THE
12
ADVOCATE
May 2014
WAR IN THE HOUSE OF GOD
Assemblies of God has many corrupt leaders – Rev. Paul Emeka The Assemblies of God Church Nigeria which was founded for the purpose of worshipping God and to bring souls to God through aggressive evangelism has now become a house of corruption, intrigue, infighting , politics and power-play. General Superintendent of the church, Rev. Paul Emeka, who was recently suspended over allegations of misconduct, financial misappropriation and other matters by a powerful group in the church led by the retired GS, Rev. Charles Osueke, in this interview, fired back at his accusers saying his only offence was that he refused some fraudulent leaders of the church to steal church funds. The embattled Rev. Emeka who has been reinstated by the court but was denied access to the office by his traducers, vowed never to allow those whose interest is to steal the church funds to continue with “the business as usual� in the House of God. Excerpts What is your position about the crisis now rocking the Assemblies of God Church? Everything has immediate and remote causes, so in a situation like this, you don't really know where to start. I must let you know that there was a time we got license to operate the Evangel University. The Board of Trustees employed people and of course members of the church, but they began to mismanage and equally mis-run the university, making it too expensive for us to continue with. They employed without looking back, they employed without consulting, because by the law of the University, statutorily as the General Superintendent, Ii am the Chancellor and equally the Visitor. The proper thing is that I am the Proprietor, so I was concerned that they were spending too much. We had 73 students who were admitted but they went ahead and employed 135 workers. In their first salary schedule, they brought six million naira. We protested but helplessly paid. In the second one, it went up to nine million naira and it never came down until it came to thirteen million naira. They were employing and not consulting with us and they were meant to interview people and bring the list to us to look through and make recommendations but they did not do so. Each time we call them to give account, they said no, that they were not accountable to the BOT or even the Executive Committee of the church, that they were accountable to the Governing Council. So there was a problem, nobody was accountable to us. So the board of trustees in the process of recognising and adopting a pragmatic approach in the running of the university suspended them and then set up a panel to look into how the university was being run. But these people ran to what we call a body of Ambassadors of the Kingdom which we have in the Assemblies of God, whom my predecessor felt had served the church and called them and gave them the award as 'Ambassadors of the Kingdom'. It was not meant to be an association; it has no place
Rev. Paul Emeka, GS Assemblies of God Church in our constitution or organogram of the church. But somehow the people (Ambassadors) came together and began to see themselves as a pressure group or political arm of the church. The Vice Chancellor of the school happens to be a member of the body and he ran to them and called on them to help him out. They came to the Executive Council (EC) to see us and we asked them to wait that we will invite the BOT and explain everything to them. They laid their complaints that the young university will soon be closed, that they were not happy that the people were suspended and didn't care to know the reason for our action. Few weeks later, they came up with a write up that they addressed to the Presbyters (These are Pastors in Assemblies of God and are up to 2000 in number). They didn't address it to the EC members which is the highest decision making body of the church. This was where the trouble started. All of us had different approach towards solving it. They came up with so many allegations that didn't have to do with the
University but other things. They alleged many things against me, for instance, they talked about a house we bought in Germany. The allegation associated with the Germany house purchase are very shapeless, the story keep increasing by the day. They calculated all these to smear my image in the public. They also alleged what we created the Assemblies of God Ministers benefit fund. The Pastors every month make contributions to that and each time a Pastor retires, he is given what he contributed with interest and the balance remains with the church. They also alleged that I made a pledge to the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria without consulting the Executive Council, that my brother In-law was the one hiring equipment and being given two million naira each time we are to do a programme and helping himself from that. The truth about these things is not farfetched because the purchase of the project in Germany was started by my predecessor, the advance which was twenty million naira was paid by the General Treasurer who was
serving under him and later on there was this election that brought me in when he retired and we continued from there. The church obtained a loan from the GTB and it was the responsibility of the General Treasurer and the Accountants there to pay and they paid and kept remitting the money for the company until the transaction was completed. They have the cheques with which the payment was made and the receipts handed over to us. I didn't have anything to do with the money, all I did was to go and see if it was true, the General Secretary equally went and the Assistant General Superintendent also went, all these things are in our minutes. But when they were making their allegations, they didn't do them as if all these things are in the minutes; they talked as if I woke up one day and carried the money to buy a property in Germany. That of Pastors benefit fund started about sixteen years ago, each Pastor contributes automatically to the fund and goes home with what he contributed on retirement with interest. But I discovered that each month all the Ministers of Assemblies of God contribute an average of thirty million naira but the Ministers who retire in a given month don't take up to six million naira and
there was a board set up to use that money and invest. It was from there that we built our bank called
AG Homes; that continued for many years until I became the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God. I proposed before the Executive Council that here you have one man who is managing these millions of naira that the Ministers are contributing and here you have the bank. He is the Managing Director of the bank as well as the Chairman of the board, that it would be nice that we separate it so that he will continue to be the chairman of the board and another person the Managing Director of the bank. The Committee bought the idea. I equally said that these Ministers that are retiring, and given what they contributed with interest and the money remains there, they are not coming back at any time to benefit from the investment that their money was put into. I said the only way that these people could have a share is that since this body doesn't give them pension and since what the General Council pays to them as pension monthly is too small, that we should do something to enhance their living standard from the money. If you look at it by the time the former board was handing over, they had already about N2.5billion and I said to the people it was possible for us to take part of this money to increase their pensions so that they don't suffer too much. They accepted and adopted it unanimously. I proposed N350 million but they handed over about N1.5million and said they had invested the other. We said they should give the N200million so that we start helping the pension of these people and they sent it from the bank called the AG Homes to the General Council account. It did not go to my personal account. The General Treasurer received it, receipted it; but when they were writing, they started alleging and talking as if I had direct access to the money and using it on my own. It was credited to the general council account. On the allegation about making donation to the PFN, we went to the NAC (National Advisory Committee) meeting of the PFN, all the church leaders were there. So there was this spontaneous fund raised, people were pledging fifty to one
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