Following the spate of terrorist attacks in the North-East, what is ECWA doing to protect its churches, more so that you have so many churches in the North?
This has had a telling effect on our churches in the North-East and we are weathering the storm by holding on to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. For us, terrorism is another form persecution, and I hope that we remember that Boko Haram came out very plainly that their target was Christians, even though some people have tried to chisel the statement for them by changing the statement and the focus, to say their target is everybody. Initially, their target was the church and law enforcement agencies, because they wanted to Islamise Nigeria and they see the church as the only roadblock to achieve this. For them to attack the church, law enforcement agents will come after them, so the security agencies too need to be attacked to achieve their aim. But thereafter, anybody who became sympathetic to victims of the attack was also attacked. For us, we see it as persecution, and good enough, this has not made our people run away from the faith. Rather it has strengthened our members to know that it is a blessing for them to suffer for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have tried to mitigate the effects the crisis has caused our members by providing relief materials and also by providing some form of trauma counselling services to pastors and members, who are traumatised. These are what we are doing and we hope to do more.
One of the basic problems hindering the growth of Nigeria is corruption. What ways can the church complement the efforts of government in fighting corruption?
So many ways, but one of the commonest ways is to use our pulpits to teach our people that corruption itself is a sin and the church exists primarily to denounce sin in the society and to foster righteousness among the people. We must be able to teach our people that corruption is sinful in the eyes of God and encourage them to be contented with what they have. The main issue is that people are not always satisfied, but we must know and realise that as we move on in life, it is expected that some persons would be at the top and others would be behind. So, we must learn to be satisfied with what we have and shun rivalry and unnecessary competition. God has given us various positions and endowments and it is left for us to use such for the benefit of mankind. The church should also be able to hold duty-bearers accountable for the way they expend public funds. We must be able to call people to account, especially public service holders.
Bingham Teaching Hospital and Bingham University, both owned by ECWA, seem to be experiencing teething problems which are affecting their smooth operations. What is ECWA doing to address these problems?
We haven’t run a university before, and our university is just ten years old. If you go to the Bingham University campus today, with our background as a church, I am sure that you will be impressed that we have come a long way in the past ten years. However, there are teething problems, such as problems of management, financing as well as structural problems. Just of recent, we set up a panel that visited the university as required by law, and the panel has submitted its report which is being worked on and a white paper will soon be out. We have also taken time to X-ray the problems of the university and teaching hospital and we will soon come up with very decisive steps, which I am not allow to say here because we are waiting for the white paper to be ready and it will be made public as much as possible. But I can assure you that we are committed in running one of the best universities in the country. We are also committed to give first class healthcare in our teaching hospital. People must also know that a university is not all a profit-making venture as we have discovered; for us, we are providing community service. We are on top of the situation and by the grace of God, within the next few months, the narrative of our university and teaching hospital will change. It has started changing by the way.
ECWA has a four-point agenda. What is the church doing to achieve these and what is the drive behind the agenda?
One is connecting ECWA to ECWA, connecting ECWA to the world and connecting ECWA to God and mobilising resources to support the core goal of ECWA. Maybe the question should be ‘what have we achieved in the past five years?’ By the grace of God, God has helped us. Connecting ECWA to ECWA is the spiritual aspect of the church. In other words, we are tailoring our programmes strategically and drawing our members close to God in their daily walk with Him and we’re trying to see how spirituality can be promoted among our members. That is what connecting ECWA to God means – trying to promote synergy among ourselves, to see that the church is a family of believers and be able to understand what we are doing and promoting healthy relationship among members. Then, connecting ECWA to the society is opening ourselves, meaning, we are not the only ones going to heaven, neither are we the only children of God. So, we work on affecting the society positively for the kingdom of God.
Christianity in the North is marginalised; there are some states that have disrespectfully put us in the same category of brothels and other such houses when they write those affected by prohibition as it relates to Certificate of Occupancy. We think it is disrespectful to put us in the same category with such people. The church is the property of God and I think we should be given more respect.
and then