Having managed a mega church like this for 20 years, what would you regard as the recipe for the successes recorded? You are starting a new journey too as a church. What are your plans?
There is no recipe as such but first we must know that the church doesn’t belong to anyone but God. Anyone who has been called to minister to God’s people on His behalf must always take directive from the owner—God. Whatever may be the achievements these 20 years we must go back to the owner. That is why Psalm 115 verse 1 is the theme if the anniversary. To God alone be glory given. Whatever you see, glory to God who has made it possible. Though God is not visible, His church is visible. Reality is another thing. As a religious leader, you must know God’s mind for His church and its mission is in Romans chapter 10. He wants to reconcile His people back to Himself. He has sent us to go and make disciples of all nations. In doing that, there are different shades of people in the church. A good leader must be neutral. You must not align yourself with a sector of the church. You have to see everyone—old or young, rich or poor—as God’s children. You must treat them equally. You must give pastoral care to everyone. But you can’t but step on toes. When you know you are doing the will of God, you do not mind. It is not a crowd that I want to take to God; I want to take Christians to God. We must continue to be open.
Looking forward, the word Ebenezer in the Hebrew, it means if truly this God has helped us to this point. He will still continue to do so. We have visions and plans and we are confident that God will continue to lead us higher. We must continue with the best that we have.
At the core of your success is good leadership but such is not the Nigerian case. Are we cursed with bad leadership?
I won’t say that. If you say we are cursed, it means that God must have cursed us. That is not so. It is the handiwork of you and me. Every sector is corrupt. We must use what we have to build our country. We have been telling our people not to depend on what these politicians will bring to entice them. We have told them to vote for individuals and not parties. Look at the people you know that are genuine. We have the power to choose through our votes.
Recently Nigeria was adjudged the poverty capital of the world. How did we get here and what should be done to ensure we leave such ranking?
Greed led us here. Many Nigerians want to be rich without working for it. I am not saying that you cannot be rich but you have to labour to get there. Riches do not come free. We have in our heads this national cake that should be shared. National cake is not expected to be shared. It should be used to develop a lot of things that will be beneficial to the people. Unfortunately it is being shared. The people who have access to it are guilty of this. There are people who have billions in its raw form stashed away. Where did they get this money from? The society has lost its value. We worship those we believe have money. We don’t want to know the source of their wealth. Once they have it, we worship them. We give them honorific titles; we give them honorary doctorate degrees. If you are clever with it, go ahead. This should not be. The only way out is if every Nigerian can make a right about turn. Unless we do that, it will continue.
We must stop recycling this people. But some people are bent on doing this. Only a few is insisting that we do the right thing.
Do you find the stand of the various governors tenable when they argue that they are unable to increase the minimum wage from N18, 000 to N30, 000 as canvassed by organised labour?
I don’t. Can any governor tell me today that they have not been receiving all their salaries, emoluments? Can any of them tell me that their security votes (which is not subject auditing) do not get paid as at when due? They claim they can spend it at their discretion. Look at the paltry amount paid to workers. One of the governors told me that just to make sure that he satisfies many people, he had to employ many of them. One of his employees only receives the governor’s mail. After that, another aide’s duty is to open the mail. It is not tenable.
The people who work should be better for it. We are paying taxes but we have nothing to show for it. We are forced to augment government security agencies by employing at our level local security outfits. Do they use our taxes for the purpose for which they are intended? The problem has been management.
Do you believe that the Federal Government is doing enough to ensure security across the country considering the killings in many parts of our nation?
A tree does not make a forest. The president may have a good heart; he may really believe that he wants to fight corruption, but the tools he would use are those surrounding him. What if those around him do not have the mind as he does to fight corruption as he desires? If you know how much has been spent in fight against Boko Haram, you will be amazed. Billions of Naira! Rather than buy good equipment, they get whatever is inferior and give to these soldiers. They keep the rest of the money. The president is not the purchasing officer. The rumour doing the round is that the armed forces are corrupt.
Do you subscribe to the clamour that the service chiefs get replaced?
Yes. I do. But who are you going to replace them with? Do we have people who will come on board to do the right thing? That is the problem that we are having. It has been a major challenge for the Federal Government to fund our universities. Look at the federal and state universities. Unfortunately now they are pushing to establish an army university, naval university, and so on. What about the defence academy? Why is that one there? Why can’t you upgrade that? How many people who attend the army university being pushed to be created when the existing ones are underfunded? This is another way to waste money. We must stop all these if we are ready to fight corruption. Buhari went out there and said we have secured a lot of places affected by Boko Haram. But that is not true. Until we face all these squarely and take out religion from politics we will not make the needed progress. That again is affecting our lives in Nigeria.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) is fielding incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has former vice president, Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate. There are many other political parties around but in the mind of the averaWWWge Nigeria, there are just two parties—the APC and the PDP. Do you find either Buhari or Atiku having the right credentials to make the country great?
Without mincing words, no. I don’t think Buhari or Atiku has anything to offer. When Atiku was vice-president for eight years, what did he achieve? We remember the things that happened when he was at the customs service. Was it a straight man there? The Halliburton scandal in Texas is still there. Was he not involved? Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo calling himself his godfather, that man is morally bankrupt. Obasanjo should never say he is the Leader of the Yoruba people. He is a disgrace to us. We have been telling our people that we have other presidential candidates and that they should forget the PDP or APC. These two parties cannot offer Nigerians anything. The people crossing from PDP to APC are the same people. They have nothing to offer.
I have been trying to sensitise people to forget the PDP and APC and whoever they are fielding. People should look at other parties. We have credible people in other parties that can be voted for. If there will be free and fair elections, if rigging is not allowed, I think that with the sensitisation that I have been involved in, the right people will come in. As we are doing it here, it is being done everywhere. We do not have a saviour in either the PDP or APC. If it is hot at this level, why go to the next level? That will mean that we are done. Is it a next level of more poverty?
and then