Senior Pastor of House on the Rock Church, Paul Adefarasin, has declared Nigeria economically dead and urged Nigerians to stop measuring wealth in the Naira, in a sermon delivered to his congregation on May 17 that has since circulated widely on social media following its posting on the Linda Ikeji blog Instagram account.
In the clip, Adefarasin argued that the collapse in the Naira’s purchasing power had fundamentally changed what wealth means for ordinary Nigerians, using his father’s salary in the 1970s and 1980s as a reference point for how drastically the currency has deteriorated.
“Once you are counting in Naira, you are poor,” he said, contrasting the exchange value of the currency in his youth against what a billion Naira represents today.
The pastor cited what he described as a failure of government to plan beyond the immediate present, arguing that the absence of long-term thinking and data-driven policy had left the country without defences against chronic economic decline.
The remarks have drawn significant attention online, in part because they follow a pattern of pointed public commentary Adefarasin has previously directed at Nigeria’s condition. In 2021, he advised members of his congregation to prepare an escape route from the country amid insecurity. In August 2025, he stirred renewed debate by declaring during a sermon that “Nigeria was never in God’s plan,” arguing that the country was created through colonial bargains rather than divine purpose.
House on the Rock, which Adefarasin founded and leads, operates approximately 50,000 members across congregations in Nigeria, South Africa and the United Kingdom, and hosts The Experience, one of West Africa’s largest annual gospel music concerts.
The sermon has not been independently confirmed beyond the social media circulation, and the church had not issued a formal statement at time of writing.
