This is what experts refer to as Dunning–Kruger Effect in psychology.

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome’s cognitive bias has led to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgement, illogical interpretation and irrationality.

pic.twitter.com/q3iYgRPYcx

— Jack Robinson (@FeralJack_) April 6, 2020

 

If you watched the recent video that has Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, founder of Christ Embassy church, expanding on his 5G theory, you are sure to feel a few things. Incredulity, amusement, disappointment, perhaps anger, but certainly fear.

Fear at the power of misinformation coming from one of the county’s most renowned religious leaders, and fear for the unsuspecting church masses who will receive this information without question. Religion in Nigeria is that powerful, we are all aware of this. It is an influence to many life choices the average theist Nigerian decides to adopt and crucial to the detriment of or the uplifting of our fractured society.

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, one of the biggest Pastor in Africa and probably in the world is also pushing this 5G "New World Order" #COVID19 conspiracy. Its going to get people killed, & he's also pushing anti vaccination. WTF pic.twitter.com/vuy44eJDm2

— Wale Gates ???? (@walegates) April 4, 2020

This latest video which is a sequel to the Master Class “the healing faith minister” gave a few days ago, provided more context to his insistence of the grand scheme, which is the introduction of 5G network into Nigeria. This grand plan, in summary, is being perpetuated by top network providers in conjunction with the Federal Government of Nigeria to infiltrate all parts of the country, infect users and sell vaccines to rectify the illness the 5G must have caused. In his words, “what killed people in Wuhan, China was not the virus, it was the 5G.”

The most influential economic cities in China is Shanghai and Beijing. There are 14,000 5G stations in these cities yet they have less than 200Coronavirus cases.

Iran has no 5G. They have 60,000 cases and 3,700 deaths.

Linking 5G with Coronavirus is intellectually embarrassing.

— #OurFavOnlineDoc ? (@DrOlufunmilayo) April 7, 2020

We might want to deliberate on the blatant ridiculousness of this theory, but we must also consider the audacity, sitting comfortably beside a dangerous kind of irresponsibility. One that will encourage his church members and the public to discredit factual information and run along with hastily conceived notions of an elaborate plan to ‘end the world.’ From the look of things, people are beginning to buy into his theories and there is nothing sadder to see.

For anyone trying to prove pastor Chris right… Open your physics textbook and read on spectrum of visible light before you embarrass your ancestors pic.twitter.com/gwEGUhBj4o

— Engr. Kylax (@PhilipKyles) April 6, 2020

One question a lot of Twitter users are asking though is – if this were possibly true, who would really gain anything from infecting people through technological advancements? Conceding that he is a renowned Minister of the Gospel, where are videos, images or other kinds of hard facts to prove this latest update to the never-ending conspiracy theory? As a Ph.D. holder, the ‘Man of God’ knows more than anyone else that he has to move beyond throwing up theories without substantial proof.

Pastor Chris said corona virus doesn’t kill but 5G does.He said telecom companies are installing 5G networks in lagos and Abuja that’s why federal government enforced a lockdown on both states …Lmaoo so they want to k!ll their customers that they plan to sell 5G data to?

— Ewure Of Africa ? (@Dehkunle) April 6, 2020

???? very laughable! FG do not need to shut down Lagos and Abuja to install 5G. Moreover TELCOs not FG install Telecoms infrastructure. https://t.co/6xLTo37LB1

— Bamidele Faparusi (@delefappy) April 6, 2020

Over 10,000 people have died in the USA alone from this virus. That’s USA alone.

If those people were your family members, will you say it’s 5G?

How will you feel if coronavirus killed your loved one and someone came to say, “oh it was 5G that killed them”?
How will you feel?

— #OurFavOnlineDoc ? (@DrOlufunmilayo) April 7, 2020

Religious leaders have as much power as they do because of collective disbelief in a system that works, but regardless, that power should not be misused. It should aim to save lives, rather than stoke panic and possibly cause people to disregard thoroughly proven information.