Dissensions and Secessions

Before the death of Josiah, some of his senior pastors had already read the handwriting on the wall concerning things to come relating to the transfer of power. The rapid ascent of Adeboye to positions of power and privilege became worrying to some of the more perceptive senior pastors. A good number chose to leave the church. According to Josiah’s son, Pastor I.B.

Akinlembola read “the signs of the times” and seceded before Josiah died.¹³⁷ The interval between the death of Josiah and his burial was one of heightened contestations among ambitious senior pastors of the church who were vying for the enviable position in the church.

Esther Akindayomi, the widow of Josiah, recalled the events of this period a few months before she died in January 2001:

... [T]here were contests for the position (of General Superintendent).

Inspite (sic) of what Papa (Josiah) said before his death, many of his Pastors were clearly unwilling to abide. There was serious pressures (sic) on me to take a stand different from what Papa had said.¹³⁸

According to Esther Akindayomi, three basic strategies were employed by those involved in this power tussle: (i) some cajoled her, promising her a secure and prominent role within the church should she give them her support for the coveted post; (ii) some tried to bribe her with gifts and money¹³⁹ in order to sway her opinion and lend them her support; and (iii) some resorted to outright intimidation. Mrs. Akindayomi claimed to have turned down the numerous gifts and offers made to her by the contenders thereby incurring no obligation to reciprocate by switching allegiance.¹⁴⁰

137.Personal interview with Ifeoluwa Akindayomi, Op. Cit.

138Esther Akindayomi, op. cit., p.8.

139 Ibid., J.D.Y. Peel (2000: 86-87) notes the role and function of gifts and presents in Yoruba socio-cultural life, observing, “unreciprocated giving simply made no cultural sense” to the Yoruba. Gifts and presents were designed to cement moral and social relationship within a community but they are expected “to be returned at a later date” (p. 86).

140 Esther Akindayomi, op. cit.

Adeboye’s own testimony is pertinent here:

When I became the General Overseer of this church, there were several people who claimed that God did not choose me. They tried everything to stop me. They mocked me...¹⁴¹

These same people according to Ojo (2001: 55) also said that Adeboye was taking over leadership of a church that “was like a muddy dirty pool that would soon dry up”.

There are a number of reasons why some pastors dissented. (i) There were some older pastors who started the church with Josiah. They felt both betrayed and short-changed. (ii) Josiah’s actions were against the written letter of the constitution. (iii) Adeboye was himself a newcomer to the church as well as a young man with little or no prior experience in church leadership and politics. According to one senior pastor, the principal complain of the senior pastors was “How can this young man who just joined the RCCG be their leader?”¹⁴² According to the same pastor,

Some of the senior pastors of the church were saying that because he (Adeboye) was a PhD holder, he used his worldly wisdom to convince Baba (Josiah) to write in his will that he was to take over from him.

These senior pastors who had been with Baba right from the early days of the church were saying “these academicians (sic), they are very clever; they know how to manoeuvre (that is, manipulate situations) to get their ways”.¹⁴³

There are no written records where the details of the leadership struggle are documented. A senior pastor who insisted on anonymity proffers some details however. The leadership contest was among three principal contestants: (i) Pastor Ogedemgbe, an engineer by training, (ii) Pastor Chris Fajemiroku, a lawyer, and (iii) Pastor Adeboye, a university don. These three pastors were the first educated people that joined the church. Incidentally, it was Pastor Chris Fajemironku who first invited and encouraged the Adeboye family to join RCCG. Other interested parties in the tussle took sides with these main actors. Their activities fragmented the church and its followership. The pastors who disagreed with the proclamation of Adeboye as

141E.A Adeboye, “Anointing for Greater Exploits in the next Millennium”, in O. Bankole, Op. Cit., p.189.

142Personal interview with Pastor Michael O. Ojo, RCCG National HQ, Ebute-Meta, Lagos, 12 June 2001. Pastor Ojo is the Assistant General Overseer (AGO) in charge of Establishment matters. He was a former acting General Secretary of the RCCG and elder before his elevation to the position of AGO in 1996.

143Ibid

Josiah’s successor took one of three actions. (i) Some seceded and established their own independent churches, (ii) others left the RCCG and joined other churches; (iii) yet others remained within the RCCG fold and gradually reconciled themselves with the prevailing circumstances. According to Adekola (1989: 112-114), among those who seceded soon after Adeboye became leader of RCCG was one Pastor S. Adenuga who left RCCG in 1981 to establish his own church, Onward Gospel Church, in Ibadan. This man was a major financier of the church who “felt slighted or cheated by not being put in a status that befits him” after the death of Akindayomi (p. 113).

To stem the wave of discontent, the Supreme Council,¹⁴⁴ which was the highest decision-making organ of the church, took some far-reaching decisions:

that anyone who left as a minister cannot come back. So if you have to come back at all you have to become [just] a member and begin to climb the [hierarchical] ladder again. And this was done so that there is some level of discipline in the church.¹⁴⁵

It was said that after this decision came into effect, some of those who left sought to return to the fold but were prevented from doing so, partly to stem the tide of dissent and partly to demonstrate the power in the new victory of the church over dissenters.¹⁴⁶

The rest of this section is based on the record of Adekola (1989) who alone provides the historical details of the basis of Adeboye’s emergence as leader. Adekola (1989: 234-250) records that the emergence of Adeboye as leader of RCCG is not unconnected with the establishment of a sister organisation within the RCCG, Christ the Redeemer’s Ministry (CRM). With a handful of loyal followers and admirers, Adeboye founded the CRM in 1977 as a reaction against Nigeria’s bid to host the second Black Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ’77).¹⁴⁷ According to Adekola (19891: 240f), Adeboye used the CRM to organise congresses and revivals as well as cultivate strong bonds of responsibilities and loyalty among some senior pastors of the church. Although Josiah supported the activities of Adeboye and the

144 During the lifetime of Josiah the Supreme Council was made up “of not more than thirteen and not less than nine members” with the General Superintendent as chairperson. Six members of this council were selected by the General Superintendent while the rest were General Officers of the Mission, that is, the General Secretary, the Assistant General Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Auditor. The Supreme Council replaced the defunct

“Executive Council”, a name used in the Constitution of the Church (art.17b: i-v). The Governing Council, a body that is still operational at the time of this work, in turn replaced the Supreme Council.

145Personal interview with Pastor Ezekiel A.Odeyemi, op.cit.

146 Idem

147 A fuller discussion of the CRM and its activities comes up in chapter 4

CRM, some pastors suspected the strategies of CRM, and consequently resented the ministry.

A few of these pastors even seceded from the church before the death of Josiah because of the enhanced leverage that CRM was securing for itself and its leader(s). Adekola (1989: 244) records that from the beginning there had been a growing resent to [sic] this movement”, and names two pastors, Igbekoyi and Nwuka who “vehemently opposed the movement for they regarded it as a schismatic movement from the RCCG”. Adekola further observes that the opposition stemmed from the perception then that Adeboye “was over-ambitious for he wanted to assume the leadership of RCCG and that he was only using the CRM as a stepping-stone”

(Ibid).

Also, the opposition to Adeboye’s headship of the church was strong because Adeboye was only a part time pastor of the church. Older men who had worked for decades as full time pastors of the church were ill disposed to accept the headship of i) a part time pastor, ii) a relatively new comer into the church, iii) a young man of 39 years old, and iv) a outsider because of his high level of education when compared to most of the pastors who were not highly educated. According to Pastor M. O. Ojo, these pastors felt that Josiah had been unfair to them and had short-changed them in some significant respects.¹⁴⁸