The
Celestial Church of Christ has condemned a press statement made by a group, The
Celestial Proclaimers, labeling a certain top Board of Trustees members within
the CCC fold ‘a tyrant and dictator.
The
rejoinder tagged ‘Judas At Work’ and made available to The Status and signed by SVMSE Kayode Ajala Jp, chairman, committee on publicity, the press
and publications, describes The Celestial Proclaimers’ call on members of CCC to
stand up against the said Board of Trustees as ‘alarming,’ while also declaring
that the group is “a faceless and unknown group, claiming existence within the
larger Celestial Church of Christ.”
Below
is the full text of the CCC press statement:
“Initially, it seemed more sensible to
simply ignore the defamatory epistle pushed into the media space by the so
called Celestial Proclaimers because the tone of the tirade put together by
this spin doctors dripped of nothing but malice and a desperate attempt at
defamation and character assassination. To make matters worse, the authors of
this cocktail of lies, falsehood and misinformation found it convenient to hide
behind the toga of anonymity to execute their hatchet job.
If the veil is removed from the face of
an anonymous petition writer what you will see is a COWARD in its complete six
letters. Why make such damaging allegations against any individual when you are
not courageous enough to own up and stand to be counted as the authors?
Cowardice and mischief, pure and simple!
However, falsehood if allowed to fester
without being checked definitely sounds a death knell for the truth. This
informs the sensible decision for this clarification.
The mischievous proclaimers would want
the public to believe that the church’s Board of Trustees has been reduced to a
one man show. This is not true. The B.O.T has never been more united and
rancour free than what obtains now. All active members participate in decision
making and implementation.
The B.O.T as presently constituted will
not be distracted by the shenanigans of a disgruntled few and would wish to
remain focussed on its determination to take the Celestial Church of Christ to
the next level. Never in the history of our great church have we recorded such
giant strides as we have done in recent times under the supervision of the
present Board.
The Celestial Basilica at Imeko, a
project abandoned for almost three decades, was completed within a few months.
Add this to the fact that the finances of the church have never been so
transparently managed as it is being done now, coupled with the progress made
so far towards the establishment of the Celestial University, Imeko (C.I.U.I)
and you would easily reach the conclusion that the church has never had it so
good. The B.O.T blatantly refuses to be distracted!
The allegation that the list of members
of the Pastor in Council was compiled by just one member of the B.O.T. is at
best laughable. The dissolved Pastor in Council was made up of over two hundred
members, most of whom bore the M.P.I.C title as a honourary award and were
completely non performing and ineffective as members. A collective decision was
thus taken to reduce this unwieldy number to make the Council more efficient.
Hence, a new Pastor in Council with
just 82 members was inaugurated. It would interest these detractors to note
that a large percentage of the members of the new Council are returning
members. Some of them have been members of the Pastor in Council since the days
of the late Rev Pastor Founder S.B.J. Oshoffa and the late Rev Pastor Alexander
Abiodun Bada. The new members that joined the Council are not up to 10℅ of the
total membership. They were duly appointed by the Pastor who is
constitutionally to do so. How then can anyone in his right senses allege that
a single individual compiled the membership and flooded the Council with his
cronies and acolytes?
A quick look at the list of new members
of the Pastor in Council would reveal from afar that these individuals had
given very good accounts of themselves and proven their mettle in executing
different assignments given to them by the church before they were considered
for membership of the Council. They were therefore, to say the least, admitted
into the Council purely on merit.
The rules guiding the appointment and
posting of Shepherds in the Celestial Church of Christ are clearly spelt out.
We all know that only the Pastor of the church is authorised to do this. To
insinuate that a member of the Board of Trustees has usurped the Pastor's
function in this regard can only be a confirmation that the sponsors and
promoters of the Celestial Proclaimers are suffering from selective amnesia.
Again, to suggest that the appointment and posting of Shepherds is faulty is to
speak against the actions of the Pastor of the Celestial Church of Christ
Worldwide, Rev E.M.F. Oshoffa.
We are compelled at this stage to make
it clear that this attempt to ‘pull him down’ is borne out of the inordinate
ambition of an individual, a so called Senior Prophet of the church who is
desperate and inordinately ambitious to build his own private empire within the
Celestial Church of Christ. This individual has, to our shock and
disappointment and right before our eyes, gradually evolved into a Judas in our
midst!
His grouse was that the 70th
Anniversary Celebration Committee was dissolved by the Pastor of the CCC after
it completed its assignment. It didn't matter that the committee was renamed
and asked to continue with the assignment to renovate the Mercy Land at Makoko
National Headquarters of the church. He desired that the committee continue to exist
as the 70th Anniversary Celebration Committee two years after completing its
assignment for greedy and selfish personal reasons.
It would also interest you to
know that this same individual who is labelling a B.O.T member as a 'rising
tyrant' and accusing same of filling the Pastor in Council with his cronies,
actually took a list of 13 names to the Pastor and insisted that they be made
members of the newly inaugurated Pastor in Council. Their main qualification
being that they served in the 70th Anniversary Celebration Committee. Of
course, his request was turned down by the Pastor in his capacity as the
Chairman of the Pastor in Council, hence his bitterness and determination to
fight back.
You might also find it interesting to
note that this same disgruntled element, the Senior Prophet in question, was
the 1st Vice Chairman of the Committee responsible for the construction of the
Celestial Cathedral at Imeko. A Committee under whose watch the cathedral
project remained stagnant for decades with huge funds wantonly misappropriated.
Other petty allegations raised by these
anonymous petition writers are certainly not deserving of our response. To
respond to them would amount to descending into the valley of the mundane, the
myopic and shallow minded. When you wrestle with a pig, you get dirty, the pig
gets happy.
May God bless the Celestial Church of
Christ, Amen.”
-Abiodun Ishola
