President Buhari’s aide, Lauretta Onochie, has slammed Winners Chapel founder, Bishop Oyedepo, over his reaction to the new bill signed into law last week.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed CAMA into law on August 7, 2020.
Under the law, religious bodies and charity organisations will be strictly regulated by the registrar-general of Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and a supervising minister.
CAMA provides that the commission may by order, suspend the trustees of an association or a religious body and appoint an interim manager or managers to coordinate its affairs where it reasonably believes that there has been any misconduct or mismanagement, or where the affairs of the association are being run fraudulently or where it is necessary or desirable for the purpose of public interest.
While addressing members of his congregation on Sunday, Oyedepo said such laws were borne of out the government’s jealousy about the prosperity recorded by the church.
“The church works on the pattern delivered by God not the pattern of man. Government has no power to appoint people over churches. This is a secular nation. The church is the greatest asset of God in this country. Please be warned. Judgment is coming. The Lord says I have been still but now I will arise. Anybody that is in this deal is taking poison. This will never work. I am waiting for a day when anybody will appoint a trustee over this church… You can’t gag anybody. We own this country together.
“It is only in Africa that people who are over 80 years still run around to become president. I know that it is the prosperity of the church that is making them jealous. But I am going to live to see an army of many winners soar greater. In this church shall emerge one of the largest concentration of giants on earth.”
Reacting to this outburst, Lauretta Onochie took to Twitter where she said:
I hope this is not true. If it is, Oyedepo will have to manufacture his own country and live by his own laws. As long as he lives and operates within the entity called Nigeria, he will live by Nigerian rules and laws. He will do as he’s told by the lawFace with rolling eyes Enough of lawlessness
See her post below:
I hope this is not true.
If it is, Oyedepo will have to manufacture his own country and live by his own laws.As long as he lives and operates within the entity called Nigeria, he will live by Nigerian rules and laws. He will do as he’s told by the law🙄
Enough of lawlessness pic.twitter.com/A0lMPe7Cku
— Lauretta Onochie (@Laurestar) August 17, 2020