Popular clergyman and founder of Power City International, Pastor Abel Damina, has rejected the doctrine that tithing leads to wealth, stating that no scripture guarantees riches in return for giving to God.
In a video shared on Monday by X user #ChuksEricE, Damina criticised what he described as a misleading belief system in Nigerian churches. He said many worshippers had been conditioned to link financial prosperity to how much they give to pastors and religious institutions.
“There’s no scripture in the Bible that says when you give to God, you’ll be a rich person. There’s no such scripture. Nobody prospers by giving. When you give, you lack. Because when you give, it leaves you and there’s vacuum. Then you have to work again and give it time to recover what you gave. And sometimes you never recover it,” he said.
To support his position, the cleric narrated an encounter with a man who reportedly donated all three of his cars to his church in expectation of divine financial reward but ended up with nothing.
“Somebody told me he gave to his church all his three cars and he has been trekking since then till when I met him. He said, I was thinking of going back to collect one. I said, I think so too. Because if you gave three and the only one you want to collect is one out of the three, you try. You’re never asking for the three,” Damina said.
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Damina, known for his unconventional theological views, maintained that there is no evidence linking tithing to extreme wealth. He stressed that financial success comes from education, work, and business activities rather than religious giving.
“I never saw anybody who, because he tithed, became a billionaire. Even those who said they became billionaires because they tithed — it’s because they don’t know. It’s because they had jobs and businesses. That’s why they became billionaires. Not because they tithed,” he stated.
He further argued that God’s blessings are not transactional but already embedded in the earth, adding that individuals must position themselves through knowledge and effort to access them.
“The reason why people can excavate the ground and meet oil wells is because God put the deposit. The reason why we can get to the rocks in Nigeria, go to the gold belt that travels right through Minna, Niger and right to Plateau, all those rocks, explore, break the ground and meet diamonds, golds, sapphires and tourmaline is because God put them there,” he said.
“So because God has blessed the planet, all we need to do is go to school, learn what to do to get into what has been blessed and turn it into commercial property. We go to school, we go to market, we engage to make money,” he added.