Adesina said he quit going to church because clergyman was always criticising Buhari

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari's spokesman Femi Adesina has revealed that he recently stopped attending a church in Abuja because the clergyman there was constantly criticising his principal and the policies of his administration.

Mr Adesina, the president's special assistant on media and publicity, is a former journalist and since being appointed as p-residential spokesman in 2015, has taken a lot of flack over his defence of unpopular government policies. He has come under a lot of criticism over the lack of security in the country and President Buhari's frequent health trips abroad, both of which Mr Adesina has defended vehemently.

Although Mr Adesina did not mention which 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. Since leaving the church, Mr Adesina now worships at Deeper Christian Life Ministry, presided over by Pastor William Kumuyi.

Mr Adesina said: ‘This Kumuyi is simply different. 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.”

He added after most of the Dapchi girls had been rescued, the pastor did not deem it fit to commend the president in a subsequent service. Mr Adesina, however, praised Pastor Kumuyi for saying last week that Christians should not disdain those in power because they appear not to be delivering on electoral pledges.

He stated that while a former vice chancellor of the Ajayi Crowther University, Professor Dapo Asaju, was within his rights to be angry over the state of the country, it must be noted that the Buhari regime was doing a lot to change the nation’s fortunes. Mr Adesina said there were some men of God who predicted that President Buhari would lose the 2019 election but it turned out to be a fake prophecy.

“Irrespective of the titles they bear, I hear bishops, apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, cursing the government and issuing doomsday notices. One even said publicly that the Buhari administration was over, before the 2019 elections but the man won handsomely and that preacher still struts and frets on the pulpit every week, not repenting in sackcloth and ashes,” Mr Adesina added.

He noted that during the #EndSARS protests of 2020, some pastors came out to support the youths who were protesting but they quickly recoiled into their shells when the protests got out of hand. According to Mr Adesina, Pastor Kumuyi does not act like that.

Mr 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.

“And sadly, they were encouraged by pastors and preachers, who simply hate the fact that a Fulani man is their president. Many of them are on record as having encouraged the protesters, till things went ugly and turned awry and then, the pastors vanished into the thin air. Not a word of caution or restraint as the cities were burning and policemen were being killed and even eaten up.”