How Not To Regulate Religion
Examining Nigeria’s selective application of best practices in the regulation of charitable organizations
The president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has recently signed an amended companies’ registration and corporate affairs law. The Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) which first came into force in 1990 was overdue for an overhaul to reflect current realities. However, the changes in the law have not been well received by religious organizations, especially those of the charismatic and pentecostal Christian faith. There has been a great hue and cry from different quarters and many religious (mostly church) leaders are now calling for the law to be returned to the national assembly for an amendment.
Reason for the Uproar
Under CAMA 1990, religious organizations were required to register as charities under Part C of the Act. This has not changed under CAMA 2020. However, a new section 839 has been inserted into CAMA 2020 which gives the Corporate Affairs Commission powers (under a Court order) to suspend the trustees (usually the founders and presiding clergies) and appoint interim managers in the event of misconduct. This has been interpreted by many as another attempt to frustrate the advancement of the burgeoning Christian church groups or weaken the influence of the founders over time.
Aborted and re-conceived
The debate on if and how religion should be regulated created quite a buzz in 2016 when the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) introduced the now suspended Corporate Governance Code. The Code was an attempt to legislate the tenure and retirement age of clerics. Again, the main targets were long-serving founders and leaders of large Christian groups. The leader of a leading Pentecostal Christian group quickly relinquished his role in compliance with the Code. The public outcry that followed forced the government to suspend the Code.
In 2016, the argument was that the super-rich religious behemoths should be brought under control. A more modest proposition suggested that it is appropriate to regulate religious bodies to align with global best practices. Section 839 of CAMA 2020 is a testament to the fact that both arguments are alive and well in the minds of the proponents.
Selective adoption of best practices
Most Nigerian middle-class — the so-called professionals are in support of the contentious provisions because it sounds like a best practice. The first hole in this plot is that Nigeria as a country has not met best practices in governance, democratic ideals, employment, living standards, infrastructure, health care, social welfare, and many more. Government agencies and departments hardly publish their accounts. Corruption is the engine that powers public institutions resulting in gross inefficiencies and waste.
Government officials cannot even allow themselves to be admitted to a public health facility even on their death beds. Their children are being churned out in numbers from foreign universities every summer while three out of every four Nigerian children will not get a place in colleges and universities due to capacity constraints. Unfortunately, foreign education is out of reach for most of the people in a country where the minimum wage stands at $78 per month.
Faith in God is probably the reason suicide rates and mental health issues remain extremely low in Nigeria. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), over 40% percent of the population (80 million people or more) live below the poverty line on less than $1 per day. Unemployment and under-employment combine forces to hit over 55% of the population. Effectively, one in every two Nigerian is unemployed or under-employed going by the NBS data. Clearly, it takes a lot of mental and indeed spiritual strength to stay sane in these circumstances. We would examine the role of religious bodies later.
Charities (including churches) are “regulated” in the western world because these cultures actively promote giving to charity. In this situation, the government is under an obligation to ensure funds are used for the purpose for which they were donated. As a matter of fact, churches and other charities are not just regulated, they are supported by the government through the Charities Laws and related taxation rules.
In Ireland for instance, an approved charity is entitled to tax relief on donations received. An approved charity can claim a tax refund of up to 31% of a minimum of €250 and a maximum of €1,000,000 in any one year. A €10,000 donation easily becomes €13,100 in the hands of the charity. In the UK, a charity can claim Gift Aid on a £10,000 (as an example) donation to make it £12,500. These laws also offer payroll giving schemes to provide tax-deductible donations to charities as a benefit to donors.
Section 839 of CAMA 2020 has only offered a partial alignment with the so-called best practices. The interpretation of regulation of charities as so spelled out in CAMA 2020 appears to be limited to seeking powers to control the entities involved. If Nigeria cannot copy the entire suite of best practices on the regulation of charities and related tax implications, an amendment that will consider the unique socio-cultural context would be most appropriate.
A Peculiar history of religion and church growth
It defies logic how a public sector that is so mismanaged and corrupt will seek to interfere in the running of religious organizations that have largely grown organically from nothing. There were no indigenous mega (rich) churches in Nigeria 30 years ago. As a matter of fact, a popular idiomatic way to describe someone who is extremely poor in Nigeria used to be “as poor as a church rat”.
But that has since changed with the emergence of the current generation of home-grown churches. The proverbial “church rat” does not appear to be poor anymore, or might have left the churchyard.
Most of the largest Christian congregations in the world are now in Nigeria. As a result, Nigeria is now exporting Christianity to the world. Most of the large Nigerian Christian groups have branches all over the world.
The wealth reportedly accumulated by these religious institutions and the size of their financial empires are mind-boggling. However, there is no evidence that these institutions have directly participated in the looting of the public treasuries that is still ongoing in Nigeria and many African nations. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that these religious bodies run more efficient and productive systems than the public sector.
The leaders of these organizations have supervised the personal development of a generation of successful Nigerians. There would always be one out of ten going back to their religious base to give back and consistently so. In a country of 200 million people, this can only point to the prospect of an increasingly financially independent religious organizations.
The stories of the growth of some of these religious organizations have not been sufficiently told for the world to see the genius of leadership, top-notch management, and financial discipline they have deployed to build these entities that the corrupt public sector is aiming to annex. The impact of the church in building character, clarifying life visions, and mentoring people for success is also grossly under-reported. But the reality is that over the last few decades, the church in Nigeria has become everything that the government is not to the people.
Copying foreign laws out of context
Then there is the issue of copying foreign laws out of context. This is a case of shamelessly copying foreign laws without considering the antecedents and clearly without recognizing cultural peculiarities. You cannot copy English laws out of context in 2020. Charities regulations have their roots in medieval England when the Church was in bed with the State.
That is why religion was baked as charities into the laws of the land for the “advancement of religion”. This is how the church was structured to serve as a tool of colonialism — accept donations from wealthy estates and the public, “advance religion”, and help the crown conquer far lands.
Many Africans can relate to this because the history and legacy of colonialism aided by the so-called charities are still evident.
Therefore, the recent fixation of the Nigerian State with the administration of religion is concerning. The interest in religious affairs is antithetical for a country that is supposedly a secular State and at the same time polarized by religion. You would have expected a country that has been ravished by religious conflicts to be more tactful in copying a foreign law that would impact those delicate fault lines.
Examining what is being regulated
Regulation of charities impinges on public trust and confidence through an accountability regime. But clearly, the issue of financial probity is of no consequence for most religious folks in Nigeria. Nigerians give for religious purposes as a spiritual transaction based on deeply connected trust relationships. As a result, such public accountability and external regulatory oversight being proposed serve no public interest.
The law cannot serve an interest that does not exist. A lot of the way and manner that people give monies in the name of religion (especially in Christianity) doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t have to. Religious leaders and the organizations they promote are deemed to be in spiritual custodianship. They are governed by the creeds to which both the clergy and the laity hold sacred and clergies are answerable to God.
This is the fundamental balance on which religious relationships are built. The only way to dismantle this balance is if the government intends to dissuade the people from actively investing in their faith. This would be problematic on many levels, just to say the least.
Time for a second look at the regulation of charities?
The role of the church (and probably religion generally) in the life of the people becomes even more prominent as the economy slumps further first from low oil prices and then Covid-19. The State must focus its dwindling resources on more strategic matters like public sector corruption, poor infrastructure, job creation, and attracting foreign investors. Nigeria has a young and educated population currently wasting away, or at best, leaving the country in droves to Canada, Australia, and elsewhere.
The Corporate Affairs Commission should partner with the Executive to work on attracting and retaining foreign investments — the type that can bring thousands of jobs and help reduce the shameful levels of unemployment.
It would make sense to begin to find other more decent ways to build accountability into religious structures. This can be achieved through internal governance, peer reviews, or annual financial reports. Considering the influence of these religious bodies, the approach for the future state of governance of religion should develop through collaboration with the stakeholders.
Religion is no longer a tool of the State as it was in medieval England. We cannot speak of religious organizations in the same breath as NGOs. This is inherently contradictory. The government should consider regulating NGOs separately and allowing religious bodies to continue to play their spiritual intermediation roles without any potential threat of interference.
However, it is worthy to note that this is different from how financial regulators set up rules to mitigate the financing of terrorism through radical religious groups. This is the responsibility of the Central Bank and the national financial intelligence unit and not the Corporate Affairs Commission.
Conclusion
Regulating religion in Africa is like putting the cart before the horse. Religion is not the problem — it is the symptom of an underlying socio-economic deprivation, failed leadership, and gross under-development.
Most people tend to become less dependent on spiritual interventions as their fortunes change for the better. The government can counter over-reliance on religion and curtail the influence of religious leaders by giving the people the life they deserve — infrastructure, healthcare, housing, social welfare, job creation, and all the good things people take for granted elsewhere.
Until then, it might be immoral to have a law that makes direct or indirect provisions for the same government to impose itself for any reason on the religious affairs of the people.
Even then, we must question if the supervision of religion by the government (administratively or financially) as is being proposed by the Nigerian State has outlived its era and the underlying objectives.
