In life/governance, prayer is not the master key —Revd Afe

Senior Pastor of House of Faith Christian Centre in Ado-Ekiti, Reverend Tunde Afe, has expressed his intention to contest in the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State on the platform of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP). The cleric, who is also a farmer and life coach, speaks with SAM NWAOKO on why he wants to be governor.

Graduating from a contest to represent Ikole Constituency II in the House of Assembly to vying for the governorship, as a cleric, did God tell you to run, as we’ve heard from many clerics? What’s your story?

Every child of God must be led by God and there are various ways that you are led by God. But the primary way that we should be led by God is from His word because the word of God is the voice of God. However, there are specific situations that God will have to speak to you, maybe in your heart. But then, there is also a way that God leads people. For example, when you see something that is wrong, merely seeing that thing that is wrong, I believe, that is God leading you to solve that problem.

What’s your plan for the state in concrete terms? What do you intend to do differently, considering the fact that, for instance, in one political party alone, 34 aspirants have indicated interest in the same position. What stands you out?

The problem of Ekiti is very simple and does not require a complex solution. Firstly, we are going to ensure that whatever comes to Ekiti from the federal allocation is judiciously used. When that is done, you will discover that we will do a lot for the people. Secondly, we are going to ensure that we cut a lot of waste. Also, we want to look seriously into how Ekiti State can improve its internally-generated revenue. Ekiti is blessed. There are a lot of natural resources here that previous governments have not tapped into. An example is the Ikogosi warm spring, one of the only two in the world. There used to be a zoological garden there and I’m aware that some parents who live in Ekiti take their children to as far as Ibadan just to see some animals. We also intend to immediately construct a golf course that is of international standard.

I don’t have a seven-point agenda; I have just two. And the two are: economic prosperity and security. We are going to create economic prosperity for the people of Ekiti. One thing that drives the party I belong to is “Abundance;” to make sure abundance comes to Ekiti because the resources are here. The economic prosperity will be driven by what we call TEAM. T for Tourism; E for Education and Technology; A for Agriculture, and M for Mineral resources, particularly solid mineral resources. For instance in agriculture, I can talk about agriculture because I’m a farmer. We know what to do to generate about 50 per cent of our IGR through agriculture. We have in the pipeline the plan to ensure that every local government has at least 2,000 hectares of farmland specially designed for the teeming young population in Ekiti State. If this is well executed, it has the capacity to generate 3,200 SMEs, that is, agriculture entrepreneurs. If you look at each person who needs 10 hectares of land and you have 10 people working on 10 hectares of land, you have 32,000 unskilled jobs from 2000 hectares of land in each of the local governments. If we are consistent with this, before you know what is happening, unemployment, particularly among the youth, would almost be eradicated in the state.

Looking at education, we are going to ensure that teachers in our primary and secondary schools are well motivated. We are not going to sack anybody because they didn’t just get there overnight. It took a process. We are going to ensure that no teacher is owed salaries.  We are going to ensure that our teachers go for trainings. We’ll also make sure we make education free. It’s been done before; we will do it again. That time, Nigeria was not this rich. We will also offer scholarships to indigent students, who are brilliant. We are going to spend a lot on education.

On health, we discovered that Afe Babalola University just opened a teaching hospital, and it’s one of the best in Africa. That’s one individual. Then, what stops a state from also doing that? We are going to ensure that the teaching hospital of our university can compete favourably with any teaching hospital in the world.

The second of our two-point agenda is security. Security is two-fold: Physical security, which would be facilitated by encouraging all our security organisations to ensure that, within the space of two years, a lot of people who belong to our security outfits would be willing to work here because of the motivation we will provide; the second is economic and social security. We are going to ensure that salaries are paid as and when due. We are going to make the state conducive for people to establish businesses. For instance, without electricity, people cannot invest. So, we are going to look at other sources of power to support what BEDC is doing. These are some of the things we have put on paper as plans we would execute and we know that there would be the need to adjust and expand these plans. I also know that people would say it’s easy to talk. I know that but the truth of the matter is that it is easy to make life easy for the people.

Your governorship vision is clear, but you also have your primary calling, which is evangelism. You are the lead pastor of a church and you have now added an equally consuming responsibility of rescuing the state, as you have said. Isn’t one going to affect the other?

There won’t be clash, because we have other pastors that we have trained and raised over time. We have a very effective structure in place. For example, I’ve not been around for some time but the church has not closed down. That’s because of the structures that we have put in place.  I don’t really see how one will affect the other. As a matter of fact, the two assignments will complement each other.

You once said that ‘we have prayed and we have fasted and it’s now time for action.’ Do you still hold that conviction?

Definitely. A lot of people have said that prayer is the master key. But prayer is not the master key. Prayer is one of the master keys. Prayer alone does not get things done with God; that’s the truth. For example, you are asking God to give you money and the Word of God makes us realise that once we pray, He answers us. Then you sit back in your house, waiting for money to drop on your laps. You are not likely to ever get the money. If you ask God for money, God has answered your prayers. It is now your responsibility to take steps on how the money will come. I’ve seen with believers in this country is that a lot of us are afraid of stepping into politics. They think that politics is bad. But politics is not bad. It is those who play politics that determine the kind of character that politics takes upon itself. If politics is played by good people, then politics is good.