Late Fela Anikulapo was a Nigerian musician, Pan African activist, and an African moral philosopher tutored by Kwame Nkrumah, the father of African Philosophical Consciencism. Olaniyan Tejumola, a Professor of English, African languages, and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, documented Fela’s album that rightly described his philosophy on ‘Religion and Capitalism’. In his classic song titled: ‘Shuffering and Shmilling’, Fela spoke about Christian and Muslim leaders as ‘profiteering men of God’. Fela’s voice hit the highest pitch against the capitalists’ religious leaders. In separate titles ‘Who are you’ and ‘Na fight O’, Fela described them as ‘aiders of capitalism’ because of their capitalistic ideology in religious dispositions and practices (Olaniyan 2009:88–89). In Fela’s opinion, both religions are instruments of securing undeserved advantages with titles like Reverends, Alhajis or Alhajas.⁴ Thus, both religions become tools of economic competition and accumulation in desacralising dependent capitalism. Concomitantly, to obtain an undeserved economic advantage, the two religions are founded on ‘submissive theologies’. In other words, they manipulate followers to submit to economic exploitation. As Olaniyan (2009) described it:

Invariably, Fela’s ideology on the negative role of submissive theology agrees with the contemporary Marxists’ thoughts that religion as an opiate can aid the collaboration of religious leaders with the corrupt political actors to perpetuate corruption and thereby inflict poverty on the African populace.

Furthermore, Fela’s description of African religious leaders as ‘profiteering businessmen of God’ in the same album agrees with the possibility of religious opportunism. According to Olaniyan (2009:91–93), the song was rendered to expose crooked and hypocritical religious leaders. Also, a portion of the rendition unapologetically took a swipe at masses who run to religious charlatans and illusionists. The lyrics which began with the popular chorus ‘suffer, suffer for world’ sent a strong message to the masses that they contributed to their sufferings in this world by voluntarily becoming dependent on religion and its exploitative consequences (Olaniyan 2009:91–93). Correspondingly, Fela accused religious leaders of corruption and money laundering while their followers remain in abject penury. Thus, the summary of Fela’s socio-moral message raises a sharp moral critique of the use of religion to exploit the masses (Olaniyan 2009:96–98).

Nkrumah’s position on theology can be traced to his religious foundation. His autobiography revealed that he admittedly called himself a ‘non-denominational Christian and a Marxist socialist’ as he found no contradiction in the duo (Nkrumah 1970:10). Nkrumah did not deny the existence of spirituality; however, he looked at the origins of things vis-à-vis self-sufficiency and emancipation from white capitalistic activities. He believed that the indigenous bourgeoisie, which included religious leaders, used the outside world or spirit world concept to propagate the exploitation of the masses (Nkrumah 1970:10). One must then ask the question: How did the exploiters use the philosophy of origins to their advantage? Nkrumah upheld that when the process of conversion of the ‘inside-outside world’ is twisted or adjusted, a contradiction between interests inside and outside the world is stared (Nkrumah 1970:10). Thus, the exploiters project their interests by encouraging followers to focus on the outside world and ignore what goes on inside the world. They are expected, as seen in Christianity, to lay up treasures in heaven (outside world), implying that their poverty and exploited state inside the world is irrelevant. In Nkrumah’s (1970:12) words, ‘when the gaze is fixed upon things in the outside world, the requirements of earthly life which condition the existence of human beings suffer neglect’. By implication, the social life and expectation of basic social necessities inside the world do not count. This is strategic to the assimilation of oppression and exploitation. Additionally, Nkrumah suggested that this ideology triggered Marxist criticism of religion as an instrument of exploitation because religion was used to divert workers’ attention from the value which they had created by their labour to outside world concerns (Nkrumah 1970:12).

Consequently, this twisted transcendentalism shows how the Afro-religious capitalists and foreign colonialists used cosmic contrast ideology as a device to exploit Africans by diverting their attention from social needs, while they hold onto everything material including mineral resources in the earth realm. It is on this note that Nkrumah called religion an instrument of bourgeois social reaction because its social use is not only by the imperialists and colonialists; politicians and religious leaders use it for unethical gains. Thus, Nkrumah called for a consistent emphasis on the African states as secular rather than religious; otherwise, economic exploitation will continuously ravage Africa (Nkrumah 1970:13). Invariably, Nkrumah implies that to declare war against religious exploitation, there is a need to establish a society that caters for the basic needs of the people.

The general interpretation of religion as the opium of the people seems to suggest that Marx calls religion evil rather than the use of religion. According to Boundless (2020:920), Marx’s original idea lies in the function or applicability of religion. From a sociological perspective, the structural and functional approach to religion has its root in Emile Durkheim’s thoughts. Durkheim (1897) proposed that religion which is about the celebration and worship of human society has three major functions in society which are social cohesion, social control, and provision of answers to existential questions (cf. Thorlindsson & Bernburg 2004:271–285). However, in Boundless report the main criticism against this structural function approach is that it overlooks the dysfunctionalities of religion. For example, religion can be used to justify terrorism and violence. It has been used to justify war and, in some cases, ethnocentric crisis (Boundless 2020:920). By interpretation, if religious dysfunctionality reflects immoral and dehumanising acts, it can as well aid corruption. Correspondingly, Thompson (2009) agreed that the original Marxists context has become divorced from its meaning. Thompson (2009) asserted that religion is used as endorphin; it forces people to cope with pain or endure what can be changed for good. This further suggests that the intent of Marx’s thought is the appropriation of religion.

Carmody (2009), in his contemporary context opined that Marx argued that religion was constructed by people to calm the uncertainty over our role in the universe and society. Marx took a stand against the use of religion based solely on what can be called applied science. This is so because Marx was more concerned about human development and not science for the sake of knowledge. Likewise, Christiano, Swatos and Kivisto could not agree less that Marx did not believe in science for science’s sake; in their words: ‘Marx believed that he was also advancing a theory that would be a useful tool in effecting a revolutionary upheaval of the capitalist system in favour of socialism’ (2008:124). In other words, in Marx’s opinion, religion plays a critical role in maintaining an unequal status quo, in which certain groups of people have radically more resources and power than other groups of people. Thus Carmody (2009), Christiano et al. (2008) and Thompson (2009) all hypothesised that Marx argued that the bourgeoisie used religion as a tool to keep the less powerful proletariat pacified. Thus, religion was able to do so by promising rewards in the afterlife.

Furthermore, in a London School of Economics publication, Cronin (2018) gave a more contemporary account of the Marxian phrase – ‘Religion is the opium of the people’. He claimed that the initial interpretation of Karl Mark’s statement was decontextualised in the sense that it creates the impression that Marx was anti-religion or anti-Christianity. Cronin noted that in the contribution of Karl Marx to the critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Rights (1844), there was a previous statement before the concluding phrase. Karl previously said that ‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions’. In Cronin’s opinion, in a proper context, the contemporary Marxists believe that while Marx saw religion as an understandable yet unhelpful response to societal inequality, marginalised groups tend to be more religiously observant. This suggests that contemporary Marxists agree with Fraser (2017) that the more people are oppressed and marginalised economically, the more their religious instincts are stimulated. Consequently, Marx’s quote takes on a very different context as against the generalised interpretation. Contemporary thinkers like Schnabel (2020:1) opined that Marx sees opium as an expression of feelings or reactions of the people in a heartless world. Contemporary Marxists held that Marx argued that humans are best guided by reason rather than being controlled by religion. Whereas religion encouraged social alienation and opposition to reason thereby masking the truth and misguiding followers. For Marx, this social function of religion is at the heart of social inequality and the antithesis to this alienation is freedom. Thus, to propagate freedom means to present individuals with the truth and give them a choice to accept or deny it. In this context, contemporary researchers hypothesise that Marx never suggested that religion ought to be prohibited (see Boundless 2020:924; Cronin 2018; cf. Christiano et al. 2008:126).

Unvaryingly, the contemporary impression suggests that Marx called for a revolution that implies freedom to reason on social issues like corruption. Marx’s point was not about prohibition but revolution as he viewed religion as a tool of social control used by the bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat content with an unequal status quo. He wants action taken to resolve social inequalities. It can then be inferred that the crux of Karl’s argument against religion is not religion itself, but the type of society that causes suffering and creates the opportunity for religion to give a response that denies the reality of the people’s problems. In contemporary view, Cronon (2018) then suggested that anyone under the influence of religious fantasy will be detached from the reality of oppression created by the systems of political actors and their cronies (cf. Fraser 2009:1). Cronin (2018) therefore advised that religious adherents must identify with their unnatural suffering as a material situation that can be changed in this life. To achieve this, they need to throw off religious fantasy because its very purpose is to make them accept their subjugation.

In summary, contemporary hypothesis suggests that the problem is not ‘religion’ but its use as a subjugation pill to accept social, economic, and political situations that can be changed in this world. Thus, contemporary Marxism is calling for a change of approach in the applicability of religion. Indeed, this article opines that both Fela Anikulapo and Nkrumah’s positions are in synchronicity with the view of contemporary Marxists. They are all not against religion, but are opposed to the use of religion by religious leaders as an oppressive tool in alliance with capitalists and state actors to foster poverty in Africa.

Poverty aided corruption has its root in the participation of both government officials and masses – consumers of public services. On this background, this article categorises poverty aided corruption into three: street-level corruption, grand organised corruption and evasion of prosecution aided corruption. Meanwhile, more focus will be on the first two.

Neo-Pentecostal activities are quite vast in the African continent; thus, this article only covers a few samples from East, West and South Africa. This does not represent priorities or preferences. In the same vein, this article would like to put it on record that not all African Neo-Pentecostals use religion as an opportunity to exploit or increase poverty amongst the adherents and masses. We will now discuss the few examples of Neo-Pentecostal religious opportunism.

In a Pararan Mock News live video broadcast (2021), a family made a public appeal to Rev Chris Oyakhilome, the General Overseer of Christ Embassy to intervene and return the family property put on sale by the Warri branch of the church. Earlier on, under the influence of the ‘give and get more’ message a son in the family donated the family house with documents to the church. The entire family were not aware until the church placed a sale advert on the property. In the bid to escape the disaster of homelessness and the scourge of poverty, the entire family cried out for the intervention of the General Overseer after several abortive efforts to stop the branch church from selling their only property. In response, Daddy Freeze⁵ scripturally condemned the act and joined the family in appealing to Oyakhilome to return the house documents. Although the Sower claimed he made the highest contribution during the building project, nevertheless, it is not enough reason to sow the house as a seed. On the grounds of moral and religious tenets, the acceptance and sale of the property by the church without full verification of ownership may amount to land grabbing. The question is why will an individual take such an action at the expense of his family. The most reasonable answer will be that he believes in the prosperity doctrine of ‘give and get more’. He trusted the process; hopefully, the family will get more and better properties over time. This situation speaks to the fact that adherents give in the quest for a better life and opportunities to escape poverty. Unfortunately, the religious organisations had always taken the adherents’ plight as a window to grab more while the members remain in abject penury.

The elimination of extreme poverty must be founded on a comprehensive accountability strategy in Africa. The Neo-Pentecostals must actively collaborate with other denominations, non-governmental organisations, anti-corruption agencies, and civil society groups to design concrete and workable strategies, to hold public officers accountable. Pulpit criticism is not enough for this level of engagement; religious leaders must deliberately be anti-corruption crusaders in Africa. This may include registering, funding, and running anti-corruption agencies as parachurch.

Rather than sustaining the kind of theology that releases endorphins and allows the people to acclimatise and accept oppression and manipulation, religious leaders should promote liberation theology which seeks to address the unjust conditions of the wretched of the earth. Currently, prosperity theology and eschatological teachings are used to create false hope. Liberation theology as an alternative is highly recommended for the African Neo-Pentecostals to stand against oppression and demand social and economic justice. This is a good alternative imagination of theology needed in Africa and for Africans.

Public theology is not popular among the African Neo-Pentecostals. Should it find expression in their curriculum, Neo-Pentecostal Bible schools will become equip centres for socio-economic and socio-political engagements. Thus, the socio-economic rights of adherents vis-à-vis sustainability will be on the front burner of Neo-Pentecostal ministries. Additionally, the knowledge of public theology will assist the Neo-Pentecostal leaders to train congregants interested in political office some level of civic theology which includes public accountability and commitment to transparent servant leadership.

In leading an anti-corruption war, the home front must be in order. The cases listed in the third section and many more in the public domain need urgent attention. When the church addresses the culture of exploiting adherents economically via prosperity gospel, the concept of ‘charity begins at home’ would have been implemented. Only then will the church have the moral authority to demand accountability from the political class.