By Ishaya Ibrahim
The inauguration of Deeper Life’s headquarters church in Lagos is a classical case of one story becoming two – the facts and the satire.
The satire version had more page visits on news websites, shares and comments. On a particular website, it attracted 50,000 comments.
The real version however, was hardly noticed, limited shares and almost zero comments.
Here is the the real story. On April 27, the Deeper Life Bible Church inaugurated its headquarters church at Gbagada, Lagos after 13 years of construction beginning from 2005.
It is a 30,000 four-level cathedral. It has modern toilet facilities connected to a Central Sewage System, standby generators, panel rooms, 7.5 MVA dedicated public power, and 2.5 MVA transformers.
It has a multi-purpose hall, water treatment plant, modern sewage treatment plant, two industrial boreholes and firefighting equipment.
The edifice has a park that could accommodate 450 cars and 75 buses at a time. This architectural masterpiece is worth N5 billion and is the fourth biggest church in Nigeria.
Then came the satire version. The satirist says the Deeper Life Bible Church unveils the biggest and best equipped hospital ever built in Africa.
“It is a 10,000-bed capacity mega facility that can see to the needs of well over 35,000 indigent people in a single year.
“It has Pediatrics, Psychiatry, General Out Patient, Burns, Oncology, and 15 other such departments, all stocked with the latest equipment necessary for such a world class facility.
“The Surgery section boasts of state-of-the-art equipment that rivals Johns Hopkins hospital or any of the best health care centers anywhere in the world. It would be available to all and sundry irrespective of their financial or social statuses,” the story reads.
Regrettably, this narration is the imagination of the writer. Deeper Life did not build a 10,000-bed hospital. What it built was a mega church.
