African Ecclesiastical Perspective of Religion and Poverty In The Nigerian Context

Abstract

Christianity is one of the major religions recognized in Africa. It is one of the means by which poverty is finetuned to enhance human suffering at the expense of the gospel preached by the religious leaders in Africa generally and Nigeria specifically. The expectation of adherents of this religion is to be the agents of light and peace in the midst of darkness, but the reverse is the case. It is discovered that out of seven continents in the globe, Africa has the most hardworking people in the entire universe, while Nigeria Christians are the most prayerful nation. They work like an elephant and eat like a mouse. Ethnic violence and corruption are some of the causes of poverty in Nigeria. The focus of the paper is to expose how some Nigerian clergies used Christianity to increase human suffering. The panacea from these menaces is also discussed. Qualitative method through a historical approach was used to achieve this purpose. The paper concluded and recommended that Christianity has its “moral values” as part of human ethics. Some of these could be tapped and integrated with the laws of the country in order to reduce poverty to the barest minimum in Nigeria.