No, Pastor Paul Adefarasin, Nigeria is not dead. She is very much alive and thriving!
Please fact-check me: As open and libertarian a society as America is, there are limits on freedom of speech, such that pastors, priests, and other religious clerics cannot legally endorse, attack, or ask their congregations to support or donate money to a candidate while they are in church and acting as ministers of God. If they do, they will lose their (501(c)(3)) status and face other punitive measures.
The same is true in the United Kingdom.
So, why would Nigerian clerics think they can stand on their altars and pulpits and begin attacking or endorsing specific candidates, undermining the government of the day, or say things like “Nigeria is dead”, while others call for revolutions?
There is nothing wrong if you, as a pastor or imam, join a political party and attack the government or opposition at a political event or whilst campaigning. After all, ordained Catholic and Methodist Reverend Fathers have emerged as Governors in Nigeria not once, or twice.
But to stand on your pulpit and altar and use that legally protected religious platform to make unguarded, politically motivated statements that are injurious to the peace and well-being of a multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious, and multiracial nation like Nigeria is not just ungodly, it should be illegal, and the Federal Government should severely deal with persons who breach that ethical standard in their homiletics as an example to others who would want to abuse the privileges conferred on them as clerics.
First, their tax-exempt status should be revoked, and then other punitive measures should be implemented.
How can you say ‘Nigeria is dead’ and then you are living a multimillionaire lifestyle funded by Nigerians and your tax-exempt status? By the time you start paying taxes, such unpatriotic and fallacious statements will no longer be emanating from your mouth!
A church should be a place of refuge where you preach the word of God and lead people to what you consider the way to salvation.
It is not a place where you go and destroy people’s faith in their country.
In case Pastor Paul Adefarasin is not aware, the reason Nigeria became bankrupt and was almost a beggar nation in the early eighties, when his father’s ₦18,000 salary was so high, was that the Nigerian naira was strictly pegged to the US dollar under President Shehu Shagari’s administration.
What that meant was that the Naira was tied to the value of the US Dollar, not to the productivity of the Nigerian economy, meaning that Nigeria had to cover the gap between the real value of the Naira, which was then abysmally low, and its pegged value, by frittering away our foreign reserves and taking on loans.
That is why the Shagari Administration was forced to introduce major national austerity measures on Wednesday, April 21, 1982, or the Nigerian economy would have collapsed!
To put things in proper perspective, since President Bola Tinubu introduced the Naira’s flotation, which is the same economic policy driving the US Dollar, Nigeria’s GDP has consistently grown at an average of 4% per annum.
By contrast, when Paul Adefarasin’s father was Chief Judge of Lagos, and, according to him, was earning ₦18,000, Nigeria experienced economic recession, and our GDP did not grow; instead, it shrank.
In 1981, our GDP growth rate was -20.8%. In 1982, it was -10.3%. In 1983, it was -5.0%.
And why were we having negative growth rates under President Shagari, when Justice Joseph Adetunji Adefarasin was Chief Judge of Lagos?
It was because Nigeria was using the money we should have used to fund our economic growth to defend the Naira, which was pegged to the US Dollar. Never again will we be ruled by such economic profligacy and illiteracy!
Pegging a currency to the US dollar demands massive foreign reserves, and when you deplete your foreign reserves, you will have to borrow!
That is why the Shagari government, out of desperation, was forced to expel Ghanaians in January 1983, because by pegging our Naira to the Dollar, we were not only subsidising the Naira but also subsidising the Ghanaian economy, because Ghanaians were repatriating Dollars from Nigeria to Ghana at the expense of our foreign reserves!
In contrast, since President Bola Tinubu floated the Naira, Nigeria has experienced an UNPRECEDENTED 12 cycles of GDP growth and trade surpluses.
Nigeria’s GDP growth rate for the full year 2024 was 3.38%. It was 3.87% in 2025. In 2026, the IMF projects that our GDP will grow above 4%.
And yet someone is saying our country is dead, then nostalgically painting the early eighties as a utopian period of economic bliss?
We are not all suffering from amnesia!
This is an area in which I am an authority, as I have a Master’s in Law from England and completed my dissertation on International Banking and Finance Law before working in the British Parliament.
If Pastor Paul Adefarasin wants my dissertation, I can send it to him.
Nigeria under Shagari was a dumping ground for imports from all over the world. We were importing toothpicks and pizzas, and had a negative trade balance.
Today, under President Tinubu, the IMF listed Nigeria as the sixth-largest contributor to global GDP growth in 2025, a fact celebrated by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
We now have a positive trade balance and have added $67 billion to the economy, having moved from a GDP of ₦269.29 trillion on May 29, 2023, when Asiwaju became President, to ₦372.8 trillion today.
How many Nigerian Pentecostal pastors had private jets, private runways, Rolls-Royces and private universities in the eighties? Today, is that not their lifestyle? If Nigeria were dead, would Adefarasin be driving around Lagos in various high-end luxury vehicles and getting into road rage incidents with fellow motorists and pedestrians, which necessitated police intervention?
In conclusion, I urge Pastor Paul Adefarasin to stick to facts about the economy. If he cannot do so, he should limit himself to his prosperity gospel messages and refrain from misinforming Nigerians!
Reno Omokri
Ambassador Designate to Mexico. Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year, 2022. 21st Most Talked About Person in Africa, 2024.
99.9% of the commentaries in the comment section are in support of Reno. This will surely get to the attention of Paul Adefarasin.
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