Let me start by stating that I am a Christian. never mind with my denomination; but i believe in God, i believe in his son Jesus who came to die for our sins and i believe that all who love and trust the lord, and believe in his abiding love will be saved by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Now that is out of the way, my question is: Why are Nigerians so sharp in every other aspect, but yet so gullible when it comes to religious fraud

Many of the religious men/women out there today are no better than armed robbers who break into your house - just that they rather guilt you into giving up your hard earned money in exchange for Gods favour.

In order to make this post easy to read and concise, i have compiled a list;

1. God does not need your money, tithe, to grant you his favour. He needs no material upkeep

2. Giving money to your man-of-God does not assure you a place in Heaven. it's not like bribing to enter university, you can't bribe your way to the heavenly kingdom

3. Your pastor lives a better and more comfortable life than most people in your church. don't you feel (pardon my language) "foolish" fuelling his fleet of cars and jets with your hard earned cash while your bills are mounting?

4. Giving money to a friend or family in need, a charity organisation, orphanage, or incapacitated beggar on the street is by far more meaningful and more in line with Jesus' command of "Love thy neighbour" than giving money to your man-of-God

5. Majority of the men of God who 'speak in tongues' are just making incoherent babble and are not really under the power of the Holy spirit.

6. most of the miracles you see and hear about are staged, believe it or not. Many pastors go to extreme lengths to get people to be in on the whole thing- paying off a whole family to get them to go along with the charade.

7. Have you ever asked yourself why a 'man-of-God' should be riding the nicest cars, living in palatial homes, and wining and dining like royalty, while most of their flock can barely afford 3 square meals. but yet you don't see the so called men of God setting up 'Functional' programs to help uplift the lives of their members.

The list goes on. but when you take a second, put your religious bias aside and think objectively for a second, you'll realise that indeed something is very wrong in the way we practice our religion. whatever happened to humility, modesty, charity -key principles that guided the founders of the Church?

Let me know what you think? feel free to be as blunt and critical as you want, your honesty will be very much appreciated.

Man must wack. No matter how strong a man is he must have a weak point. Religion is our weakness.

I don't see this ending anytime soon in Nija, the sh*t is so enshrined in her, People think in line with their Religion mentors(imam,pastors, shepherds, GO) the saddest thing is the University is suppose to be a place for enlightment to free ourselves from the folly of organized religion, but come to the University of Lagos it's a typical Model Of Nija Religious atmosphere save for absence of any form of violence it has become a training ground for pastors and felloeship and prayers are being held in all nooks and crannies of the Campus, it may take Nigeria some centuries before she finally realise.....

Religion is a big deal in Nigeria and to be honest, the only reason why it's like that is because a lot of people are ignorant.
Plus monotheism just made more sense and had a bigger WOW factor than polytheism. Nigerians just diverted that same attitude they had towards traditional religion to their new religion.(In this case, Christianity)

The love of God is not has often preached like the fear of God. The importance of individual relationship with Christ and understanding the nature of God is also dismissed.
Another is the concept of faith and works, which I think the op slightly mentioned. Nigerians do not understand that nothing they do will ever warrant their salvation, favor or grace of God. There is this misconception that your "works for Christ" can change your destiny.

As I was saying about bringing their traditional ways to worship. You can notice in Nigerian Christians the need to treat stuff like "anointing water, anointing oil, blessed handkerchief" as charm. I don't think I have to go into detail, y'all already know.
The worst is making their Pastor the 'Priest', the one and only man that can have a close relationship with God. They all have to go through him-the Pastor to speak to God, which makes me and you wonder why Jesus died
If you look closely, you might start to see the signs of old religion in the way Nigerians accepted the some-what imported religion.(Christianity)

The deceit will end when people go in search of the truth.