Reverend Victor Adebayo Adeyemi, the founder and senior pastor of Global Harvest Churches in Nigeria and abroad, in this interview, speaks on religious and national issues. Excerpts:
YOU have been in the ministry for more than 30 years. What are some challenges you have faced?
Apart from the general challenges of life of the growth and any development of any career or ministry endeavours, the hostile environment in Nigeria is one of the major challenges in the ministry for me today. Why? People are very religious. I see an increasing hostility, suspicion and bias from a section of the society. Perceiving particularly Pentecostal ministry in bad light, certainly will shut many minds and hearts far away from us but despite all of that, God is still giving us all the victory over all the challenges. Apart from that, doing ministry in Nigeria faces similar challenges that other endeavours face, like poor infrastructure which is a strong limiting factor to the development of any endeavour. Even evangelism is, at times, hindered by that poor infrastructure but there is always hope that with the quality of people that live in this country, Nigeria has all it takes in terms of potential – human, material and otherwise – to pull out of the doldrums and make progress as a nation.
Despite the proliferation of churches, moral decadence is on the increase in our society. What do you think is the problem is?
I think the moral decadence in the society is due to two things. First of all, I will not totally absorb ministers or ministries from our own contribution to the problem. In the sense that, when I was a young Christian, there was a very strong emphasis on the born again experience, leading to life transformation, particularly character and behavioural change, but at the same time, Nigeria was not as difficult as it is today. Seeing a nation go from bad to worse in terms of per capital income; seeing poverty on the increase; seeing life expectancy grossly reduced and in the midst of all these challenges, the need to address these issues is popularised by prosperity messages to the detriment of focus on individual transformation to become better citizens of this country. So, I believe to a degree that, that has not led to as much transformation as we ought to see in the character of our people but be that as it may, not everybody is a born again Christian, so to speak. This does not take its root from the church; it takes root from homes in Nigeria. There has been a lot of decadence in terms of our moral values. Our nation is no longer a nation that celebrates the good character that the Yorubas will call the Omoluabi concept that was very much celebrated in my childhood. Right now, we celebrate money, fame, popularity, power and that in itself has really led to a lot of decadence in our country. Corruption is now the order of the day. Corruption is not what our governors do; it is something the average Nigerian does. Those who go into power and do this thing are only reflection of a larger society. Nigeria has a long way to go in redeeming herself from this moral decline.
There have been concerns that some pastors found churches as business ventures. What is your take on this?
What I have noticed is that the general Nigerian problem and factor has affected how ministry is done, in the sense that this thing is a question of motive. I am in the ministry today because I have a calling of God. I had my ambition to be a lawyer and a politician. The call of God came upon my life and He redirected me. If money is the purpose of my life, I don’t need to go into the ministry to look for money. Before I got born again, I was planning to be one of them who would have the opportunity of taking my own share of the national cake. Being in the ministry for me is a commitment I had to make to the Lord with a sense of sacrifice. I may not have the kind of money I intend to have, but it is a greater ideal to look forward to spending the rest of my life saving souls and helping people find the purpose of God for their lives and also becoming better citizens of this country. For me, however, I will say it is true that some people do have a wrong motive of starting churches. We have seen all sorts of name given to different ministries on the internet and you can just tell the motive behind it is to make money. What I will say to that is that it is wrong and God would certainly judge such people because the ministry is about service and the church of God is not meant to be a business venture.
What is your take on the recent proposal on retirement for clerics and tenured positions for church leaders?
My take is that it is a gross abuse of executive power. It was an attempt to stifle the church of Jesus Christ. It also demonstrated gross ignorance of Christian ministry. I am saying this because my understanding of my calling is that it is a life calling. It is something God has asked me to do for life and if God has asked me to do it for life, why remove me because I have done it for 20 years? I will give you an example; I am the founder and senior pastor of Global Harvest Church. It was founded in Ibadan on September 30, 1995. I have therefore pastored and been general overseer of the church now for over 21 years, but I am less than 50 years old and you are asking me to retire as the general overseer? This is the calling of God in my life. God called me not just to pastor one church, but to oversee a ministry and it’s a lifetime calling. At my age, there are many years ahead of me and you are asking me to retire. That does not make any sense whatsoever. I am possibly still the most relevant manpower for the position of the leadership of the ministry in our young organisation. I understand that some institutions have existed for over 100 years and the institutions are so big and so strong that they can have rotational leadership but our own church, relative to such, is at its infancy and at such infancy, the role of the founder is very crucial to the survival of the infant church. Therefore, I believe that the FRC was overstepping it bounds in doing so and I was in support of those that had already gone to court to challenge that position. Thank God that better judgment superseded that decision and the government suspended that particular cause of the decision. Be that as it may, I must say that there is some positive intention towards what the FRC wanted to do. It wanted to see that there is greater accountability in the church system and trust me, I look at pentecostalism in Nigeria and I see a section of pentecostalism not really concerned about proper accountability. A church is not a private business, and even if it is a private business, at least you’re expected to file your financial returns with the government every year. Churches are not filing their financial returns to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CPC) and the like. The FRC should ensure that there is more accountability, being a public institution, so to speak, that accountability should be there.
It is almost two years since President Muhammadu Buhari, took over the leadership of Nigeria. What is your advice for him?
I believe that the first thing that Nigeria needs now is a clear vision. President Buhari should give the country a well-articulated vision of where the country should go. Personally, I believe that leadership is about transformation; it is about change and advancement. The president of a nation must be able to paint a vivid picture of development for the nation. In capturing this vision in his own mind, he has the responsibility of communicating same very clearly to us. Secondly, I believe that he is not doing well as he did in the fight against corruption the first time he ruled the country. I am saying so, because it was not just a matter of jailing the corrupt; it was just a matter of bringing the corrupt to justice. There was also this massive campaign against corruption in the media. These were the days when there was no social media. All there was in those days were television, radio, and posters that they could use around the country and it was a massive campaign. War Against Indiscipline (WAI) was the slogan of their campaign then and it was known all over the country. Now, where is that other complimentary national reorientation programme that will complement what they are doing up there. It looks to me like the government of President Buhari is just trying to make it difficult for people to steal money and also trying to get as much money from corrupt politicians as possible; they are not looking at the whole nation. This thing is already cultured and endemic in Nigerians. There must be reintroduction or restructuring of civic education in our schools from primary through secondary and up to the higher institutions. Something ought to be injected into our education system that will train the Nigerian mind to think differently from the way he is thinking right now.
and then