At a press conference on Saturday, Evang. Nsikak Akpan, the zonal chairman, Central Working Committee, South-South General Council, Assemblies of God, made a shocking disclosure that the South-South zone of church, has pulled out from the national body as crisis rocking the church has taken a new dimension.
According to reports, it cited instances of marginalisation, gross injustice in ministers’ remuneration, unhealthy rivalry among ministers, inefficiency and escalating administrative and financial malfeasance, as justification for its departure from the church.
The press conference was attended by other executive members of the church including executive members of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria in Akwa Ibom.
Akpan stated that his zone arrived at the decision to break away from the general council administration in order to achieve some level of self-governance, adding that the general council had grown too big and had become too expensive to run.
He said this has ultimately resulted in a supremacy battle between the General Superintendent of Assemblies of God, Rev. Prof Paul Emeka and the executive committee members under Rev. Dr. Chidi Okoroafor.
“The South-South zone of the Assemblies of God has called for the decentralization of the general council administration to end marginalisation and gross injustice in ministers’ remuneration; unhealthy rivalry among ministers; inefficiency and escalating administrative and financial malfeasance.
“The only panacea to the growing crisis enveloping the Assemblies of God in Nigeria, leading to the birth of two general councils, which often result in fresh crises in the church across the nation, is to decentralise and reorganise the General Council into six or 12 autonomous general councils with little economic and administrative power at the centre,” he reportedly said.
