Pastor Nicholas Adejuwon known popularly as Pastor Nick and his wife Pastor Nkechi, run the Lagos megachurch, Rivers of Joy. The Church is the rave of the moment following the unveiling of its new Head office, Heaven’s Gate Cathedral, said to be the biggest church building in the world; and his guilt-free style of preaching attracts young people who form the bulk of his congregation. Beneath the surface, however, exists scandalous secrets, greed, adultery, murder and financial crimes.
Ifenna Obumselu, a young journalist, loses his job following a report he did that was critical of Pastor Nick. In the report, he questioned the conspiracy of silence around the death of a pastor (Pastor Felix) at the site of the construction of Heaven’s Gate Cathedral. Unemployed and frustrated, he begins a blog focused on publishing crowd-sourced content about the excesses of Nigerian men of God of all faiths while keeping his identity anonymous.
While retaining the super couple image in public, Pastor Nick and Nkechi’s marriage is severely strained. With her deepening suspicion of her husband, Nkechi hires a private investigator to trail him. The investigator confirms her suspicion of infidelity. He also reveals that Pastor Nick may have been responsible for the death of Pastor Felix. This troubles Nkechi because she and Pastor Felix had an affair about the time of his death. She fears that her husband found out about them and killed him, but she has no specific evidence.
As Ifenna’s blog gradually becomes popular, he meets a co-tenant, Lilian, and they begin dating. Lilian, a nurse, attends Rivers of Joy Church and adores Pastor Nick. Ifenna is taken aback by this fact, but it does not stop him from publishing a story sent in by a lady – a former church member – detailing her affair with Pastor Nick and the emotional abuse she suffered. The story is republished by many tabloids and threatens to become a major scandal for the pastor. When Lilian discovers by accident that her boyfriend is behind the blog, she leaves him.
Although she defends her husband following the damning blog story of his affair with a former church member, Pastor Nkechi’s anger leads her to a resolve to end it all, to get justice for Pastor Felix. The investigator had found details of her husband’s association with some powerful men who had looted the country during the military era, and how he was helping them to launder their ill-gotten wealth through the church.
Nkechi leaks details of her husband’s secret financial dealings to Ifenna who gladly publishes it on his blog. The report goes viral and leads to the arrest of Pastor Nick by the Financial Crimes Agency. His powerful collaborators who cannot afford him spilling, poison him in detention at the same time his wife is effectively taking over the headship of the church. Ifenna receives a handsome payment for the story and his blog becomes the most visited site in the country, drawing in adverts from leading brands. But he doesn’t feel fulfilled despite the success. He feels empty without Lilian.
The novel is an expose on the underbelly of Nigeria’s Pentecostal fervour and the lives of rich celebrity posterity preachers; their motivations, rivalries, pretences and fears. At its core, however, it’s a story of life, of love, power, and the ironies that fate often deals us at the end of our desperate quests.