Emplacing god: the social worlds of miracle cities – perspectives from Nigeria and Uganda

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the complex, dynamic and multifaceted transformations in Africa’s religious field through a critical and comparative investigation of two high contrast prayer camps (Miracle Cities), their histories, functions and activities and ownership. The study is based on the ethnography of Prayer Camps in two African cities, Lagos (Nigeria) and Kampala (Uganda), one Pentecostal in orientation, the other, neo-traditionalist in character. The Redemption Camp/City, owned by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is the largest landmass dedicated to the production and consumption of religion in Africa. The Faith of Unity religious movement, founded by Omukama Ruhanga Owobusozi Desteo Bisaka in Western Uganda, is a neo-traditionalist religious group dedicated to the reinvention of an ‘original’ African spirituality. The paper describes ‘Miracle Cities’ as entheogenic, competitive spaces, symbolic resources and complex social worlds that re-inscribe the importance of space, place and location in the conceptualisation and performance of salvation in Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Prayer camps
• miracle cities
• Nigerian pentecostalism
• the redeemed christian church of god
• faith of unity
• Owobusobozi

Acknowledgement

This paper was first presented at the culminating conference on Christianity and Social Change in Contemporary Africa’ organised by the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity, Abidjan, 05–12 March 2017. The fieldwork for the study was carried out under the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity project on ‘Religious Innovation and Competition: Their Impact in Contemporary Africa’, sub-project, ‘Miracle Cities: The Economy of Prayer Camps and the Entrepreneurial Spirit of Religion in Africa’ (ID: 2016-SS350), funded by The John Templeton Foundation. The author thanks all those who in various ways helped during fieldwork in Nigeria (especially Lizzy Joseph, Emma Ekhuemelo, Fola Sanusi and O. Olubiyi) and in Uganda (Dr. Janice D. Busingye, the Deputy Vice Chancellor [Finance & Admin], Kampala International University and Livingstone Akugizibwe). Particularly, special thanks go the Prof. Francis Nyamnjoh, the Director of the Social Science segment of the project, and Prof. Yaw Ofosu-Kusi, the mentor of the sub-project on Miracle Cities, as well as Prof. Dr. Em. Ulrich Berner and Prof. Dr. Bernt Schettler, both of the University of Bayreuth, for their guidance and insightful comments on a previous draft of this essay. The usual caveats hold.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Asonzeh Ukah is a sociologist/historian of religion; he is affiliated to the Department of Religious Studies, University of Cape Town. His research interests include Religious Urbanism, sociology of Pentecostalism, and religion and media. He is the Director of the Research Institute on Christianity and Society in Africa (RICSA), University of Cape Town, South Africa, and Affiliated Senior Fellow of Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS), University of Bayreuth, Germany. He has published widely in English, German and Spanish; he is the author of A New Paradigm of Pentecostal Power (AWP, 2008) and Bourdieu in Africa (edited with Magnus Echtler, Brill, 2016). Emial: Asonzeh Ukah [email protected]; [email protected].

Notes

1 During the annual convention in August 2016, the church ordained 8,151 deacons/nesses. 1,825 assistant pastors, and 876 pastors.

2 The official name of the group translates to ‘The Association for The Healing Place of God of All Armies’. However, elders of the group, including the founder only used ‘The Faith of Unity’ in referring to themselves.

3 The fieldwork in Lagos took place from 05 July to 10 August, while the fieldwork in Uganda took place from 04 to 28 September 2016. The fieldwork in Nigeria was assisted by Prof. Adeyinka Bankole of the Department of Sociology, Bowan University, Iwo, Nigeria, while in Uganda, Prof. John Wotsuna Khamalwa was very helpful and actively participated in it.

4 In Lagos, FGD participants were 5; in Kapyemi, they were 9 male elders, self-assembled by the FoU to answer any questions and explain the history, rituals and structure of the organisation. Nineteen individual interviews were conducted (11 in Lagos and 8 in Kampala/Kapyemi). Many of these were recorded and transcribed.

5 On the role of the participant observer as a ‘stranger’, see Simmel (1950, 402-408); Karakayali (2009)

6 Thanks to Prof. Dr. Bernt Schnettler (Lehrstuhl für Kultur- und Religionssoziologie, Universität Bayreuth/Germany) who first suggested the Social Worlds framework.

7 ‘A perspective is an ordered view of one’s world […] an organised perception of what is plausible and what is possible […] the matrix through which one perceives his environment’ (Shibutani 1955, 564). A perspective is nurtured and is manifested through an outlook on life and the world, a Weltanschauung.

8 In this sense, actors include religious leaders of the groups under study (Adeboye/Bisaka), sites include the camps (Redemption Camp and Unity Camp), activities include the ritual services, objects include scriptures or the Itambiro or prayer auditoriums and technologies include the water dam or electricity-producing turbines in the Redemption Camp.

9 According to a senior official in RCCG’s Physical Planning and Development Control (PPDC) department, the Camp measured 1,540 hectares in 2012 and since then it has more than doubled such that the exact measurement is a challenge to his office because the property changes in size almost every month as new acquisitions are added. (Personal interview, Redemption Camp, 19.07.16).

10 Interview with Area Pastor S. B. O, (Lagos University of Hospital, Lagos; 11.08.2016)

11 Personal Interview with Pastor Dapo Adesina, Maintenance Camp Manager, Redemption Camp, Mowe, 18.07.2016

12 Personal interview with Pastor-in-charge of Province & Managing Editor, Redemption Light magazine, Pastor Olaitan Olubiyi, Redemption Light Complex, Redemption Camp, Mowe, 19.07.2016.

13 Many RCCG officials, particularly those who live and work in the Camp, often insist that the facility is ‘self-sufficient in all ramifications’. Although the Camp has its own independent ritual economy, it does not have its own independent financial system.

14 Olaitan Olubiyi, “RCCG: A City on the Hills”, Redemption Light, vol. 20, no 6, August 2015, pp. 37 & 50.

15 Bukonla Akinwande, “Holy Ghost Service: A Conduit of the Miraculous”, Redemption Light, vol. 20, no. 13, March 2016, p. 53

16 See Olaitan Olubiyi, “Holy Ghost Service – The Miracle that Gave Birth to the Miraculous”, Redemption Light, vol. 20, no. 13, March 2016, pp. 48-49. On the origins and histories of the Holy Ghost Service and the Holy Ghost Congress, see Ukah 2008, 240-50).

17 Personal Interview with Olaitan Olubiyi.

18 Personal interview with J. Funso Odesola, cited in Ukah (2008, 121).

19 Personal interview with Olaitan Olubiyi, 19.072016.

20 Personal interview with Olaitan Olubiyi.

21 For example: Redeemer’s Business Academy, International Bible Institute and Leadership Training School; Business School Ministry; Haggai Business School.

22 The Redeemer’s University of Nigeria (RUN) was established in 2005.

23 On the role of these financial services providers in Nigeria’s real estate market, see Ukah (2016a, 2016b)

24 See ‘Bukunola Adeyemi “Adeboye Dedicates Open Heavens Press”, Redemption Light, vol. 18, no. 11, January 2014, p. 20

25 Incidentally, ‘Mount Carmel’ was the name of the apocalyptic community and city founded in the 1930s by Victor Houteff — who was succeeded by Vernon Howell otherwise known as David Koresh — in Waco, Texas, where in 1993 a standoff with the United States’ the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ended tragically with more than 80 people killed (see Stein 2008, 31).

26 There are only two known, unpublished dissertations on the FoU, one, a 28-page portion of a doctoral dissertation (Ateenyi 2000, 67–95), and the other, an undergraduate long essay (Akugizibwe 2012).

27 The grandmother’s experience of the religious intolerance and violence in the Kingdom of Buganda, especially under the reign of Mwanga II of Buganda (who was the Kabaka of Buganda from 1884-88; 1889-97), must have left an indelible mark in the mind of young Bisaka to inform the emphasis on religious unity which is the distinctive doctrine of the FoU.

28 Personal interview with Omukwenda Tuhumwire, 11.09.2016, Faith of Unity Camp, Kapyemi, Kagadi District, Western Uganda.

29 Bisaka (1987, 80)

30 ‘ … If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book’, (New King James Version).

31 Personal interview with Kusererwya, Kagadi, western Uganda, 17.09.2019.

32 Personal interview with Kusererwya.

33 Personal interview with Owobusobozi Bisaka, Unity Camp, Kapyemi HQ, 14.09.2016.

34 Accessed January 12, 2017. https://www.citypopulation.de/Uganda-Cities.html

35 According to the United Nations’ ‘World Population Prospects: 2015 Revision’, Uganda is 39.3% Catholic and 32% Anglican. Less than 3.9% of the population is believed to be affiliated to indigenous religious systems. Accessed January 12, 2017. http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/uganda-population/

36 Personal interview with Senior Elder Tuhumwire, Unity Camp, FoU HQ, Kapyemi, 11.09.2016.

37 Bisaka has only been out of Uganda twice, when he was ill and in a coma. His handlers flew him in a helicopter to Kenya for treatment.

38 Personal interview with Omukwenda Magezi, Makerere University, Kampala, 06.09.2016.

39 Personal interview with A. Livingstone, Kampala, 05.09.2016.

40 Frequently, busloads of worshippers and visitors are brought to the Camp who come to seek healing. They stay in the Camp for as long as they wish or until they have been attended to by Owobusobosi.

41 Farming and animal husbandry are the chief occupations of the Bunyoro. Agricultural produce, including live/farm animals (chickens, goats, and cows) are among the items offered to Bisaka by worshippers during offertory on worship days.

42 Bisaka’s first public preaching was on 22 February 1980; the group claim the choice of these days of healing service was informed by the need to devoted ‘9 days to fight the power of the Tempter and 1 d of rest’, leaving the believer with ample time to invest in productive work (unlike Christianity that devotes more days to worship and less to work).

Additional information

Funding

This paper was first presented at the culminating conference on Christianity and Social Change in Contemporary Africa’ organised by the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity, Abidjan, 05–12 March 2017. The fieldwork for the study was carried out under the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity project on ‘Religious Innovation and Competition: Their Impact in Contemporary Africa’, sub-project, ‘Miracle Cities: The Economy of Prayer Camps and the Entrepreneurial Spirit of Religion in Africa’ (ID: 2016-SS350), funded by The John Templeton Foundation.