MORE TO THIS YAH!?

Awoyokun Street, off Onipanu Bus Stop, Lagos Mainland...

A storey building painted in perfect white...
Closer to the Ikorodu Road end of the street than the Railway Line end....

A billboard bearing a name?
A white-garment church....or so it seemed?...
A motley group of adherents....more females than males...all dressed in white....

More likely to assemble at night than day...
But there whatever semblance this unique congregation bore to any regular church stopped!

For the silence within its premises was spectacular!

So much so that legion had it that once upon a time when a member of this "special" church was hit by a speeding car, other members simply took him off the road, gingerly carried him into the church premises and shut the church gate....silently....

Not a single word was uttered....to the victim....to the driver.....or among the bearers of the accident victim!

I didn't personally witness this incident....but it jells....considering the absolute silence which pervaded these strange premises anytime I passed by.....

And another thing...all the vehicles belonging to this organization and individual members were painted red!

You could see them lined up in series in long lines on the street where this church lay, and other adjoining streets...at night!

My guide informed me that all these vehicles make their synchronized move out of the precincts at 12 midnight "sharp".

Various destinations....Benin....Ondo....Ilorin...Akure....Enugu....Ibadan....etc etc.

Silent location. Perfect ambience for pure unadulterated communion with the Creator.....in meditation. Or so it may appear on the surface.

But a deeper analysis would throw up some questions...especially when you factor in the red vehicles and their synchronized nocturnal movements.....

My reading of the strange characteristics of this weird church is that the oath of absolute silence imposed on members was a rather ingenious move to curtail horizontal gossiping among adherents. Vertical gossips may occur on trips to or from church....and in your homes....but not in church!

The uniformity of red vehicle colour suggests that this is a cult masquerading as a church.

The nocturnal synchronized movements indicates that this is either a drug ring, a smuggling ring....or both....

Dr Tosin Akindele is a medical practitioner and public affairs analyst.