FRIDAY, December 13 saw traffic around parts of Ikoyi, the racecourse and all the main bridges linking Lagos Island and the mainland completely closed for about two hours, because our President Jonathan was on his way to attend the Holy Ghost Congress organized by the Redeemed Christian Church of God headed by Pastor Adeboye at the Redemption Camp.
This type of disruption of traffic is reminiscent of the period when Lagos was still the federal capital and residence of Presidents and Head of states, before the movement to Abuja, during civilian regimes.
Notorious traffic at the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, when the Redeemed Christian Church of God is holding their camp meeting is well known and deserves no comments.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God is one of the biggest Pentecostal Churches in the country with membership running into thousands, if not millions. It is therefore expedient for the president to fall into the temptation of choosing the venue both to worship and doing political business, by killing two birds with one stone. After all, this is not new. Pastor Adeboye welcomed President Obasanjo with the same fun-fare and prayer sessions.
Both Pastor Adeboye and President Jonathan have a lot to gain. While Pastor Adeboye may be guaranteed adequate funds through offerings for the church, the president, on the other hand, will have political membership support especially as it is rumoured that the president is in the running come 2015. This political manoeuvering does not deserve a comment.
People witnessed on television the president kneeling and Pastor Adeboye praying for his success in the business of governances after which the President delivered his prepared political speech, promising to solve the nation’s problems.
Pastor Adeboye in his usual style gave a motivational sermon bordering on a miraculous story about a journey he was involved in. The story I am told had been narrated a number of times previously.
Pastor Adeboye was coming from Onitsha during the petrol crises when he realized he needed to buy petrol, but there was no petrol in Onitsha. He decided he would try Asaba, but found out also, there was no petrol in Asaba. Continuing his journey, he hoped to buy petrol on reaching Benin, but to his amazement also found out there was no petrol station open for business in Benin, Pastor Adeboye undaunted finally thought he would find petrol to buy at Ore.
By the time he reached Ore, the next stop, his petrol warning light came on, indicating that he was then on reserve supply. At this point, Pastor Adeboye said God told him not to look at the petrol gauge, but to continue his journey. Following God’s instruction, Pastor Adeboye continued his journey from Ore, without looking at the fuel gauge, until he got to his residence in Surulere in Lagos.
This is a very moving account of the supernatural, and the very intervention of God himself in making what seems impossible, possible.
In other words, this is a miracle, a wonderful and an amazing thing, an event in the natural world but out of its established order, possible only by the intervention of divine power.
Pastor Adeboye’s narrative of his ability to drive a car with only reserve petrol left from Ore to his residence in Surulere – falls very neatly under this miraculous experience. In other words, God supplied him miraculous quantity of petrol to achieve this.
However, let us subject this claim to analysis and scrutiny.
God created a horse or camel for motion and God can make a horse or camel run independently for 1,000 miles without stopping, or tiring just by His word, as all things are possible with God. One could say the same for a car as well. But there is a difference.
A car is designed by man and designed for propulsion to run on an energy source such as petrol or gas by a system of carburettors or fuel injection. It is designed by man, after taking into consideration all external God or Natural Laws governing the earth gravity, velocity or motion, etc.
Pastor Adeboye said God told him not to look at the petrol gauge when the gauge warning light came on, before leaving Ore, driving to Surulere in Lagos. He decided not to tell us the full story: he should disclose the following facts that will convince everyone there was a miracle.
·What was the make and model of the car he was driving?
·What distance did he cover between Ore and his residence in Surulere, Lagos?
·What is the capacity of his car’s reserve tank by the time the warning light comes on – how many litres are in the tank?
·How many kilometres per litre does Pastor Adeboye car do?
Apart from the distance covered, all these questions or information could be supplied by the car manufacturers if the type of car is known.
It is well known also that there are cars that have two reserve tanks and these tanks have varying capacities. There are other factors that occur in the running of a car that could alter its function. The fuel gauge warning indicator may be faulty or can come on prematurely giving the impression that a driver is on reserve petrol.
Pastor Adeboye is alleged to own a private jet designed by man as described previously to operate a system of propulsion and flight by the use of aviation fuel. It could be assumed or inferred that while flying the private jet, there was insufficient aviation fuel, and the judge ignored because with God all things are possible; Pastor Adeboye could not avoid a crash.
Unlike a car, the measuring instruments of an aircraft are better calibrated and more precise. From the above information to determine whether a miracle occurred between Ore and Pastor Adeboye’s house in Surulere, a decerning mind will conclude. There was no miracle, as the car in question must have just confirmed with the specification, it was designed to do.
I understand Pastor Adeboye was a mathematics professor before he was called to do God’s work. He must have had some knowledge in scientific data, and this could have influenced his narrative of miraculous petrol, a story he had repeated a few times. But our society is backward and most Pentecostal Church preachers take advantage of this ignorance.
It was amazing to me that a few people I would consider knowledgeable and enlightened could not see the flaws in the miraculous content of Pastor Adeboye’s story. This exposes our knowledge of what a miracle really is. This writer is a very strong believer in miracles, and miracles happen all the time but Pastor Adeboye’s claim could not stand the scrutiny of believers in the Western World. It would be classified as a spurious claim.