Whenever I wanted to cancel my subscription to the Economist, an article comes up that makes me change my mind.
I first became aware of Dr Sunday Adelaja through Charisma Magazine, which covered events in the Pentecostal Movement. Charisma is based in America but its coverage was across the globe. I am no longer sure of the precise date but it must have been between 1995 and 2000. Charisma reported on Dr Adelaja. They tracked the influence of Nigerian Pentecostal preachers in the Diaspora.
Dr Sunday Adelaja stood out because of the nature of his congregation in Ukraine. Most of the members were Ukrainians. This can’t be said of any Nigerian Church in the diaspora that I knew. When I lived in Nigeria and heard Nigerian Pentecostal preacher describe their preaching exploits abroad, I used to be impressed. On arriving in the UK, I realised virtually all of them preach in predominantly Nigerian congregations. Dr Adelaja impressed me.
Later his church started a Bible school in the UK. Again, I can’t remember precisely when but it must be after 1997, and probably close to 2000. The only reason I did not sign up was that it was on a Sunday and in West London. It wasn’t practical for me to drive or commute there.
To read the Economist article, please navigate to this link. I am going to summarise and comment because it is possible only subscribers can read this.
Dr Adelaja is now a refugee in Belgium. Dr Adelaja provided his own account of why he left Ukraine:
“On the day of the invasion he says he was tipped off by the government in Kyiv that he was on a Russian hit list. “Putin was my personal fight,” he says. “It became the world’s fight.”
Dr Adelaja’s side of the story is contested by others:
But critics allege that Mr Adelaja was escaping from justice. More than a decade ago he was accused by Ukrainian authorities of involvement in a pyramid scheme that fleeced his flock. Victims of the scheme say he used his influence to dupe them into investing and used the chaos of the war to escape.
The Economist tried to be balanced, adding:
Mr Adelaja, who has never been found guilty of any crime and whose cases have now passed the relevant statute of limitations, says he did nothing wrong. He believes that the allegations were part of a vendetta against him orchestrated by powerful political enemies.
Articles written about the Nigerian Pentecostal Movement by outsiders have a unique perspective. I appreciate how they contextualize events. While I was “growing up” as a young convert in the movement, we saw everything in the light of revival. The Economist contextualized the story of Dr Adelaja:
It is the stuff of Hollywood—or Nollywood, as Nigeria’s film industry is known. Mr Adelaja’s rags-to-riches tale is astonishing. But his life is also emblematic of broader trends: the global rise of Pentecostalism and its potent Nigerian brand; the role of religion in countries emerging from trauma; the way politicians use faith for their own ends; and the immense power that charismatic preachers have over their congregations, especially during turbulent times
This article is very insightful about Dr Adelaja. It tells us he worked as a journalist at a TV station. He was probably the first black correspondent on Ukrainian screens. His training as a journalist put him in good stead to handle the media and manage his image.
A secular magazine like the Economist can have a non-religious or non-spiritual perspective. These perspectives on “religious” or “spiritual” angles often elude us Pentecostals. The Economist wrote:
Mr Adelaja was at the confluence of two trends. The first was the global rise of Pentecostalism, a form of evangelicalism that emphasises personal connections with God. The number of Pentecostalists has risen 12-fold since 1970, from 58m to 683m, out of a total Christian population of 2.5bn, according to the Status of Global Christianity database. In developing countries such as Brazil and Nigeria its emphasis on the “prosperity gospel”, the idea that God wants you to be rich, has made it an alluring alternative to churches that promise rewards only in the afterlife.
In my two fictional books A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria and A Jar of Clay, Part 2: Broken, I tried to situate events in the history of the Nigerian Pentecostal Movement. The books are available here. These events occur in the context of the severe cycles of economic trauma, trauma has befallen the nation in recent years.
The Economist highlights the second trend:
Yet Mr Adelaja’s congregation was made up of Ukrainians and Russians, not diasporic Nigerians. And this unlikely scene depended on the second trend, the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Ukraine in the 1990s “There was a lot of shock but not a lot of therapy,” says Ms Wanner. Planeloads of American missionaries arrived to fill the spiritual void. Mr Adelaja’s church offered a “total institution” at a time of hyperinflation, state collapse and rampant substance abuse. Embassy of God ran soup kitchens and ministered to drug addicts and prostitutes. Natasha Potopaeva, an early member, says she joined for help with her alcoholism. “It was such a taboo. You could not go to the Orthodox church.
There is no doubt Dr Adelaja did a great deal of good in Ukraine. I personally don’t think there is a Nigerian preacher in Diaspora that was as successful as Dr Adelaja. It appeared things went wrong eventually, but he definitely met some of the needs when the Iron Curtain fell down.
The Economist also provided some insight to the Church life of Embassy of God:
And his church was fun. Mr Adelaja hollered his way through scripture and carried out “miracles” to a gospel-rock soundtrack. Another congregant says it was freezing when she first attended. “But Pastor Sunday came in and he threw off his coat…running from one end of the hall to another…when he took off his suit, I noticed he was…drenched with sweat.”
Classic Pentecostal/Charismatic razzmatazz. Embassy of God was also an influential church:
Politicians such as Yulia Tymoshenko, twice the country’s prime minister, attended services. In 2004 the church played a part in the Orange revolution, the protests that overturned a rigged election and helped elevate Viktor Yushchenko, a pro-Western candidate, to the presidency in 2005. Mr Yushchenko sent a framed photograph of himself to Mr Adelaja as a thank-you.
Dr Adelaja’s church had influential members:
In 2006 Leonid Chernovetsky, an oligarch and one of Mr Adelaja’s flock, became mayor of Kyiv.
And then things went pear shaped. Charisma Magazine first alerted me to issues in Dr Adelaja’s church. It also wrote an article on a whiiff of scandal at the Embassy of God. It was all about some financial investment that went wrong. The Economist gave us some details:
In 2008 Ukrainian investigators accused him of involvement in an alleged pyramid scheme called King’s Capital, which was founded by members of his church. According to police the scheme defrauded more than 600 people. Police alleged that Mr Adelaja organized fraud to “unlawfully acquire funds from citizens in particularly large amounts”.
Even the name of the alleged pyramid scheme, “King’s Capital”, sounded like a classic phrase from Nigerian Pentecostal dictionary. And there are some account from alleged victims:
He was incredibly charismatic; we never entertained the thought that the pastor could betray us,” says Nadia Zaniuk, a victim of the scheme. Mr Adelaja’s services featured promotions for King’s Capital, she says. “Sunday framed it this way: if you were part of King’s Capital, you were successful; if not, you were a loser,” Nadia recalls.
The Economist summarized Nadia’s experience:
In 2008 Ms Zaniuk put her flat up as collateral to get a loan, which she invested in King’s Capital. She says she was promised that her repayments to the bank would be covered. When the firm collapsed she was left with crippling debt. She has tried to sue the bank on the grounds that she was defrauded, but has not been successful. “Only about seven of us are still fighting; the rest have given up,” she says
The Economist also narrated the experiences of “another victim”, Nataliya Bogutska:
Nataliya Bogutska, another victim, says that at church Mr Adelaja would invite those who had invested in King’s Capital on stage. He would challenge those who had not to stand up, and stress that they must invest to prosper. She took the plunge, investing the equivalent of $75,000 in King’s Capital and other schemes promoted by the church. “I remember how Sunday told us not to worry, as he was a millionaire and could resolve all our difficulties.”
Beyond the allegations made in 2008, more recent claims have surfaced. These were made by other associates of Dr Adelaja in recent years. The Nigerian blogger, Toni Origbo, runs a channel on YouTube. She had a very detailed account of her own allegations of fraud levelled against Dr Adelaja. Toni often dared him to sue her to court. Her YouTube channel is here. You can also read about Charisma’s account here.
Dr Adelaja reinvented himself as critic of those that used to be very much connected with him in recent years. He drew a large following of Nigerians, especially in the diaspora. Many were frustrated with the movement. These followers were encountering him first in the social media age. They did not know much about the allegations in his backstory. I was inundated with invitations to come and join his platform by friends on his platform. I did not want to offend my friends. So, I left Facebook for more than a year.
When people were trying to drag me into his platform, I did some investigation on the internet. I came across very disturbing allegations about Dr Adelaja . Those accounts were reported in a reputable magazine, Christianity today. The article used to be in the public domain but it is now behind a paywall. The Nigerian Punch carried the same story. I didn’t find a convincing reason for his sudden change to a critic of the Nigerian Pentecostal Movement.
The article in the current edition of the Economist is very insightful about Dr Sunday Adelaja. Still, there are still many gaps to fill.
oyebode.com 