Church Universities: For God or for Gold?

The rate at which churches and other religious organisations are building universities in Nigeria in recent time really calls for concerns and inquiries. Most importantly due to the many issues surrounding the so call church varsities ranging from who are the students to other questions like whom the establishment of the schools favours, could the this be a new chapter in the short literature of patriotism in Nigeria or another page in the voluminous book of ‘cabalocracy’-an establishment of a cabal by members of the same cabal and for the cabal. For the records, it is important to note that that the early missionaries who brought Christianity to Nigeria brought also with it the western education, more worthy of note is the fact that as far back as 1864 at the CMS grammar school under the tutelage of Mr. Claudius Philips, the missionaries then started teaching the able bodied men and they were taught and fed free right under the supervision of the missionaries as a way of fostering the gospel. History also revealed that they were issued their employment letters immediately they finished their education. Such was the romance between western education and the gospel just in the fall of yesteryears before we closed our eyes, one thing led to another and we open our eyes to discover that first there is proliferation of churches in our nation and all of them are trying to help the pitiable condition of wreck that the national leadership has made education to become, unfortunately not all of them can actually help. Then comes the crises that must be resolved, with virtually all the churches trying to open one university or another, the question is could all of these moves still be for God or some are for gold. To start with, I dare to say that with the minimum wage set at N18,000, the cost of school fees in church Universities are rather high. As much as I agree that with the current situation of the economy in the nation and the cost of running the academic environment, education cannot be free. In fact, if anyone thinks education is free let him try ignorance. However, let us be sincere, how many average members of these churches can afford to send their children to the same school that was built with their offering along with the offering of other members, are there any considerations for the poor and average citizens. How many students of such varsity are on scholarships provided by the school? Even if the scholarship is not for everybody, at least for the church members whom I believe are stakeholders too. As much as believe that these Universities are not supposed to run a charity home, it is clear that their services are not for average Nigerians, if this is however confirmed, the next question will be what is the major source of funding for these University, can it be separated from church account, the answer is definitely a capital no, the next question will be of what immediate benefit are these institutions to the church members who are the major source of the funds that set up the institution, practically none! So, these church universities, are they really for God, for Gold or for both?