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| Oritsejafor and wife |
In this interview with
Vanguard, CAN president Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor tells the story of how
his Canadian-made Bombardier jet was acquired.
"I’m not ashamed to own a plane, I think
it is a necessity and not a luxury for some of us deeply involved in
the work of God to own planes.
There is a huge gap between spirituality and actual faith in God.
There is the belief that the love of money has taken over Christendom,
rather than the preaching of undiluted gospel of salvation. Why do you
think there is a shift towards prosperity?
First of all, as somebody who has preached the gospel for 40 years, I
know that the gospel is a total package—it is for the spirit, mind and
body. What has happened through the years is that in every dispensation,
there is emphasis that becomes stronger than the others and such
emphasis does not reduce the format but add to the format.
For example, Martin Luther was the one who searched the scripture to
see how the Word of God could change the human being. But as time went
on, we started seeing the Baptists. The reason why we call them Baptists
is because the founder laid a lot of emphasis on water baptism; that is
why today they are being called Baptists, not because they don’t
believe that you need to accept Christ and be saved and go to heaven.
What happened was that the founder had a revelation and a very deep
understanding and conviction in the area of water baptism and he
emphasized that.
Again, today, when you give your life to Christ, there is a big
emphasis on salvation; that is accepting Christ and walking in the
knowledge of Christ. Now, the revelation is progressing; as that went
on, there are people who through inspiration and the study of the Word
have more understanding in the area of prosperity and so started
emphasizing on prosperity.
The problem is that there are those who preach and their whole
understanding is in the area of prosperity. I think that is not good. I
believe there should be a balance. I don’t believe you should not preach
prosperity, but I don’t think you should preach prosperity and neglect
the preaching of salvation, because we are still going to heaven at the
end of everything.
This world cannot be a permanent place. If you live very long,
according to scripture, probably you will live for 120 years but, at the
end of the day, you will still die and go, so where are you going? So
it is important to emphasize on salvation, knowing Christ and going to
heaven.
Now, what will eventually happen is that, with time, these things
will level out and those who place emphasis on prosperity will realize
that prosperity cannot be the main thing. The main thing must still be
holy living and going to heaven. So this is basically what is going to
happen.
I will say what I have always said that we must emphasize on the area
of living for God. That is why Nigeria has problem today. People who go
to church, especially those who, one way or the other, are privileged
to be in certain positions, forget the basic thing of God, which is the
fear of God and all they want is money, they forget about really serving
God.
They don’t take God to their work place, they don’t bring God to the
positions where God has put them, but I believe that, eventually, these
things will level out and the right thing will take its place.
For 40 years, you have been in the pulpit
preaching the gospel of God, during which there have been miracles,
touching lives and all that. But there are certain things that some
people don’t know about you and this has to do with your calling. How
did you get the divine call?
I have shared it so many times but I don’t mind repeating it because
it is the main thing about my life. My mother prayed to have a male
child. She told God that if He gave her a male child, she would give him
back to Him. That was my mother’s prayer at the First Baptist Church in
Lagos.
That was how she conceived and I was born. I didn’t know this prayer
and my mother forgot about the prayer just like any average human being
will do. So I grew up and went my own way and lived my own life and got
into a lot of vices, a lot of things that were not right. I have told
people that if there is any bad thing that anybody could do in this
world, I did it.
Can you elaborate on this?
(Laughs) Well, at my age and at my level in life, these are things
that we are not proud of and will not want to give these things
prominence, but I was into so many wrong things. I leave the rest to
your imagination. Yes, this was the life I lived.
However, I remember one day, I was walking along Marina in Lagos,
very sad, I couldn’t explain why. You know, when you live on the wrong
side of life for a while, that is how you feel. But even the worst
human beings you see today on the street, no matter how bad they look,
they still have soft spots.
That night, around 9.00 p.m., I was walking along Marina then,
Marina was Marina and not the one you have today. There have been a lot
of changes. Tears started rolling down my cheeks and I started praying,
well, should I really call it a prayer? It wasn’t a prayer as such.
I said, ‘God, if you are God, do something and change me, I cannot
continue with this kind of life’. Three months later, I came home, to
Sapele, because my mother was here and one night somebody gave me a
handbill inviting me to a crusade.
I just didn’t think I was one of those that should be invited to a
crusade because I wasn’t that kind. But I went to the crusade and I
heard the Word of God preached by the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa and
that turned around my life. For the first time, something touched me.
That was when I gave my life to Christ, and my life changed 360 degrees.
It is difficult to comprehend this because the, very next day, I
bought a Bible and began to preach. It was like I lost my mind, but I
think what must have happened was; remember my mother’s prayer many
years back. You may forget, but God doesn’t forget.
I think God just took what belonged to Him, because, the very next
day, I started to preach. I went to a market place, people gathered and I
started preaching. People gathered because they knew the person I was;
certainly, they had gathered to see a mad man but it turned out that I
was preaching the Word of God. The very next day, people came out and
gave their lives to Christ, and the rest is history.
The issue of succession in Pentecostal churches has gotten to a
worrisome dimension. Founders and their followers engage in crises on
who takes over when the leaders are out. The development sometimes leads
to physical fights and often breakaways as those who feel they
contributed to the growth of the churches insist the next persons in
leadership must either be the wives, children, brother or direct
relatives of the founders. What do you have to say about this?
I think there must never be a stereotype. I don’t believe that the
fact that the woman is married to a man therefore she has to take over. A
man can be a pastor and the wife may not have the call. We must come to
a place where we must believe and accept the fact that if you push a
woman into something that God did not call her, that ministry will
collapse.
It will die on its own. But the other side of the coin is that it
could be that the woman is also called. So if the woman is called, what
do you do? Do you say that because she is the founder’s wife, she should
not take her place? You can’t say that, that is why I say that there
must never be a stereotype.
It depends on the call, it depends on God’s hands upon who ever. So,
it could be the wife, it could be the son, it could be a brother in the
church, it could be one of the pastors, it could be a total stranger.
Sometimes, when we read the Bible, we don’t want to admit what we read
in the Bible because we already have a mindset.
When you read the Bible, you will discover some interesting things.
For example, when Jesus was here on earth, you would always conclude
that the leader of the disciples was Peter, because of certain
statements, certain things, but if you study very closely, you will find
out that Jesus never appointed anybody.
He never appointed anybody to take over from him. So, that is a big
point right there. Now, it is interesting that when you go to the book
of Acts and study it very closely, you will find out that the only time
we see an authentic leader of the church, you discover that the man that
became the leader was Jesus’ half brother.
That is a bit strange. You will find out that even Peter submitted
himself to James. I am not talking of the James that was one of the
disciples. I am talking about James that was one of Jesus’ brothers;
the same mother with Jesus. We know that Mary had other children, after
Jesus. One of those children was James and when Jesus was physically
alive, none of them believed in him.
They stayed away from him but, after he died, they accepted the
gospel that he preached and, interestingly, one of them, James, became
the head of the Church. The Bible tells us that at a point, when there
was a problem in the Church and there were two factions—one group was
the Peter group and the other group was the Paul group.
Now, there was a contention and it was over whether Christians should
accept Christ who was not a Jew. Should they circumcise themselves
and all that? One group said no and the other said yes. It became a very
big problem and it was James who stood up and said: “This is my
decision.
You must go to the Gentiles and tell them they don’t have to do this
and that. This is what they must do”. You see, that tells you vividly
who the leader was. So my point is this, that Peter accepted the
leadership of James; obviously, Peter was already a disciple before
James accepted Christ.
But he was humble enough to accept him as his leader. James did not
make himself a leader; obviously, they all agreed that he should be the
leader. That shows you the level of spirituality. If it is today, how
would you interpret it? You will definitely say that the brother of the
founder of the Church is now the leader of the Church.
There appears to be part-time and full-time pastors in the Church
today, a development that has necessitated people to give conflicting
reactions. Is it right to have part-time pastors in the service of God?
Look, I may say some things that are a bit different from what you
have known or what you may have heard. I say things because I am
convinced and you will have to find a way to digest it. Every Christian
is in full-time ministry. Any other job you are doing is the one that is
part-time.
If there was enough money, there would have been no need for one to
work because our full-time job is to be Christians and win others to
Christ. But a church must function and there are many things that must
happen—life must go on, people must eat and live; if your wife is
pregnant and goes to hospital, you have to pay the bills.
That is why 99 per cent of church members have jobs. If you study the
Bible very carefully, you may see something that will shock you. Are
you aware that Apostle Paul, everywhere he went to, to start a church,
got a job? In fact, he went as far as explaining why, so that the gospel
would not be abused or looked down upon; so that people will not think
that he was preaching this gospel because he wanted the people’s money.
He was a lawyer by profession, but wherever he went to and couldn’t
get a law job, he found something else to do and he was good at tent
making. So he would start a tent making business wherever he started a
church, he would go out to make tent, sell the tent and have enough
money to feed everybody that was with him, and he would take care of
himself and everything. So there is nothing wrong with a man who has a
job and he is preaching the gospel.
Nigerian pastors are accused of prospering while their congregants continue to suffer in poverty. What is your take on this?
Well, let me begin like this, this is a major issue, especially now
that I have just been presented with a gift of a jet. That makes it a
major issue. Let me say here that every pastor must be conscious of the
people he pastors. It is very important. I can tell you that as a pastor
for 40 years now, if you talk to people that are genuinely my members,
they will tell you the kind of pastor that am I.
If you watched me today, I was talking about a young man who has been
trying to go to a university for three years now. I didn’t know him
from Adam. One day, after a service here, one of my pastors brought him
to me. As soon as he saw me, he held my legs and began to cry! He showed
me all the papers, pleading that he had tried to gain admission to any
university here, it never worked.
So he finally got admission to study in Cyprus. I paid his school
fees, helped him with ticket and everything he needed, he’s gone. He has
since resumed school and is there in Cyprus now. How many people will
know that? In the last seven to eight years now, I have paid school fees of over 100 people in
different universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
Some of them have graduated and have come here to share their
testimonies, excitements and even their parents have come here to thank
us. I don’t know them from anywhere. Every December 26, I do a very big
thing here. We call it poverty alleviation.
This year, December 26, we will equally do it. Last December 26, I
gave out about six brand new cars to people; your denomination means
nothing. Whether you are a Muslim or a native doctor means nothing here.
What qualifies you is if you are a human being. I gave out 25
tricycles, about 100 sewing machines, and grinding machines.
Some of these people come here to give testimonies; some are now
married and have children. There was this young boy, a Moslem from
Auchi. This young man, nothing good was coming out of his life, he was
rejected, nobody wanted him and one of our pastors took him into a
teaching centre and he was sleeping in the teaching centre. They were
helping him. This boy had driver’s licence, I don’t know how he got
it. He had no job and couldn’t do anything.
Last two years, when we were doing the poverty alleviation, he
applied. And they brought out a name which happened to be this boy’s
and he won a brand new car. Today, that boy has rented his own house; in
fact, his parents who are Muslims came to church on a Sunday and
worshipped with me and danced all over the place and, after the service,
they came to me and thanked me, saying ‘oh, this boy that you don’t
even know from anywhere, you dashed him a car.’
They were very happy. Besides that, many lives have been transformed
here. We have changed many lives. We have an orphanage here. As we are
talking, an American couple has gotten in touch with me. They want to
adopt a child from our orphanage. We have a clinic here that hopefully
will develop into a full blown hospital. People go there and pay little
something for treatment, but generally on Sundays people are treated
free.
These are some of the things we do. Most people don’t know this and I
don’t think I am the only pastor doing this. So a lot of people who are
saying this against pastors are just being mischievous. They may have
their reasons, some of them are bitter about something and they are not
telling the full story about what is making them bitter.
But like I said, a good pastor must be concerned about his people. We
have buses that we use in carrying people. If I tell you some of the
things that we used to do, it will shock you. There is a woman in my
church, when she came to this church, she had probably two blouses and a
wrapper, no slippers, not even bathroom slippers.
She had never entered a classroom before. I didn’t even know her. She
is from one of these oil bearing communities. There was a time an oil
company in their community wanted to do business with them and she was
interested but had no money. She came to us for assistance. I don’t
think, at that time, she had ever seen N10,000 in her life.
So she went to our micro-finance bank, Mama (my wife) runs it without
salary, she and all our directors don’t earn one naira. She went to the
bank and said she wanted to borrow money. My wife asked her; `how much
do you have in your account’, and she said, I don’t even have an
account’.
My wife looked at her, and she called me about it and I said, `look,
leave me out of it’. We didn’t even have that kind of money at that
time. She asked the woman again, `how much do you have now and the woman
said N2,000′. She now advised her to use that money to open an account
and she did. Mama now went round to source for the amount.
The short story here is that she got the money, did her business and
in less than six months, she paid back the money she collected. As we
speak now, she is one of the richest women in Warri. She bought me an
incredible car that cost millions of naira some years ago.
Coming to the issue of jet, I had no single idea of how it came
about. It is true that people like us have gotten to a point where we
need to have means of movement that will help us. You may have heard me
speak about my trip to Indonesia, to Jakarta.
In fact, it wasn’t even Jakarta I was going to, but I had to stay
inside an airport in Jakarta for five hours to wait for my flight, to
get to the very city I was going. I was only going to preach for two
hours there. I flew from Lagos to Dubai and I spent over three hours,
changed flight to fly to Jakarta and then stayed five hours at the
airport just to catch a flight to where I was going to, where I was to
preach for just two hours.
And after everything, I got a flight from that place again to
Jakarta, stayed at the airport again for another five hours, then flew
into Dubai, stayed again at the airport for another three hours before I
flew into Lagos. It took me four days to make a journey to preach for
two hours. I’m a human being and I am not getting younger every day.
And locally, it is worse, for instance, the acting General Secretary
of CAN lost his father in a place outside Uyo, Akwa Ibom State and I had
to be there. I preached in a place in Lagos on a Friday and needed to
be back to Warri on a Saturday, but at the end of the day, the plane
that would have taken me was no where.
I had to charter a plane for N3.5 million to take me to Uyo, waited
for me to finish and then take me back to Warri. Two weeks ago, a young
pastor in Port Harcourt built a new church and had been on me all this
while to come and dedicate the church and suddenly from no where, there
was this flood that cut off the road to Port Harcourt.
There is no road now to Port Harcourt. If you want to go by road now,
it takes you up to 12 hours to get to Port Harcourt and I had to preach
in Port Harcourt, I had to preach in Lagos, I had to preach in Abuja
and other places. Finally, I was able to find my way to Port Harcourt,
it was on a Saturday.
I had to get to Warri that Saturday so as to be able to preach the
next day, Sunday. Do you know what I had to finally do? I chartered a
helicopter that cost me N2 million to drop me in Warri. When they
dropped me here, ah, I can’t tell you how I felt that I had to part with
that sum. But I had promised the young man and the church and if I had
said no, will it be right? I can go on and on and on.
So, sometimes, my schedule is so complicated. Now, with this plane,
it changes everything about my movements. Now, I can move, I can even go
and come back home. It is a bit more convenient for me and I suspect
that this is one of the reasons a lot of these other preachers have
planes.
Does your congregation understand all these engagements?
They do. They feel the pain I go through and they feel painful for
not seeing me most of the time. They don’t like it, they are troubled. I
know some people buy planes, I can’t buy plane. I can’t afford it. I
don’t have that kind of money, I still don’t know the people that bought
this plane, but I know that there is a committee.
I hope you will get to meet with some of the people in that
committee, I don’t know them. My wife is more involved with them. She
(my wife) never talked to me, (about it) and she was acting strange.
Well, I don’t want to get involved in this. This is my story about the
plane. And I’m not ashamed to own a plane, I think it is a necessity and
not a luxury for some of us deeply involved in the work of God to own
planes.
Culled from Vanguard
