There are crises that test institutions. And there are crises that expose them. The sordid leadership debacle within the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) falls squarely into the latter category.
For months, Nigerians have watched—first with disbelief, then with weary embarrassment—as a body that claims to represent the Church of Jesus Christ descended into factional intrigue, procedural gamesmanship and open litigation. What should have been resolved in prayerful deliberation degenerated into a spectacle of rival chairmen, constitutional hair-splitting and judicial intervention. If satire had written it, it would have been rejected as excessive.
The climax came with the national leadership’s announcement abolishing the so-called Northern and Southern CAN structures, declaring them unconstitutional and warning that anyone parading as chairman of such bodies does so in violation of the association’s constitution. The notice, signed by Archbishop Daniel Okoh and Apostle Samson Fatokun, and endorsed by leaders across CAN’s five blocs—including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the Pentecostal Fellowship and the Christian Council—was presented as decisive housecleaning.
It was, in truth, an administrative bandage over a moral wound.
The immediate trigger of the crisis was the Northern CAN leadership dispute between Rev. Yakubu Pam and Rev. Joseph Hayab. One claimed tenure extension; the other claimed a fresh mandate. Allegations of expired terms and improvised elections flew. Matters soon reached the Federal High Court in Kaduna, where Justice H. Buhari delivered a ruling that should have induced collective sobriety: Northern CAN, he held, lacked legal personality. It was not a juristic entity. It could neither sue nor be sued.
One might have expected such a judicial rebuke to end the charade. Instead, both factions reportedly continued to parade themselves as chairmen of a body the court had effectively declared nonexistent in law. It is difficult to imagine a more unedifying tableau: Christian leaders contesting titles over a structure without legal standing, in open defiance of institutional coherence and common sense.
The national secretariat’s solution—to abolish the offending regional constructs altogether—may satisfy constitutional formalists. It does not address the underlying pathology. This was never primarily a crisis of structure. It was a crisis of ego.
Institutions fracture when personality eclipses principle. When office becomes possession rather than stewardship. When tenure is defended as entitlement rather than service. The spectacle within CAN bore all the hallmarks of personal rivalry thinly draped in procedural language. The constitution was cited; the courts were invoked; communiqués were issued. Yet at its core lay the ancient and unlovely struggle for control.
That such behaviour should emanate from a body purporting to represent the Church of Jesus Christ compounds the disgrace. The Church preaches humility, reconciliation and submission to order. Its leaders are admonished, in Scripture, to be shepherds rather than overlords. Instead, Nigerians witnessed litigation, factionalism and public recrimination—hardly fruits of the Spirit.
Worse still, CAN’s moral authority extends beyond ecclesiastical boundaries. It routinely pronounces on national ethics, governance, justice and social cohesion. When such a body cannot manage its own internal disagreements without recourse to factional brinkmanship, its admonitions to the political class ring hollow. A divided pulpit weakens its voice in the public square.
The abolition of Northern and Southern CAN may restore a measure of formal order. It does not restore credibility. That requires candour about the true source of the crisis: personal ambition unrestrained by institutional discipline. Until that culture is confronted—through transparent succession processes, enforceable term limits and a recommitment to servant leadership—new structures will merely incubate old rivalries.
Nigeria has no shortage of leadership crises in its political sphere. It is a national embarrassment that the country must now reckon with one in its foremost Christian umbrella body. The Church cannot demand better from Caesar while mimicking Caesar’s worst instincts.
If CAN wishes to recover its moral standing, it must do more than dissolve unconstitutional appendages. It must repent—corporately and visibly—of the pride and factionalism that produced this fiasco. For an association that claims to speak for Christ’s Church, nothing less will suffice.
powerseries@proofpoint.com.
