Nigeria has turned the pulpit into one of the most powerful economic institutions in the country, and almost nobody wants to ask what happens when faith starts making serious money.
It is easy to ask that question badly. It can become an attack on religion, an insult to worshippers or a cheap attempt to reduce belief to money. That is not the question worth asking. The harder question is what happens when institutions established in the name of God accumulate enormous economic power, operate schools and hospitals, own media platforms and publishing houses, develop vast properties, employ thousands of people, collect money from millions of followers and build commercial enterprises around a religious brand that commands extraordinary loyalty.
At what point does an institution that controls serious economic resources cease to be merely a place of worship and become an economic institution that should be expected to explain how that power is exercised?
Nigeria rarely asks.
We have become remarkably comfortable with the idea that anything wrapped in religious language should be approached with reverence before scrutiny. A church can become a university. A church can build a hospital. A church can establish a publishing company, a television station, a housing project, a conference centre or other businesses. None of these things is inherently wrong. Many religious institutions have filled gaps left by the Nigerian state, particularly in education, healthcare and social welfare.
The problem begins when the sanctity of the institution becomes an excuse for the opacity of the enterprise.
That distinction matters.
Worship is not commerce. Charity is not commerce. But neither does the word “religious” magically transform every economic activity associated with a religious institution into a sacred transaction beyond ordinary questions of accountability.
Nigeria’s tax system recognises distinctions between activities and entities. The country’s new tax framework, which took effect in 2026, is part of a broader effort to bring economic activity into a more coherent revenue system. The argument, therefore, is not that the state should walk into a church and tax worship.
The argument is that religious identity should not become a permanent hiding place for commercial activity.
That is where Nigeria’s conversation becomes difficult, because religion is not merely a spiritual force in this country. It is an economic force.
Millions of Nigerians give tithes and offerings. They make donations. They pay for conferences, programmes, books, accommodation, education and other services connected to religious institutions. Some do so willingly and joyfully. Others give because they believe sacrifice is spiritually necessary. Still others give because the social pressure inside religious communities can be immense.
There is nothing inherently wrong with generosity.
But when millions of small contributions become a vast institutional pool of resources, the economic question does not disappear simply because the money was given in a place of worship.
The poor can finance prosperity they cannot afford to consume.
A woman struggling to feed her children can still believe that giving to God is an act of faith. A trader borrowing money at punishing interest can still drop something into the offering basket. A civil servant facing rising food and transport costs can still contribute to a church project.
The individual sacrifice may be small.
The aggregate is not.
Money does not become economically irrelevant because it passed through an offering envelope. Capital does not cease to be capital because it was raised in the name of God. Assets do not become invisible because they are attached to a religious mission.
And yet, in Nigeria, religious wealth often exists inside an atmosphere in which questioning the institution can be interpreted as questioning God.
That is an extraordinarily powerful shield.
The ordinary questions of accountability.How much came in? Where did it go? What assets does the institution own? What commercial activities does it operate? Who controls them? What is reinvested? What is distributed? What is taxed? What is exempt,can suddenly sound offensive when directed at a religious organisation.
But a balance sheet does not become holy because it sits inside a church office.
Accountability is not persecution.
Transparency is not unbelief.
And asking what happens to money is not the same thing as asking whether God exists.
There is another uncomfortable dimension. Religion can provide something money alone cannot buy: legitimacy.
A politician can be condemned in the morning and welcomed at the altar in the evening. A businessman can face serious questions about his conduct and still appear beside a pulpit as an honoured guest. A public official can cultivate an image of piety that softens public suspicion.
This does not mean every politician who attends church is corrupt, or every church that welcomes a politician is complicit in corruption.
It means religious legitimacy is a powerful social currency.
And powerful currencies can be abused.
The state itself helps create the conditions. When government cannot provide adequate schools, hospitals, welfare and social protection, religious institutions step into the vacuum. They build schools. They establish hospitals. They provide scholarships. They feed people. They offer community and belonging.
Then society praises them for doing what the state failed to do.
But something else happens.
The institution grows.
Its membership grows. Its assets grow. Its influence grows. Its economic ecosystem grows.
The state fails, the pulpit expands, and society applauds the pulpit for compensating for the state’s failure.
Soon, the institution is no longer merely responding to the weakness of the state. It has become a parallel centre of social and economic power.
And power, wherever it lives, must eventually answer to scrutiny.
This is why the debate should not be about taxing Christianity, taxing Islam or taxing faith. That framing is intellectually lazy. The real debate is whether Nigeria can build a system that distinguishes genuine religious and charitable activity from commercial activity, without using religion as either a weapon or a sanctuary.
If a church runs genuine charitable work, let the law recognise it.
If it provides public-benefit services, let that contribution be acknowledged.
If worshippers give freely to support religious activity, that should not automatically be treated as ordinary commercial revenue.
But if an institution operates commercial enterprises, owns substantial income-generating assets or conducts business beyond its core religious or charitable purposes, that activity should be capable of examination under the same principles of transparency and accountability expected elsewhere.
Religious freedom does not require financial invisibility.
The deeper issue is not taxation.
It is power.
Who has it? Who controls it? Who benefits from it? Who audits it? Who can question it?
Nigeria has spent decades debating the corruption of politicians, the greed of businessmen and the failures of government. We should have the courage to examine every concentration of power with the same intellectual seriousness including religious power.
Because the most dangerous monopoly is not always the one protected by law.
Sometimes it is protected by reverence.
And once wealth becomes wrapped in theology, scrutiny begins to look like blasphemy.
Faith should remain faith. Charity should remain charity. Worship should remain worship.
But when the business of God becomes big business, the questions of ordinary economics do not disappear.
They become more important.
The faithful deserve institutions that can account for the sacrifices made in their name. The public deserves to know when religious privilege ends and commercial activity begins. Religious institutions themselves should demand nothing less.
The church does not become less holy because someone asks to see the books.
It becomes more credible.
Nigeria does not need to tax belief.
It needs to stop confusing belief with immunity.
And perhaps that is the question we have been avoiding all along: if we are willing to scrutinise every other institution that controls money, why should the ones that speak most confidently about morality be the ones we are most afraid to question?
The answer cannot simply be: because God is involved.
God may be.
But the money is still ours.
Stephanie Shaakaa shaakaastephanie02@gmail.com
08034861434
