With Uche Nnadozie
Towards the end of last week, her videos took the social media by
storm. At first it looked ordinary; a normal Nigerian Christian
miracle worker video of the 21st century. We are very much accustomed
to such tales. We have lived with it for more than forty years. The
clips later doubled as the day wore on. By Friday there were at least
six clips telling the story of Bose Ola. She says she hails from
Ibarapa in Oyo State. But she is resident in Lagos. She is the vixen
for miracles in Nigeria. Like her music video counterparts she
performs her role with admirable competence. That is, television
miracles. There is a difference between television and physical
miracle. Like in Vegas, what happed on television stays on television.
This is the reality of the 21st century televangelism. The television
was build for acting. That is, it was meant to replace the stage. The
television is a mini stage, a theatre stage. On stage, drama is
performed. Drama mimics reality and try to put life into a fiction. It
is that idea that transformed into a television. It is the same thing
with preaching. Pastors standing in front of a large audience equally
mimicked theatre. Prior to the embrace of Christianity by Rome, the
clergy were not stage performers. Now we can appreciate the
relationship between Christianity and the stage.
While I am not competent to discuss theological or ecclesiastical
matters, however, we know a fraud when we see one. Bose the miracle
vixen who some people have described as the “woman with the issue of
hand” was seen in different video clips in different churches with
different pastors purporting to seek healing for her right arm which
appeared to have dislocated from the shoulder or something like that.
The right arm also appeared shorter that normal, looking lifeless and
dangling more or less. The first church attended to her. The pastor
prayed, the hand strengthened and took its proper position. The church
danced and praised the “lord.” The pastor lapped up the glory and felt
like another king kong.
But that was until another video, another one,, yet another one and so
on. There is at least one well known among the pastors and the
churches. Liberation Ministries they call it, Chris Okafor they call
him. He identifies as a prophet. But none of his prophesies that I
have heard has come to pass. He is not strange to controversies. Some
years back his people quickly doused a raging scandal about sex and
all. The usually dramatizes miracles too. He is a low-quality Chris
Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy. He copies his mannerisms but lacks his
elocution and “phnone” as we call it in this part. So Okafor was very
elaborate with his performance. He embellished the “miracle” in a way
that made it stand out. his was peculiar. He even uttered “prophetic”
gibberish.
Pastor Okafor told his congregation how witches stole Bose’s right
hand bones. Bose agreed. But Bose told a journalist later that her
problem began with motorcycle accident. The thing is that, both pastor
and Bose may be lying or one of them is not telling the truth. This is
just about how the disfiguration came about. What about the other
little matter of multiple miracles? Bose claims that although she was
healed in all of the places she visited, the problem relapsed after
two days. Which means after every healing- two days later, she goes
back to short and boneless arm. This was until she met Pastor Chris
the orthopedic healer who did a permanent job. Bose who says she lives
in penury, yet admitted travelling abroad to seek healing (not cure)
for the hand.
Liberation Ministries equally claimed they did no harm. They said in a
statement that the woman was finally healed in their church. Well,
there is another little problem. Is it then established that healings
by God relapse? How do we then tell non Christians about a single god
who is the same everywhere you go? How will God heal someone today,
yet two days later, the healing is upturned? Then this same person
proceeds to another church and gets healed again, but it relapses
again? The whole performance makes mockery of Christianity in its
purest form. I think Christians should be worried. This sort of thing
must not be swept under the carpet.
People don’t know that it is very difficult to get close to these
pastors even for a miracle. How this Bose easily makes it to the front
of the churches gets the attention of the pastor baffles me. Let any
other random person go to any of the big churches to make these claims
let us hear how long it will take the individual to get noticed or
heard. Things happen in these religious places and it seems that even
government is not interested in playing its role. The religious bodies
have their ways of blackmailing government to look the other way. Even
the populace does not joke with any action taken against offending
leaders of their faith. We want the status quo of deceit to remain.
Scripted miracles are not new in Nigeria or anywhere else. This is why
we hear about false prophets and many have been arrested in the
process. In Nigeria, miracle showing television programmes have been
restricted. The churches were only told to authenticate their claims,
they bolted. They rather not put up any miracle on television instead
of providing unassailable evidence of their “good deeds.” Yet we
cannot continue the hypocrisy. I expect the Christian Association of
Nigeria, CAN and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN to ask
questions about the latest vixen and foxes of the altar. Will they,
since this is not politics?
