CORRUPTION IN ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH.

Assemblies of God Church Nigeria General Superintendent, Rev.
Paul Emeka, suspended over allegations of misconduct, financial
misappropriation and other matters by a group in the church, in
this interview, fires back at his accusers, saying his only offence
was that he tried to protect the church. The embattled Rev. Emeka
was reinstated by a court order but denied access to his office.
Everything has immediate and remote causes; so in a situation
like  this, you don’t really know where to start. I must let you know
that there was a time we got license to operate the Evangel
University. The Board of Trustees employed people and, of course,
members of the church, but they began to mis-run the university,
making it too expensive for us to continue.

They employed without looking back, they employed without
consulting, because, by the law of the university, statutorily as the
General Superintendent, I am the Chancellor and  the Visitor. I am
the proprietor, so I was concerned that they were spending too
much. We had 73 students but they employed 135 workers. In their
first salary schedule, they brought six million naira. We protested
but helplessly paid.
In the second one, it went up to nine million naira and it never
came down until it came to thirteen million naira. Each time we
called them to give account, they said no, that they were not
accountable to the BOT or even the Executive Council  of the
church, that they were accountable to the Governing Council. So
there was a problem, nobody was accountable to us.
So the BOT, in the process of recognising and adopting a
pragmatic approach in the running of the university, suspended
them and  set up a panel to look into how the university was being
run. But these people ran to what we call Ambassadors of the
Kingdom  made up of those  my predecessor felt had served the
church and gave them the recognition as ‘Ambassadors of the
Kingdom’.
It was not meant to be an association; it has no place in our
constitution or organogram of the church. But somehow the
people (Ambassadors) came together and began to see
themselves as a pressure group or the political arm of the church.
The Vice Chancellor of the university  happens to be a member of
the body and he ran to them and called on them to help him out.
They came to the Executive Council (EC) to see us and we asked
them to wait,  that we will invite the BOT and explain everything to
them. They laid their complaints that the young university will
soon be closed, that they were not happy that the people were
suspended and didn’t care to know the reason for our action.
Few weeks later, they came up with a write up that they addressed
to the Presbyters (these are pastors in Assemblies of God and are
up to 2,000 in number). They didn’t address it to the EC members
which is the highest decision making body of the church. This was
where trouble started. All of us had different approach towards
resolving it.
They came up with so many allegations that didn’t have to do with
the university but other things. They alleged many things against
me. For instance, they talked about a house we bought in
Germany. The allegation associated with the Germany house
purchase are very shapeless, the story keeps increasing by the
day. They also alleged that we created the Assemblies of God
Ministers Benefit Fund.
The pastors every month make contributions to that  fund and,
each time a pastor retires, he is given what he contributed with
interest and the balance remains with the church. They also
alleged that I made a pledge to the Pentecostal Fellowship of
Nigeria without consulting the EC, that my brother-in-law was the
one hiring equipment and being given two million naira each time
we were to do a programme and helping himself from that.
The truth is not far-fetched because the purchase of the project in
Germany was started by my predecessor, the advance which was
twenty million naira was paid by the General Treasurer who was
serving under him and later on there was this election that brought
me in when he retired and we continued from there.
The church obtained a loan from GTB and it was the responsibility
of the General Treasurer and the accountants there to pay and they
paid and kept remitting the money to the company until the
transaction was completed.  I didn’t have anything to do with the
money, all I did was to go and see if it was true, the General
Secretary equally went and the Assistant General Superintendent
also went, all these things are in our minutes.
But when they were making their allegations, they didn’t do them
as if all these things are in the minutes; they talked as if I woke up
one day and carried the money to buy a property in Germany.
The allegation on the Pastors Benefit Fund started about 16 years
ago. Each pastor contributes automatically to the fund and goes
home with what he contributed on retirement with interest. But I
discovered that each month, all the ministers of Assemblies of God
contribute an average of thirty million naira but the ministers who
retire in a given month don’t take up to six million naira and there
was a Board set up to use that money and invest.
It was from there that we built our bank called AG Homes; that
continued for many years until I became the General
Superintendent. I proposed before the EC that here you have one
man managing the millions of naira that the ministers are
contributing and here you have the bank. He is the Managing
Director of the bank as well as the Chairman of the Board, that it
would be nice that we separate it so that he will continue to be the
Chairman of the Board and another person the Managing Director.
The Committee bought the idea.
I equally said that the ministers  retiring, and given what they
contributed with interest and the money remains there, they are
not coming back at any time to benefit from the investment that
their money was put into. I said the only way these people could
have a share is that since this body doesn’t give them pension and
since what the General Council pays to them as pension monthly
is too small,  we should do something to enhance their living
standard from the money.
By the time the former Board was handing over, they had already
about N2.5billion and I said it was possible  to take part of this
money to increase the pastors pension so that they don’t suffer
too much. They accepted and adopted it unanimously. I proposed
N350 million but they handed over about N1.5million and said
they had invested the rest.
We said they should give us N200million so that we start helping
the retired pastors and they sent it from AG Homes to the General
Council account. It did not go to my personal account. The
General Treasurer received it, receipted for it; but when they were
writing, they started alleging and talking as if I had direct access
to the money and using it on my own. It was credited to the
General Council account.
On the allegation about making donation to the PFN, we went to
the NAC (National Advisory Committee) meeting of the PFN, all the
church leaders were there. So there was this spontaneous fund
raised, people were pledging fifty to one hundred million, but, on
behalf the Assemblies of God, I pledged ten million naira and that
was not to say I paid it immediately.
When I came back, I brought the matter before the Executive
Council meeting and they approved that the General Treasurer
should pay. Nobody gave me cash, it was a cheque credited in the
account of the PFN. But here they said the Executive Committee
did not know about it even when they paid willingly.
Another allegation about my in-law hiring equipment; the truth of
the matter is that whenever we are doing a big programme, there
is a central committee that will meet with sub-committees.
At a time, the committee told us they now had a company owned
by one Okezie and that they supply power and sound to the
government at Okpara Square each time they had a programme
and that if we would hire them, they would do us good.
We told them to bring them and they brought them. The central
planning committee would always haggle the price with this man
depending on the nature and duration of the programme.
We would agree and immediately we agree on price the manager of
the company would go to the accounts office where he would be
given a cheque and that ends it.
Nobody gives me the money and that is the structure of the church.
The General Superintendent does not have anything to do with
money, we take the decisions and it is the responsibility of the
General Treasurer with the people working under him to take
action. Now when the Ambassadors brought their complaints and
started alleging all these things, they were not in a position to
know since they are not in the organogram of the church.
It was somebody that made them to know and they came up with
these allegations that never existed. They are alleging over N450
million.
The Executive Committee members working with me who know
when all these decisions were taken, I thought they would come to
my aid when these allegations were raised but some of them were
of the opinion that these Ambassadors will be brought and they
would be made to repeat the allegations and I would answer.
That continued until a certain time when they appealed to the
General Committee. The General Committee, judicially speaking, is
higher than the Executive Committee, the Executive Committee
makes decisions. The General Committee is called twice a year
but if a General Committee is needed, the General Superintendent
can on his own call it but if it is called without the General
Superintendent, the constitution says they will obtain 33 percent
signatories of the members of the General Committee and they will
lay it on the table of the General
Superintendent and he will invite the people for the General
Committee and he equally will determine the terms to be
discussed with members of the Executive Committee. Now they
called the General Committee without respect to this process.
They were not able to obtain it because the constitution says that
the General Committee will serve as a court of final appeal and I
told them that if the General Committee will serve as the final
appeal, it means that the Executive Committee will serve as court
of first appeal.
First of all, we have to look at it so that if the General Committee
sits, we will now tell them the extent to which we have looked at
it. But I never knew there was a political plan to be hatched that
day. They never allowed me to execute it as constitution demands
and that was on the 6th of March. I told them I wouldn’t attend
because it fell short of constitutional demands.
There were text messages here and there but, before that day, I
had called the police to say I was not comfortable with the meeting
and asked them to stop it but the police said no,  they didn’t have
the right to stop a private meeting of the church, that all I needed
to do was to obtain a court order to stop it.
I invited my lawyer to prepare a court order to the effect. It was
not to be a court order against the Assemblies of God but against
certain individuals I perceived were responsible for the General
Committee. But along the line, I called the lawyer and  said I would
want to terminate the suit, that I would be misunderstood and I
asked him to leave it.
But  on that very day of the meeting, somebody from among the
Ambassadors and the eleven Executive Committee members
standing against me was sent to go to court and look for the
abandoned suit and he brought it to the General Committee.
In that meeting, the Legal Adviser of the church was the one who
read it that the General Superintendent had taken the church to
court and should be suspended. But some others said he didn’t
take the church to court, because the Trustees are not there, the
General Council is not there and Assemblies of God is not there
but those there are individuals, but they wouldn’t  listen.
He also failed to let them know that the suit was abandoned and
the court wrote to that effect, that the suit was not in existence.
Nobody was served any summons.
What is happening is that there is a group of men in the church
whose interests became threatened and they felt I was the one
anchoring it.
But when I was making the reorganization, I didn’t deliberately do
it to step on any toe, I was doing what I felt would help the church
to go forward because to me, I didn’t feel comfortable that every
day you stand before the church to go and raise fund,  instead of
people hearing sermons, you are telling them about money
whereas we have ventures here and there that could yield money
for the church.
Without worrying people, our offering and tithe should be enough.
That was my aim. We had money. If you invest N250 million very
well, it will increase the revenue of the church. As at last year, the
pastors fund generated N2.5 billion from the time that scheme
started, all that had been paid to the pastors was only N123million
in 16 years, up to N300 million and more was spent on office.
The purpose of that scheme was not to run office or other things
but to help our pastors in retirement but many of them are
suffering and we felt free to our conscience to allow them in that
state and pay lip service to our holiness. They said Rev Chidi
Okoroafor becomes the acting General Superintendent. This is
what has been rocking Assemblies of God.
But we learnt some members of the church later went to court. Is
this true?
I didn’t go to court. Dr Nathan Udeze and another one who is a
lecturer in one of our Bible schools, Dr Ekenedilichukwu Offodile,
they didn’t like what happened, they went to court and sued and
the nature of the suit was in representative capacity, not only for
the two of them but for any other person who did not like what
happened.
We went to the court for hearing three times and the court said,
return to status quo and, by this I am still the General
Superintendent and Chidi remains the assistant and there is
nothing like acting. Yet our people have decided to ignore the
court order.
This is what is happening and on daily basis they keep writing
against me. In the Assemblies of God, the maximum punishment is
suspension; after suspending me, you say you are setting up a
panel, so when the committee must have concluded its work, what
other punishment will you give me? If you have allegations of
fraud, the police is there to look into it.
How do you feel about what is happening and at what point can
you leave it for God. What will be your advice to members?
I have already left it for God. What I am doing is simply what God
wants me to do. I have tried my best; a man does not praise
himself. I have not laid bad example – morally speaking or with
money. You cannot say that you found Paul Emeka messing up
with women or in fact that you suspect him at all.
The salary I take is enough for me; forget about what they are
writing about. Think about it, in a corporate organization, you
cannot steal money alone, you cannot go and take half a million
alone, there is a Treasurer and you cannot in the name of General
Superintendent pounce on people’s money and you begin to cart it
away. The national leadership of PFN has come and they keep
turning them here and there. They should  tell the world what is
happening.