Nigeria’s pulpits have grown taller, yet truth now kneels beneath them. The incense of prayer rises, but somewhere between heaven and Abuja, the smoke changes colour. Although not business as usual but still religion remains the most profitable franchise of power; bishops bless the ballot box, and prophets auction visions to the highest bidder. The cathedral, once a refuge for conscience, now functions as the waiting room of politicians seeking sanctified deceit.
The tragedy did not arrive overnight. It began the moment holiness became performance, when pulpits turned into podiums and the sacred handshake between faith and politics became a wrestling grip. The Nigerian church—both Pentecostal and orthodox—has become a theatre where divine vocabulary is used to market ambition. Sunday homilies sound increasingly like campaign jingles. The faithful, dazzled by light and sound, forget that the devil once led the choir.
In a country where poverty kneels before every altar, religion remains the strongest currency of hope. But that hope has been mortgaged. Preachers who once thundered against injustice now measure their words by proximity to power. “We cannot bite the hand that feeds us,” a popular pastor once whispered after receiving a government contract. Yet Christ fed five thousand without borrowing bread from Caesar. The paradox defines our era: we shout about heaven while negotiating with hell.
The late Prophet T. B. Joshua once warned, “When you build your ministry on man, when that man falls, you fall with him.” Nigeria’s spiritual establishment did not listen. Many built their cathedrals on politicians—men whose loyalty shifts with every regime. Today those cathedrals stand tall but hollow, echoing sermons that no longer convict. The altar smells not of frankincense but of politics: the perfume of influence, the odour of survival.
Every election season exposes the marriage between gospel and government. Candidates kneel before clerics not for repentance but for endorsement. Congregations are herded like electoral cattle toward the candidate whose envelope arrived first. The pulpit becomes a polling unit; the sermon, a manifesto. It is the commodification of belief—a spiritual marketplace where prophets sell hope by the litre and redemption by appointment.
The ordinary worshipper senses the decay but feels helpless. A Nigerian proverb says, “When the fish rots, it starts from the head.” When the shepherd becomes a consultant of wolves, the sheep lose their compass. The result is a generation that prays without transformation, sings without conscience, and quotes scripture without character. The moral oxygen of the nation is thinning.
Still, hypocrisy flourishes because it wears a holy face. The same preacher who condemns fornication from the pulpit keeps a mistress funded by tithe. The one who preaches humility rides a convoy longer than a governor’s. The offering basket overflows while widows faint at the church gate. We have turned God into an ATM and faith into a franchise. The worshipper no longer pursues righteousness but relevance.
Dr Paul Enenche once declared, “When the altar is defiled, destiny is denied.” Nigeria’s destiny now gasps for air beneath polluted altars. The spiritual leadership that should rebuke power has become addicted to its perfume. Instead of prophets crying in the wilderness, we have consultants dining in the villa. And the masses—bruised by hunger and disillusion—cling to whatever miracle promises bread today, even if it costs their tomorrow.
This is not merely a church problem; it is a national emergency of conscience. The collapse of moral authority in the pulpit feeds the corruption of the state. When pastors worship power, politicians impersonate pastors. The nation becomes a cathedral of deceit where every institution wears a cassock of hypocrisy. The gospel loses its edge; justice becomes negotiable; integrity becomes antique.
Yet amid the rot, a whisper remains. There are still men and women who refuse to trade the truth. There are altars where holiness still burns without the sponsorship of oil money. Their voices may be drowned by the drums of vanity, but heaven keeps record. Nigeria’s salvation will not come from imported prayers but from indigenous repentance—from a generation of believers who prefer purity to popularity.
Until that dawn, the church must confront itself. It must cleanse the pulpit before cleansing the polity. For if the altar continues to smell of politics, Nigeria’s hope will continue to smell of despair. And God, though merciful, will not endorse a lie wrapped in hallelujah.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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