pat_utomi

Ordinarily, a successful person in the business and corporate world would not be considered a true Christian, considering the maneuvers and stratagems perceived to go with money-making and business. But Prof. Pat Utomi, well reputed for his business acumen, intellect and credibility is a strong believer and worshipper of Jesus Christ. Not only does he do this, he lives it and has so many testimonies to back it up. In this interview which you will find educative, entertaining and revelatory, Utomi, son of a Deeper Life mother (know what I mean?) tackles issues on the links between Christianity and business, the place of prayer and luck in business success, the practice of Christianity in the Pentecostal and orthodox cChurches, the place of Christ in his life and other pertinent issues. He spoke to Adebola Adewara.

As a businessman and a teacher of business, do you see the church as a viable industry for which the Lagos Business School can fashion out some curriculum to develop its operators?
Well, I will pray that the church does not become a business because if it becomes one, a lot of things will be lost. Though business is not a demonic, but it is completely different from the logic of the church. The church is about salvation, sacrifice and service with the hope that that effort will give one the chance to eternally see God. The pursuit of salvation is not the same as taking knowledge and opportunity to create an enterprise. I think the bases are different.

However, the church like any business is all about organisation. The church is organised on human basis it can learn a thing or two on how business are organised and business can learn also from the church in terms of knowledge and how it was created. We should not forget that the modern university came out of Christendom, the desire to find the knowledge behind the things God created. Over the periods, schools became avenue to spread what was found and that is why missionaries used the schools as tools.

The fundamentals of business are material while that of the church is spiritual. The scripture says the ways of God is not our ways and it’s as far as the heaven is from earth. Let me close this by the story of the businessman in the Bible who went to Jesus on how he can be saved. Jesus told him about keeping the commandment, to which he said he has kept all. Then Jesus said he should go and sell all his possessions and follow Him. The scripture says he went away sad because he was a man of great riches. Now, he had the logic of business not of salvation and that is why the two are different.

The true state of the Nigerian church, prosperity and miracles replacing discipleship?
This is a problem that has bothered me for along time such that we had to do a recording on this for Patito’s Gang, a television programme that I anchor. It was as a result of an article in New York Times about the church in Nigeria. The reporter writes on the pervasive presence of cChurches and the astronomical rate of crime in the country. He illustrated this prosperity with the picture of Pastor Chris Okotie of Household of God, touching his posh Benz car. We had Father Osu of the Catholic Church and Pastor Anselm Madubuko of Revival Assembly on the talk-show and they all spoke passionately about it.

The continuing emphasis on prosperity bothers me. People don’t relate the course of their inappropriate action in private or public life to their Sunday-Sunday behaviour. I’ve heard of people giving testimonies thanking God that they’ve just been posted to a lucrative post, meaning offices where they can steal money. I begin to wonder what kind of Christians we are when we see avenues to steal as blessings from God. I relate this mentality to the pressure being brought about by this prosperity preaching.

My understanding of Christianity is the way of the cross, the way of sacrifice, of service, of sharing for the good of all. The Christian message does not take away from prosperity but it is not about prosperity. Jesus said I’ve come so that you have life and have it in abundance. It is not about Cadillac, V-booth, etc.

There are many people with Cadillac, V-booths who are truly miserable. The message of Christ is of peace, not of material benefits. A church that focuses mostly on prosperity misses the focus of Christianity. If Jesus’ focus were on prosperity, then he would not have chosen those kind of poor people as disciples. And there was no evidence that they died in wealth. Many of them got killed.

Can a good Christian be an astute businessman?
Absolutely. In fact you can be a more successful man if you are a good Christian than if you are not. While I was reflecting on life recently, I thought that if by whatever revelation, it is said that all these things about God are lies and Christianity is not true, I said to myself that I would still adhere to Christian principles.

If Christian ethics is today declared to be untrue or fantasies of clever prophets, it still rhymes with what a good conscience should seek for. One thing I have found out, as a teacher of business ethics is that the more biblical you are, the more successful you are in life.

If you lose patience and focus because some people who cut corners seem to overtake you, so you join them, you’ll find out that those whose success last are those who do not lose focus of truth and patience. I have found out that when everybody is cheating and cutting corners and you stay focused, truthful and hardworking, when those who cheat want something done properly, they will not go to their lying fellows, but you whom they know as principled.

Reputation is a tangible commodity. If you have a manifest character, which people can trace to you,

it becomes a market value. One of the things that confuse many people is how rich Pat Utomi is, considering my involvement in all these businesses. What really happens which I found difficult to explain now is that over a long period of time of focusing on giving service to people, being focus driven, building character and relegating to the back seat considerations for materialism, somehow, it has become a reputation such that sitting here as a lecturer in a business school, someone in South Africa was looking for a partner to help bring a business to Nigeria and suddenly my name pops up as chairman. Tomorrow, another American company shows up and my name pops up again.

Slowly and steadily I’m on board of about 30 companies and I didn’t know how to, literally speaking, manage it anymore. And I have had nothing to offer other than the reputation that this person is a man of character. Nothing more. So, knowing God has value. You do better in business when you are ethical or driven by the Christian ethics.

Human resources and motivational speeches sermon.
As I said, I don’t really like to be judgmental in my views but I think that for some of the pastors, it is a marketing gimmick for membership. However, there is nothing basically wrong in church opening the eyes of their congregants to issues of life but my fear is if this goes on it could become the message and Christ will recede. Tactics, techniques for success in life will take the fore and one day, we will begin to look for Christ in some cChurches.

Observations to make if invited to pastors conference.
Well, it will be difficult for me to speak on their shortcomings because I always hate to judge anybody because my own shortcomings are many too. But I will like to remind them that the very essence of Christian mission is sacrifice and that being a pastor is to sacrifice for the well-being of the flock: being a good shepherd and not to, as it were be a parasite on the flocks.

The kinds of things some pastors accept as proper conducts of the flocks make the society less Christian. Nigeria is not a Christian society. The conduct of our society does not reflect the nature of Christ. If we all listen to sermons every Sunday and we are still what we are, then something is wrong with the sermons or we the hearers. One of our problems in this country is that our institutional memory is so short and most of the pastors limit themselves to the scripture and forget about the original focus and tradition of the church.

There were some documents of the church, which I stumbled upon in the course of doing a presentation. The document, which was on the second century of Christianity, is called Didache (pronounced Didahe). There is a statement I found there which would shock many pastors and priests. The statement says ‘let the Bishop stands anathema that accepts oblation from the man who treats his workers unfairly.

Place of prayer in business success
Oh, a very strong place. But when you say prayer, it has to be defined. The work that we do should be prayerful. If we see the work we do as participating with God to bring creation to a fuller end, then we should see business activity as something that must give glory to God; something that must be done in a way that is divinely perceived as co-operation with God and in that sense, every activity of our business day is a conversation with God.

We should be able to remind ourselves that God is great, God is love and to seize this opportunity of the work I’m doing to show love to those I interact with. If we approach work this way, the work becomes prayer.

But when the organisation stops, and everybody goes for fellowship, it has its value and that has its distraction. It takes away peoples freedom at times because people who are not Christians in that organisation may feel pressurised to pretend to go along or else they could be seen as saboteurs. So I think people’s freedom should be allowed by not closing down all activity because of prayer. But individuals should know that prayer is compulsory and giving thanks at every moment of work.

Is there anything like luck in business calculations?
Yes, there is such a thing like luck but as my business books say luck comes to the prepared.