Taking churchmanship to a fatal extreme

I was looking for an old piece to recall for this space when my eyes fell on a story I narrated in 2013. I had been bogged down with a relocation exercise since last weekend and so I did not have enough time to pen down fresh topic. I still find the recall quite interesting.

One day, in that year, Nigerians woke up to the tragic news of a man who allegedly murdered his teenage daughter over her choice of church. According to the story, the 72-year-old father, a resident of Ibara area of Lagos state, was enraged by the audacity of his 14-year-old daughter, to revolt against him by refusing to follow him to the Lord’s Chosen Church which is the church the octogenarian, John Udin, has chosen for the family to attend.

The mother of the slain girl, Comfort Udin, told the police that the family head had been excessively miffed over the deceased’s rebellion and accused her husband of weaponising a log fitted with nails to hit the girl, saying that the nails located her forehead on the fateful day.

The 40-year-old mum said the drama began to unfold a day or two before the tragedy when the nonconformist, named Ejiro, led the other kids in the family to confront the breadwinner that they were done with the church chosen by the Lord. They must have told him that they were led by the Spirit to change church. Apparently, the decision to change church by the kids got the nod of their mother. That development pitted them against the family head.

After nailing the girl, the father was said to have locked her and her mother in the kitchen. Rescue, however, came on the fifth day of their incarceration and the poor girl was rushed to the hospital but it was too late. She kicked the bucket shortly on arrival. She had lost a lot of blood from the nail attack.

Confronted by the police, the father denied breaching the Sixth Commandment that says “Thou shall not kill” and claimed that he wanted to strike the mum with the weapon but she ducked and pushed the deceased the harm’s way.

For those who are bitten by the bug of denomination, the action of John Udin was not altogether out of place, though not to the extent of sending the rebellious girl to her early grave. At her age, no father would tolerate the idea of a minor sidestepping the queue when leading the family to the church chosen by him. The story did not tell us what frightened Ejiro from the church chosen by the Lord. However, what the enraged dad should have done was to sit the stubborn girl down and make her see reasons why she should remain with him in the system he had chosen for the family until she was old enough to be on her own. Thereafter, she could abandon the Lord’s Chosen Church for another church chosen by her. In an attempt to whip the family back on line, Pa John has fallen foul of the Lord’s Commandment that forbids taking anybody’s life, not even on account of not worshipping in the same church.

Let me recall my own experience. I was born into the Baptist system in Kumasi, Ghana. My old man was an elder of the church and the patron of the choir. As the patron who had a kid in the church, he felt his patronship would make no meaning if he did not have at least one of his own singing “…hosanna in the highest” in the church choir, Sunday in, Sunday out. That kid was me. And there I was with an aversion to singing but he coerced me to join the choir.

After some feeble persuasion from my loving mum, I backed down and joined the choral group. It is one thing to join a singing group but it is a different ball game to serenade the church along with others. My passion was in film production. I would normally report for the evening choir practice but after a short while, I would sneak out to entertain my numerous fans who were willing to pay for my services from where I made little cash to indulge myself in ice cream, corned beef, condensed milk among other goodies that my regular school money could not afford.

The film production was achieved this way. I would draw characters on the cardboard paper, cut them out and stick them to broomsticks. I would then disappear underneath a table covered with a white piece of cloth. And with the aid of a lantern, I would create silhouettes which were then manipulated while running a commentary. The fans loved it and they paid me two pence each per show. Looking back now, I wonder why I did not end up at the Hollywood.

There was this Christmas that the choir was billed to croon some special numbers. I braced up to be part of the preparation and attended the practice session for about a week or so. It was on that Christmas day that I realized how lousy I was as a pretender. As the smallest choir member, I had to be garrisoned in the front row. My dad was so pleased that one of his own was on cue to entertain the congregation. The old man was embarrassed to notice that in the course of rendering one of the soul moving songs, when the mouths of the other choir members formed letter “o”, mine would form letter “m”. This was because I missed the session when that particular number was practised. Our eyes locked a couple of times and my dad’s facial expressions were better avoided.

After that Yuletide, the old man relaxed his foot on the gas. Long after I left Ghana and became a man of my own, I left the Baptist system and became a Catholic. My decision to abandon the system was informed by the treatment I got about two years after I was brought to Nigeria. I had gone to Jos to spend my vacation with my elder sister and her husband. It was my first Sunday in the city and I was dressed in native attire with an oversized cap to match. I think it was my first time of donning a cap. I sauntered into the church auditorium and bounced along the aisle, looking for where to settle my arse on. Then all of a sudden, my head became empty. I swung around only to find my cap retreating on the tip of the janitor’s stick. I was thoroughly embarrassed as the whole congregation turned in my direction and giggled. The reverend also took time off his pre-sermon session to chuckle. Even though I was a juvenile, the janitor should have been polite enough to tap me from behind and remind me to remove my cap. After all, we are all equal before God. Or did he think I was on a (strange) mission to fuse Christianity and Islam? Christian men worship with empty heads, while their Muslim opposites pray shoeless.

I spent a few years in the Catholic system and left after I was done with hailing Mary. The Pentecostal environment welcomed me with both arms and I rose to become president of the men’s fellowship in the first prosperity church I embraced in Jos in the early 90s. There are many faces of these new generation churches. I peregrinated from face to face and the idiosyncrasies and con artistry that are the hallmarks of most of them have pissed me off almost to a state of churchlessness.

If John Udin was knowledgeable enough to understand that churchmanship is not a visa to heaven, he would not have gone to the extreme end of nailing his daughter to death as alleged. Even though the Holy Writ encourages Christians not to forsake the assembling of themselves, Christianity is an individual race. Your visa to heaven is being in the right relationship with God.

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