By Tim Cocks in Ota, Nigeria
The Africa Report - Monday, 13 October 2014
Hundreds of millions of dollars change hands each year in these popular Pentecostal houses of worship, which are modelled on their counterparts in the United States.
Some of the churches can hold more than 200,000 worshippers and, with their attendant business empires, they constitute a significant section of the economy, employing tens of thousands of people and raking in tourist dollars, as well as exporting Christianity globally. But exactly how much of Nigeria's $510 billion GDP they make up is difficult to assess, since the churches are, like the oil sector in Africa's top energy producer, largely opaque entities. "They don't submit accounts to anybody," says Bismarck Rewane, economist and CEO of Lagos consultancy Financial Derivatives. "At least six church leaders have private jets, so they have money. How much? No one really knows."
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