The Company and Allied Matters Acts (CAMA) bill which president Buhari signed on August 7 covers companies and businesses. But it also has a clause that covers religious houses. David Oyedepo, the general overseer of the Living Faith Church, aka Winners Chapel is the first to kick against the CAMA, in churches.
During a church service, Oyedepo states that there is no law to back the removal of trustees and closure of the church’s accounts. In his words which he directs to the government, “Don’t try it.”
Nigerians are now asking the obvious questions like does the new law exclude mosques? The new law does not exclude any kind of religious body, not churches, not mosques.
Why is Oyedepo against the CAMA bill for religious bodies?
The clause which incites church regulation says: “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.”
This gives the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission power to regulate all religious bodies and ngos on stringent grounds.
Church businesses hadn’t been under government regulations. Big churches in Nigeria with overseers owning privates jets have often reportedly said that taxes are an evasion of finances. The leader of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele is now backing Oyedepo to kick against the CAMA law.
He also doesn’t see the need for the inclusion of religious bodies under the new bill as he questions the government effort in the growth of churches.
The bishop’s statement poked government officials. Lauretta Onochie the president’s media aide responded saying: “He (Oyedepo) will do as he’s told by the law”.
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