Last week, the rumour mill came alive in the ever busy social media. It went like this: An Abuja-based bishop paid a trader a huge sum of N500, 000 not to supply him or his church goods from his shop. The payment was meant to fake a miracle… the ultimate miracle of raising the dead. The trader believed to be hale and hearty was paid the amount, dressed in a designer suit (perhaps his nostrils stuff with cotton) and was lowered into a casket for onward conveyance of his “cadaver” to a crusade ground where the bishop would play God (the Son).
According to the mill, death actually visited the trader en route to the crusade ground. It was possible that he was suffocated to death in the coffin. Both the bishop and his victim did not factor in the punishing heat of Abuja when they both contrived the make-believe. You can’t blame the trader for agreeing to play dead for a fee of half a million naira. That fee must be like a miracle to him at this time of recession when men and women are committing suicide out of hardship and frustration.
The rumour mill also had it that the bishop was promptly arrested by the police but he swiftly regained his freedom through the intervention of some prominent members of his church. But the deceased’s spouse is raving like a lunatic, demanding justice. However, the question on the lips of many folks is: “Was the woman now raising hell not part of the grand conspiracy to fool gullible Nigerians?”
If the bishop had succeeded in the miracle scam, he would have become as popular as Jesus Christ… the ultimate Miracle Worker. The accomplice too would have received unprecedented media attention. He would have told the entire universe how he was turned back at the Pearly Gates by Angel Gabriel with a fake, gripping message for the rest of us here on earth.
The bishop is not alone in this spiritual shenanigan. Many so-called pastors, bishops and general overseers who are not called by God have turned to Satan for powers to perform miracles in the name of God! This is because they are too worldly to pay the prices that come with acquiring holiness and godly anointing.
There are instances where human beings have been used to lay foundations of places of worship in an attempt to pull crowds and work wonders. Some of them also employ talisman known as “afose” in Yoruba. With afose, they can prophesy and it would come to pass with lightning speed. There is also “aweju” that will enable them to tell you all about your past.
What about “maye ohun”? With that charm, no church member can turn down or refuse their pastors’ demands to sow seeds.
I remember an incident in South Africa where a high profile Nigerian Pentecostal pastor staged a crusade. He had recruited some “physically challenged” men from Nigeria and confined them to the wheelchairs at the crusade ground. While the razzmatazz was going on at the scene, one of the “cripples”, having sat for too long, was pressed to wee-wee. However, he forgot to ask one of the ushers to wheel him to the toilet. He simply sprang to his feet and walked away. The gullible audience responded to the “miracle” that had just happened since they were in an atmosphere of miracles. One of the junior pastors followed the fake cripple who had just received his healing to the toilet and gave him the length of his tongue.
Back home, the pastor performed another “miracle” involving a man born blind. When he “regained” his sight, he was shown an object and asked to identify the colour. The “miracle receiver” screamed “blue”. How possible was that? He was supposed to be seeing for the first time in his life. Nevertheless, the gullible crowd screamed to high heavens.
Another make-believe brought about by this same con artist involved a “cripple” at one of his crusades whose hands he raised and commanded him to rise and walk in the name of Jesus Christ. The man jumped to his feet and gallivanted all over the place, screaming hallelujah. He was not coached to start with the gait of a drunk which was expected of someone attempting to walk for the very first time in his life as it happened in the Bible when Peter healed a cripple at the Beautiful Gate.
Some magicians are even smarter than these fake men of God. I will retell a story to buttress this. I was on an errand in Kumasi, Ghana, when I sighted a motley crowd which formed a kind of laager round a magician, chanting: ‘Come and see America wonda! Come and see America wonda! America wondaaaa!! America wonda!!’
I joined the crowd and elbowed my way to the front row. The magician wore a multi-colour monkey jacket on a pair of red trousers. There was also a piece of red cloth hanging from his shoulders down to the back of his legs… the type supermen wear in movies. And dangling around his chest was an unusually large Celtic cross. In his left hand was a finial (magic wand) which, I was soon to discover, he used to conjure all manner of magical sights.
The anti-climax of the optical illusion stage show came when the magician asked for a volunteer among the crowd. One chap stepped forward. He sat him on a wooden box for a while and told us that he would kill him and bring him back to life. My 10-year-old skeleton quaked inside my body.
But I refused to leave. The wonder man spread a piece of red cloth on the ground and asked the volunteer to lie on it. To my surprise, he obeyed. He then covered him with another piece of white cloth. After that, he drove a dagger into the man’s belly and we saw blood oozing out. I backpedalled in fright. He then asked someone to step forward to certify the state of the man. One man came out and planted his ear on the dead man’s chest.
“No more life; he is dead!” the “doctor” announced to us.
The magician then ordered us to chorus the America wonda song louder. We obeyed. He waved his finial for a very long time. Then he tapped the cadaver by the tummy and the dead man truly sprang back to life. Wooooondaful! We all chorused in unison.
Several years after the wonderful encounter in faraway Kumasi, the Americans have produced the real wonder in their President-elect, Donald Trump!
