The head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, has told Nigerian pastors and imams to start asking hard questions about where large donations come from, warning that personal money should not be mixed with church money.
He gave this instruction in Abuja, at a meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council, where the EFCC also launched its Anti-Corruption Interfaith Manual.
Olukoyede said the instruction matters now because his commission has found that officials in charge of Christian and Muslim pilgrimage funds stole close to 75 per cent of the money handed to them.
He said religious leaders cannot preach honesty to worshippers while looking away from suspicious wealth inside their own places of worship.
Why this warning came now
Olukoyede said the commission’s findings on pilgrimage funds shocked even his own team. Investigators found that officials trusted with public money for pilgrimages took a large part of it for themselves, he said.
Some officials allegedly set up private companies in the countries pilgrims travelled to, which he said created a clear clash between their public duty and personal gain.
Because of this, Olukoyede said religious institutions must show good conduct before they can ask the same from their members.
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He gave a direct instruction to pastors and imams on how to run their finances.
“Whatever they give you, offerings, zakat and all of that, you keep it in that religious organisation. You are not supposed to mingle it,” he said.
What Olukoyede is asking religious leaders to do
Olukayode said pastors and imams can run their own businesses, but such businesses must stay separate from money given to their churches or mosques.
He warned that putting an organisation’s money into a personal business is a criminal act, not a small mistake.
He also asked religious leaders to look closely at unusually large donations, especially when the giver is a public official whose known income cannot explain such wealth.
He gave an example of a government worker handing over a huge gift at a place of worship, and said leaders should not accept such money without asking where it came from.
Praising a donor publicly, without checking the source of the gift, can end up defending stolen money, he said.
Olukoyede asked religious bodies to build internal systems that clearly separate personal funds from institutional funds.
He said money kept by a pastor or imam on behalf of a church or mosque belongs to the members and to the work of the faith, not to the individual holding it.
Implications
Taking up the instruction could change how offerings, zakat and donations are handled across churches and mosques in Nigeria.
Worshippers may start seeing clearer separation between what belongs to their place of worship and what belongs to their leaders personally.
Public officials who allegedly use religious donations to launder unexplained wealth may find it harder to do so if pastors and imams begin asking questions before accepting large gifts.
The pilgrimage fund findings also point to a bigger problem within agencies that manage public money on behalf of ordinary citizens hoping to travel for religious reasons. Trust in these agencies may further reduce unless changes follow the EFCC‘s findings.
What readers should know
Zakat is a Muslim religious duty of giving a portion of one’s wealth to those in need. The EFCC’s instruction does not stop religious leaders from owning businesses.
It only says such businesses must not be funded with money meant for the church or mosque. Doing so, Olukoyede said, amounts to a crime under the law, not just bad practice.
Worshippers can also play a part by asking their own religious leaders how offerings and donations are kept and used.
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