Dr Iruofagha Solomon James, the founding Pastor of Glory Christian Ministries, Lagos State, shares his views with QUDUS KASALI on insecurity in the nation, whether pastoral offices should be tenured and the church’s forthcoming 25th anniversary. Excerpts:
Brief about background
I am from Bayelsa State. With my parents, I grew up from one fishing pond to the other until the discovery of oil wiped out our way of life. I am one of those ordinary people who now live away from those places because of God’s call to go and fish for souls.
How were you called into ministry?
I became a Christian in my final year in the university. Immediately after the expiration of my mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 1985, I came back to Lagos and that was how the ministry was established. It was God’s call that changed all of that. I knew God’s call upon my life very early in my Christian life. I gave my life to Christ prior to my service year but the call became clearer during that time. In those days, the knowledge and the call of God was not as it is today. In those days, when you talk about the call of God, it was not something you would want to accept or jump into very easily. Being the only graduate in my family and to say you would serve God as a pastor was not an easy choice. Precisely, it was during my youth service that the Lord told me teaching the word of God would form a major part of my call. It is what I like doing, as I had been a Bible teacher. Telling your people that you were going into ministry fulltime was viewed like a curse in those days. It was pretty difficult for me but it was clear that was what God had called me to do and I was willing to do it. From the first day till the last day of the month of August 1985, I kept myself locked up seeking God’s face; fighting with God because I did not want to accept the call. Of course in 1985, by the time I came out, two major events had unfolded in the history of Nigeria. I think it was the Babangida era or a coup had taken place and we had a new Head of State. The second event I vividly recall was when some young lads from Nigeria went to China and won the first Youth World Cup. I knew very well how I struggled when I was away with the Lord for that one month. The truth is when God has called you to do something, you cannot win over Him. That was how I accepted the call.
The reactions from clerics, on the suspended FRC policy, focus on the impression that churches don’t want to be regulated. What is your take on this?
Personally, I am not against the church being accountable. Ours is a charitable organisation. In a country, where there is government, we should be accountable. Anybody, who does not want, may have some reasons best known to him. I don’t have anything against being accountable. First and foremost, you should be accountable to the people you minister to, and then to the government. As a matter of fact, if you have nothing to hide, why should you worry? I have no problem with accountability.
Do you think government should determine the tenure of general overseers?
In every call, there is that divine aspect. For every call of a man of God, the government does not have the power to legislate over. It is a call that abides with the rest of your life. So, why should you put a time limit on the call of your life? I don’t think it is obtainable in other climes because across the world, ministers live their lives until they die. So, in that area, I don’t think government should put a time limit. But, in terms of administrative office, that is offices recognised by law, I think they may have a point.
How would you react to the claims by some church leaders that there are plans to Islamise the country?
This recent development is absolutely disheartening. Yes, the crisis in southern Kaduna is sad because it is purposeless. Boko Haram is a kind of a devilish uprising of a particular extremist group in another religion wanting to see the end of the people in the other religion. These are unguarded elements and it is unfortunate that such groups exist. The country, inadvertently, directly or indirectly, has created that kind of generation, where uninformed people that were left uncared for, have risen up ignorantly to act that way and, unfortunately, a lot of innocent lives have been lost due to that. Although the present administration has stated that they have more or less conquered insurgency, unfortunately, very recently, there was still an explosion.
Regarding the Fulani herdsmen, I don’t know what the violence is supposed to represent. And why is it difficult for the government to stop such people? I know that whatever is making one group of people to exterminate the other group is satanic, and an indictment on the government for acting so slowly. It is after hundreds have been killed that they become alive to their responsibility.
The greatest problem facing the country is the non-existence of governance. This is what is killing people rather than the menace of herdsmen or insurgency. We can have people who pretend to be in governance but are not. If you have a country where people get away with criminal activities, then do we have a government? We don’t. Laws are being broken left, right and centre and people’s lives are being lost.
What does 25 years mean in the life of your ministry?
It will be exactly 25 years on March 8, when the ministry was inaugurated and in the course of the years, we have been able to make little strides, not as much as we would have wanted. But we are grateful for what God has been able to do through us.
Ours is a business of life transformation, not building monuments and cathedrals. The Bible says ‘what shall a man gains if he owns the whole world and loses his soul?’ This means that God equates one’s soul as far higher than the riches of this world. If it’s only one soul we are able to affect within the 25 years and it is in tandem with God’s perspective, it is worth celebrating. We really want to thank God for what he has done through us in the past 25 years and for that purpose, we are designing and factoring this celebration in a very unique way, unlike any anniversary we have celebrated.
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