Why We Stopped Going to Church – P-Square

Since 2007, the duo of Peter and Paul Okoye of P-Square fame has stopped going to worship in any church, just about two years after they relocated to Lagos. Despite Peter and Paul’s penchant for fasting and prayers, they have not been going to church for close to a decade, but they insisted the action has not affectted their close relationship with God, and is also not a result of arrogance.

TON gathered that immediately the Okoye brothers relocated to Lagos between 2004 and 2005, they started attending a church somewhere around Ilupeju, where they first resided. They later stopped attending the church, and when they relocated to Omole Estate Phase 1, they gave a couple of churches a shot as well before eventually deciding to call it quits.

Peter, one of the brothers lamented his reasons “each time we attend, other worshipers would not listen to the Pastor’s sermon again. All eyes will just be on us. Instead of praying, some people will even decide to be starring at us. “We were not comfortable with that and thought we were distracting a lot of people from serving their God, so we said to ourselves that we should stop going.

All men are equal before God, so we don’t encourage people to abandon their primary purpose of being in church because of us.”

P-Square grew up from a strong Christian family based in Jos. Their late parents were staunch members of the Catholic Church, before their mother became the General Overseer of a new generation church in the same city.

The story of P-Square began in St. Murumba College, a small Catholic school in Jos. They began singing, dancing, and mimicking songs by MC Hammer, Bobby Brown and Michael Jackson.

They later formed an acapella quartet called “MMPP” (Michael, Melvin, Peter and Paul). Drawing inspiration from their music idol Michael Jackson, they began break dancing, and formed the group called “Smooth Criminals” in 1997.

Later in 1999, Peter and Paul returned to music school to develop their skills on the keyboard, drums, bass and rhythm guitar. Their work includes the soundtracks for a number of films like Tobi, Mama Sunday, Moment of Bitterness and Evas River.

Later in 1999, they applied to the University of Abuja to study Business Administration.

The Smooth Criminals disbanded when its members left to various other universities. Subsequently Peter and Paul formed their own group, variously called “Double P”, “P&P”, and “Da Pees”, until they eventually settled on “P Square”.