One of the greatest cankerworms of Christianity in contemporary Nigeria is the maddening quest for miracles and prophecies. This has constricted the criteria of what constitutes a true man of God, or a minister, to one who can perform miracles and give prophecies. It has equally led to a situation where some men of God stage manage miracles and prophecies to meet their faithful popular demand of miracles and prophecies. The mind-boggling paradoxes in this scenario are how fake miracles have become a norm in a religion whose founder, Jesus Christ, is regarded as the “Way and the truth”, and how a people who are of a cultural background where honesty is a core value system willfully engage in the business of spiritually manipulating and hoodwinking unsuspecting individuals. This informs the research questions of the paper, which are: What is a miracle? What makes a miracle fake? What is the possible leeway out of the present conundrum of fake miracles? It is in light of this that the paper, through a critical and explorative method, examines the present locust of fake miracles in Nigerian Christian churches and the African notion of truth, with a particular focus on the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria. The study establishes that to curb the present surge of fake miracles by supposed ministers of the gospel, there is a need for reorienting the ministers on the African value of honesty. To do this, the study relies overwhelmingly on secondary sources such as books, online journals, newspapers, and internet.
Keywords: Fake Miracles/Prophecies, Value System, African notion of truth, Religion.
