Africa Is a Country

The shareholders of Jesus Inc.

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

The shareholders of Jesus Inc.

By
Bukola Afolayan

God is the fastest-growing business in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. It may be time we agitate for our governments to raise taxes on these corporations.

Image by neajjean, via Flickr CC.

In the midst of so much global upheavals, it is good to know one can always count on religious and financial leaders to remind us of who the “good guys” are not. A recent Russian bruhaha over whether Russian Orthodox Church leader, Patriarch Kirill I, wore a $30,000 Breguet timepiece (watch) or not is causing an internet stir. For good reasons too. This is a story of a national religious institution and its leader lying publicly repeatedly and being incompetent enough to cover their tracks. If he was a US politician, he would be resigning now.

It is sad and frustrating when an institution that claims to be a moral compass of a country often displays lavish wealth and power, dishonestly, when a majority of its congregation is suffering under economic repression. One wishes there had been the same viral passion by Nigerians when one of their wealthy mega-pastors claimed to be starting his own airline, in addition to the four private jets he already owns and allegedly barely uses.

Jesus Inc. is a thriving and good business in Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Might it be time to start forcing these corporations and their CEOs to start sharing their wealth with their congregants (did I just hear someone say “taxes”?)? It is a pity that those with the power to best do this might be major shareholders in Jesus Inc.

Further Reading

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.