CAC Summons Baptist Church Trustees Over Mutilated Constitution

The crisis at the First Baptist Church, Garki, Abuja, has taken a new twist. The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has asked the Incorporated Registered Trustees of First Baptist Church, Garki in the Federal capital Territory (FCT) to respond to a petition of allegedly filing a mutilated version of the church’s constitution with the commission.

The petition was filed in 2012 by the current president of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, Rev. Israel Akanji, when he was pastor of the church. CAC in a letter dated 4th July 2022 and signed by Mr. Lukman Salman, on behalf of CAC registrar general, asked for a response within two weeks of the date on the letter.

According to CAC, the response would help the commission take informed decision on the circumstances surrounding the incorporation of the church. The petition also warned of failure to comply with the summon. It reads, “Please, note that failure to comply with the above directive within the specified period will result into legal consequences without recourse to you”.

Meanwhile, at the resumed hearing on last week of the suit filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja, before Hon Justice Obiora Egwuatu, counsel to the plaintiffs in the church’s constitutional matter, Dr. Kayode Ajulo, told the court that all efforts to reach any amicable settlement and report same to the court, as earlier directed, had failed.

He expressed surprise that only on Monday, July 4, the lawyer to Rev. Tom Takpoture, the second respondent, Barrister Offiong Bassey,  who is also the president of the Men Missionary Union (MMU) of the same church, filed a unilateral terms of agreement with the court contrary to the directive of the court at its last sitting on May 30.

The said agreement filed by Barrister Offiong contain just two letters written by the President of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, Rev. Israel Akanji, the immediate past pastor of the church, who the plaintiffs had severally alleged as the cause of the constitutional problems of the church he pastored for 21 years.

The first letter was written to set up a delegation from the Convention Secretariat in Ibadan to mediate and the second one, Rev. Akanji’s personal considered terms of agreement to be discussed with the stakeholders in the church, a discussion that never took place.

Ajulo, in his further submission, told the court that for the first time, since the constitutional matter started, the Incorporated Trustees Board of the church on Monday, July 4, 2022, wrote his clients, the plaintiffs, asking for time to resolve the conflict.