too arrogant and had no respect for the office of the primate and head of the church. Such a lame excuse!
As expected, legal battles ensued, and now, Oduguwa, conniving with the likes of Most Reverend Odufuwa (the self-acclaimed acting primate) and other power-hungry clergies and lay members, called a meeting on May 29, where new officers were chosen more or less by affirmation and new archbishops and bishops were proclaimed. All these when the primate, Abbe, was still in office! Unfortunately, even if all this boils over, the primate’s power, influence and legitimacy have been critically wounded. This is sad for the spiritual health of the church.
Since 1987, crises in The African Church have always been a result of the struggle for power, position and influence within the church. This is not only sad but painful. And its root has always been for lay positions within the church. How can a church perpetually in legal battles grow, physically, not to mention spiritually? We bicker. We fight. We throw verbal punches. And in doing these, the work of God suffers.
As the church tries, yet again, to wriggle out of the current imbroglio, maybe spiritually inclined members of the church, who have not forgotten the whole essence of church ‘business’, will intercede on its (the church’s) behalf to exorcise the spirit of rebellion and ask the God of Bethel to lead us out of these self-inflicted wranglings.
Just as He led our fathers.
Ajayi, a senior journalist and member of the African Church, writes from Lagos
