General Overseer, Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria, Reverend Samuel Aboyeji, in this interview with Remilekun David speaks about national issues and the church’s national convention.
At a time like this when there is economic turmoil and fear over insecurity, we see some so-called men of God who take advantage of the people. What is your advice to the people?
My advice is one, people should watch out for such people they are fake. Bible is very clear, it says test every spirit to know whether they are of God so people need to be watchful. There are instances in the bible by which you can know fake people. Jesus himself said it, by their fruits we shall know them so we should watch their fruit , we should watch their conduct, we should watch their character and be able to determine whether they are genuine ministers of God or they are fake. If they are fake you should run, that will be my counsel . And to people who are doing such thing, I also counsel them to go and look for work to do they should stop faking around they should go and look for real work and sort it out to meet their needs.
Nigeria is going to the polls next year. What is your counsel for the people?
Well it is a very critical time for Nigerians, very dicey. What I believe is that people should not mortgage their future like they’ve always done. Somebody was giving me an example, he said “some people will say they are promising them fifty thousand naira, they just collect the fifty thousand naira, they said ha se bi I can collect the fifty thousand naira and not vote for them.” But that may not be correct because some people collect the fifty thousand when they get to the polling booth their agent there will be monitoring you whether you have voted for them or not. So people should just be bold to take the right decision when it comes to voting. They should vote their conscience. Like somebody put it, they should vote out those who are not doing well. They should look for competence, they should look for character in whoever they are voting, they should vote for persons and not for party this time and I know it would make the difference.
We often hear people who try to bring religion into politics. What is your view on this?
You see there is no reason why we should be agitated about religion in politics but because of lack of trust, because of what has happened in the past even in the immediate past. The outgoing administration, if you look at all the key positions they are given to Muslims whereas this country is a secular nation. Secondly, our constitution has inside it Sharia and it is supposed to be a secular nation what is sharia doing inside our constitution as a secular nation. So, there are so many grounds for suspicion, too many grounds for suspicions, the lady in the College in Sokoto, what did she do that they burnt her alive, the signs of religious violence are so obvious that nobody wants to be caught unawares. That’s why Christians, in particular Christians in the North, are campaigning against the Muslim-Muslim ticket because they are going to be the worst hit by it if it comes to pass because they are surrounded by Muslims. The other day one of our sisters in the North in a place as popular as Abuja she was preaching with a mega phone and she was killed. So, there are so many signs of religious intolerance that gravitate towards lack of trust, lack of religious freedom. That is why people are very, very concerned when you are talking about Muslim-Muslim ticket. Otherwise, ordinarily what would religion be looking for in politics. I just came back from Gambia a few days ago. I was in the street of their state capital and then you cannot know that they are a Muslim country because in their State Capital we were holding crusades and that is a country that is largely Islamic. But in our own country, I do not know whether it is a different kind of religious people that we have, even without Muslim-Muslim ticket all the important positions have gone one sided that is even when you have a pastor and a professor as vice president. So when you now have a Muslim-Muslim ticket what will happen, which position will they give Christians? Will they give them anything? So, the ground for suspicion, the ground for lack of trust is already there you don’t need to look for it, it is too glaring. That is the point.
What informed the theme of this year’s convention, Encounter with the Supernatural?
If you look at the way the situation of things are, you would discover that we need a turning point, we need a point of remarkable change in our environment in our life, that point of remarkable change and difference is Supernatural Encounter, throughout the bible anybody that encounters supernatural automatically experiences a turnaround change and that is what I think we need at this time. Looking at our situation as a nation which has impacted on families, impacted on individuals, we need a definite change from the past, definite change from what is going on now and the only solution to that, the only thing that can guaranty that change is an Encounter with the Supernatural.
You have invited a number of guest ministers. Is there any particular reason for your choice of ministers?
Well to join me we have Bishop Francis Wale Oke, National President, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, we also have Dr. Paul Enenche, senior pastor, Dunamis International Gospel Centre Abuja, they will be ministering because they are both agents of change. The bible says when Phillip entered Samaria by the time he had finished, the whole city was full of joy, we believe that these are agents of change and along with myself and other ministers, God is going to use us to cause his people to have an encounter that would bring definite change into their lives.
Who are the target audience of the convention?
It is for everybody. The word of definite change, the word of encounter is for everybody, those who have never encountered the Lord at all before in their lives, it is for them. There is always a first time of an encounter with God and more importantly encounter is a continuous thing not a one time experience. Somebody like Jacob, for instance, had a total of five encounters; somebody like Paul had a total of three that were recorded in the bible. So, there are people who have had one encounter or the other of God before, they are also invited to come and have another encounter with God. And there are people who have never had any encounter with the Lord they are also being invited so that they can, like Saul, also have their first encounter. You know when Saul had his first encounter it made him blind for three days before he was now given a sight by Ananias and he gave his life to Lord. Those who are already believers who will need another encounter that will take them to the next level and those who had never encountered the Lord before at all, who are thirsty for God, who want a definite change in their lives they can also come.
What should be the expectations of those coming for the convention?
They should expect to meet God, they should not expect to meet humans because only God can bring about the supernatural. So, no human can bring about the supernatural, the ministers that are going to be used, apart from the three of us, there are other people who are going to minister either in songs, or minister in word, everyone of us is an agent of change that would be used by the Supernatural himself. God is going to be there and everyone that attends will have an encounter with him and experience a definite change in their lives and in their situation.
Churches expend huge sums of money to organize conventions every year. What do churches stand to gain?
Well, number one you know churches are generally commissioned by the Lord; Mathew 28: 18-20, so conventions are an avenue to reach out to people with the gospel, some would be at the venue, some would be online, some would be watching live on television wherever they are they are being reached with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peradventure, some of them will have their very first encounter with the Lord that will result in a change of their life and their situation that is the principal reason that these conventions are held. Another reason is to edify those who are already Christians to build them up, you know some wouild have their need that they have been looking up unto God for several years met at that convention just like Hannah went to Shiloh. Shiloh was like a convention that Hannah went to. She was going every year but that particular year at Shiloh, God met her at the point of her needs. Conventions are also like Shiloh where God’s people can go because for every encounter that I discover in the bible there is always a place, so this convention is a place of encounter and in the place of encounter people’s lives do change, people have their miracles, people have their needs met, people have their testimonies.
The third reason why we hold convention, of course a church like ours it is statutory by our constitution, we are a church that is highly organized and transparent in our operations we are maybe one of the very few churches in Nigeria who conduct annual convention, who conduct our business meetings, make our audited accounts available. So convention, by our constitution, is required for you to be able to present what you have done for the year, those are the three principal reasons.
Is the investment of time, money and other resources worth the result?
Yes it is. Number one, accountability is good because if you don’t know where you are coming from you won’t know where you are going and you won’t know how far you have gone. Like somebody, said for a man that has no destination anywhere you drop him is okay. So, convention provides an opportunity for us to assess how far we have gone this year; these are the things we planned, are we able to achieve them. Then we look at our spiritual report compared to last year, are we doing better or we are performing worse? It is an opportunity for an evaluation, an opportunity for assessment, it is also an opportunity for people coming from all over the country to fellowship together. Some wouldn’t have seen themselves since the last ICML or last convention a year ago they were only talking on phone, so it is an opportunity to also meet with them.
I know our church is also large, even within Lagos, people are in various branches. So convention provides opportunity for all of us to come together as members of the Foursquare family to come and fellowship together.
How can we have a stronger, more prosperous and more cohesive Nigeria?
For that one number one thing we need to fight is corruption. The bible says that because judgement against evil is not executed speedily therefore the hearts of the sons of men are set in them to do evil continually. That is what the scripture says, that is the situation we are. We are hearing of billions being stolen what has been done to them? Nothing.
I remember long ago, it was the first time of Buhari’s coming, when they caught somebody with cocaine and they said from now the penalty for cocaine was execution and they executed the person and everybody ran away. We are fulfilling that scripture that says since judgement against evil is not executed speedily that is why the heart of men in Nigeria is set to do evil, there is not enough consequences for doing evil in Nigeria. In fact, there is none so that is our principal problem because bible says only righteousness exalts a nation, sin is a reproach. I usually say something, even a thief when he sets up a business he doesn’t look for a thief to manage it, he will go and look for a faithful man because he doesn’t want the business to be stolen the way he stole. Look at crude oil, for the first time in our history I have never heard it before that the price of oil would be high and our economy would be bad, this is the first time it has never happened. What we used to be afraid of is the price of oil that we pray let the price of oil be going up in the world market because the moment it comes down we are in trouble, this time around the price of oil is selling above one hundred dollars, yet we are in penury. Why? Because some people are busy stealing the oil and some people are looking away as if they don’t know. How can somebody go and set up pipeline to be stealing crude oil, is it a pin? Is pipeline a pin that they would say they didn’t see it? So, that is the main problem that we need to tackle. When we tackle that people will know that there is no easy money. A lot of people don’t even have it in mind to work hard, they think that if you work hard you are punishing yourself because they are looking for short cuts, that is why they go and do yahoo, kidnap somebody, because they are looking for short cuts, nobody wants to work hard because they know that when you take short cuts even when you are caught nothing happens so they can take the risk. The only thing that serves as deterrent to people from doing those things is when they see that judgement against such evil activities are being executed speedily then they would be afraid because to start with even he doesn’t want to die, so when he knows that there is death attached to it he would go and look for other things to do. So it is only after we have sorted that out we can now be talking about production but any production we are talking about now we are producing for people to cart away so we must block all those loop holes.
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