Today is the 39th birthday of the biggest charlatan in the land, Bishop Daniel Obinim. The enigmatic, controversial preacher turns 39.
Obinim commands the International Godsway Church, a church with several branches nationwide and tens of thousands of members. He has garnered massive wealth from the operations of his church, and revels in bragging about how much wealth he has. You know, just as Jesus used to do.
The approach people in Ghana take to religion is all kinds of wrong, and noone epitomises it more than Daniel Obinim. With a mixture of religion’s encouragement of ‘touch not my anointed’ and Ghanaian’s natural inclination to not use their brains – an obvious fraud like this man has flourished to an undecipherable level.
Case in point the recent flogging of a pregnant church member in church, ostensibly for engaging in pre marital s*x and attempting an abortion. Obinim, in the midst of a church service, claimed he received instruction from the holy spirit at that point about the indiscretion of the two. So instead of behaving like a sensible adult and waiting for a more appropriate time to act on this ‘new’ information, he lost his cool in the church building and flogged both – up to instructing his cronies to manhandle the lady who was trying to escape the severe beatings.
Yet when he was called in by police, the entire congregation massed behind him like he was being persecuted. One massive flaw of Ghanaians is that we like playing in teams, and thus members of our own team can do no wrong. It’s ever present in our politics, and rears its head to insane levels when religion is concerned.
Amongst any population with a shred of collective common sense, Obinim would be bleeding members by now, as his last action would have been one controversy too many. This man is an obvious liar, having first admitted to f*cking his junior pastor’s wife, but recently recanting, a schizophrenic who believes he can enter people’s dreams, a megalomaniac, an uncouth excuse for a human being who insults others before his congregation. Afia Schwarzenegger has no qualms herself in insulting others and being a pathetic excuse for a human being at times, but she doesn’t do it from the pulpit.
Yet despite all these, his wife and especially his congregation stay firmly behind him, despite ample proof provided by Obinim himself that he’s no pastor. He usually claims Jesus is a close pal, but he displays none of the humility and discernment that the gospel writers bestowed upon the character of Jesus. I remember Jesus exalting the meek and talking down to rich men – the exact opposite of Daniel Obinim, whose hubris and penchant for ostentation is unrivalled.
But his rise is unremarkable, because religion creates sheep whose minds are just waiting to be filled by the next person who’s smart enough to take advantage. The concept of faith, which exults believing without evidence, ensures a ready made supply of gullible souls. The harder you look and the less you find, the more you are encouraged to believe.
Obinim epitomises the lack of critical thinking, emotionally driven and gullible minds we are breeding in this country. His actions are unchallenged by his congregation, no matter how outlandish, and his critics are dismissed out of hand without any consideration of their arguments. Obinim claims to be an angel, claims to turn into snakes and bite people to death, claims to enter banks to steal money – and in the eyes of his flock that’s entirely all right. If that’s not Yahweh level brainwashing, I don’t know what is.