Osinbajo advises church leaders who are aggrieved over CAMA to approach National Assembly

Vice-President, Osinbajo has asked those aggrieved over the Company and Allied Matter 2020 law to approach the national assembly.

Osinbajo gave this advice while speaking at the annual general conference of the Nigeria Bar Association on Thursday.

The vice-president, who is a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), said under democracy the church leaders can seek redress at parliament.

“We have a process by which this (CAMA law) can be redressed. Whatever the proposal for amendment may be, whatever the view of the leadership of the church may be, regarding the question of how the trustees, whether they are interim trustees or not, can be put into a proposal that will be brought to the National Assembly for consideration for amendment to the law, that is the process which is entirely opened and ought to be pursued,” the VP said.

“We are in a democracy and there is a process by which things can be done and that process is the one where you bring forward amendments to the National Assembly and they will do whatever is considered useful in the circumstance,” he added.

It will be recalled that on August 7, President Muhammadu Buhari signed CAMA into law.

Under the law, religious bodies and charity organisations will be strictly regulated by the registrar-general of Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and a supervising minister.

CAMA provides that the commission may by order, suspend the trustees of an association or a religious body and appoint an interim manager or managers to coordinate its affairs where it reasonably believes that there has been any misconduct or mismanagement, or where the affairs of the association are being run fraudulently or where it is necessary or desirable for the purpose of public interest.

Many religious leaders, especially pastors, had rejected the law which they described as a declaration of war against the church.

The Presiding bishop of Living Faith Church Worldwide, David Oyedepo, had said the law was borne of out the government’s jealousy about the prosperity recorded by the church.