The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, yesterday revealed how he stopped attending a branch of a church in Abuja because the pastor was always attacking President Muhammadu Buhari.
Adesina said this in an article on Thursday titled, ‘This Kumuyi is simply different’, which was written in support of a statement by the General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Pastor William Kumuyi.
Although Adesina remained taciturn about the church he stopped attending, his public profile states that he is a member of the Foursquare Gospel Church where he was ordained a pastor and has attended since 1988.
In the article, the President’s spokesman said it was unfortunate that some pastors had turned their pulpits to soapboxes upon which they spew hatred.
He wrote, “I used to attend a church in Abuja from 2015 to 2018, till the pastor began to see himself as someone who must bring the Buhari government down. Sunday after Sunday, it was all sorts of criticism from the pulpit. But I endured, since it was a branch of a church I had attended for over 30 years. Till one day, he overdid it.
“The Dapchi girls were abducted and there was no name the pastor did not call President Buhari that Sunday. It was horrendous that such things could come from the pulpit. But I suffered long and sat through the sermon, or rather, what was supposed to be a sermon. I then went home, wondering what the church of God was turning to.”
The President’s aide, however, lauded Kumuyi for saying last week that Christians should not “disdain those in power because they appear not to be delivering on electoral pledges”.
Adesina added, “Pastor Kumuyi also says if you are a true believer in Christ, you wouldn’t go on the rampage, destroying government property… But that was not what we saw in the country in October last year. The country was almost burned down under the subterfuge of EndSARS.”
