National Vice President, South-South, of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, Bishop Simeon Okah, has advised the Federal Government to have a rethink on the controversial clause in new Companies and Allied Matters Act, CAMA, in the interest of peace and security in the nation.
Speaking to journalists after a church service in Warri, the Bishop of Flock of Christ Mission said the uproar that greeted the signing of the law should alert President Muhammadu Buhari that he has stoked another wildfire that is capable of ravaging the entire nation.
Dr Okah said those who smuggled the controversial subsection 838, 1 & 2 are enemies of the nation and they know the repercussions because the Church will not sit back and watch anyone violate its rights.
Bishop Okah explained that as a widely travelled preacher, he understands the regulations in place in Western nations like the US and Britain, stating that it is basically to protect government Investment in the churches, since as NGOs, they receive grants from the government and the pastors have to account for the funds.
But in Nigeria, according to the PFN South-South leader, government has no investment whatsoever in churches and so has no moral right to regulate what it has no inputs in.
He said the church has kept the law by paying taxes and subjecting to all regulations any of its businesses like schools and hospitals which are profit-oriented.
Bishop Okah reasoned that it is not in the place of Government to attempt to remove trustees and foist a leadership on a religious organisation as that would amount to a denial of religious freedom which is against the spirit of the Nigerian Constitution.
The PFN South-South leader, who called on the National Assembly to immediately revoke that section of the law to save Nigeria from a looming religious crisis, urged all well-meaning Nigerians, Muslims and Christians alike, to speak out and condemn the controversial law.