•Bishop Oke
National President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, and presiding Bishop of Sword of the Spirit Ministries, Bishop Wale Oke, speaks about the security challenges facing the nation, what President Bola Tinubu should do to tackle killings and kidnappings, among other issues, reports Sunday PUNCH.
Excerpts:
You’ve spent many years leading the flock. What experience have you gained the hard way as a man of God?
I had the blessing and the privilege of being called by God very early. I was in my late teens, going to 19, when the Lord called me and gave me the grace to answer the call. That was some 50 years ago.
This has taken me to every corner of Nigeria, from one state capital to another. It has taken me to various parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, North America, India, and some other parts of the world.
I give glory to God for sustaining me and for keeping me. I have seen it all; I have seen that there is nothing more important in life for any human being than a personal relationship with God. This is because we came from Him and we’re going to return to Him.
When the chips are down, we brought nothing into this world, and we will take nothing out of this world. You see, when people die in a hospital, the first thing nurses and those attending to them do is open their hands, because if they don’t open the hands and they become stiff, they won’t be able to open the hands unless they cut them. The message is that a dead person cannot hold anything, including his house.
How have you been able to manage fame and overcome the temptation that comes with being a popular man of God?
If you’re a genuine man of God, before He makes you great, He first brings you down and teaches you humility. Take note that humility is a virtue; it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and I pray for it every day.
Each day, the cheers of friends or boos of opponents don’t bother me. I only dance to the tune of heaven, listen to the tune of God, and make sure I do what’s right at any given time.
God has told me that He gives grace to the humble, and that if He is going to give me the grace to cope with my enormous responsibilities, I must be humble. I am not bigger than any man on earth, no! We are all made in the image of God. I am just a chief servant to serve the body of Christ and to serve the people of God.
You are always seen in the church. How do you balance God’s work and family life?
Early in ministry, the Lord taught me to differentiate between my life in the church and my life at home. I give proper attention to my wife. We spend time together, we fellowship together, we trust each other, and we pray together.
Then, when we began to raise a family, to have our children, I sat my wife down and I said, ‘Mum, please, let me keep the church, give me support, that’s my job. You keep the home, and I will give you support.’ I won’t go around saving the whole world while the enemy is stealing my home.
So, my children are serving born-again Christians. My lastborn is our pastor in one of our churches in Lekki; he is serving God with the whole of his heart. So, God has blessed me and helped me to be able to balance my ministry and my home so that I don’t do ministry at the expense of my family. It is not worth it.
After God, the next most important thing in your life is your family. Only God is greater than your family. Your ministry is not greater than your family; we must never do ministry at the expense of our family. Ministry is richer, better, and more fulfilling. It enriches more people when you’re a godly example to more people. I thank God because He has blessed me with an amazing family.
Many feel that church leaders are living big, while most of their followers live in poverty. What is your view about this?
Generally, church leaders are not living big. No, church leaders are lifted; they are exalted because they lead a great flock that cares for them, because they care for the flock. For example, I can’t remember when I last bought clothes or any suits.
My people give me suits; they buy me clothes. They give me all manner of things — all manner of gifts — and they look after me. So, because church leaders lead a large flock, they are visible, and many people are committed to them.
So, they look like they are big, but every genuine man of God is a child at heart, meek, a servant, a humble man of God. That’s why we kneel before God to pray to be able to stand and minister and feed His flock.
Today, by the statistics available to me, we have over 65 million Pentecostals in Nigeria, and I am their National President. It is a big organisation; and big congratulations, but that does not make me big.
That has only given me a platform to serve the people of God, to serve the congregation of God, to serve the Church of God. I am their chief servant by the grace of God.
How has your church contributed to the growth of its members and society at large, especially in this current economic crunch?
We teach them economic empowerment; we bring experts to show them that to become born again is not enough—you have to survive in this world, and you have to prosper in this world. Deuteronomy 8:18 makes it clear that it is God who gives people the power to get wealth.
So, we bring people to teach our members about agro-economy, FinTech, and about things to do to survive in life and to have enough for themselves and their families. They appreciate this, and because they get such information, they remember the Church when God blesses them.
We are helping them in every way, and they’re doing well. Those that are still at the bottom of the ladder— at the end of the day, we provide them with raw food from time to time; we give them money, and we give them support.
But the point is that we don’t make a noise about it. Jesus Christ taught us that what your right hand is doing, don’t let your left hand know. This is because if we are making noise and attracting attention to what we are doing, Jesus said we have already received our reward. We don’t want to receive all the rewards on earth, but in heaven.
We give them money; we give them scholarships. For example, we have schools — primary schools, secondary schools — and we give children of ministers and missionaries great discounts, and we give scholarships to indigent children and a whole lot of things.
The issue of payment of tithes has always been at the centre of discourse. What is your view on this burning matter?
I promote whatever God says in His word. Whatever God opposes in His word and declares wrong in His word, I stand against it. Now, I am the national president, and I am asking everybody: let’s sheathe our swords, let’s come together as one body, one fellowship, and let’s stamp politicking out of PFN.
PFN is first and foremost a spiritual body that has become politically relevant because of its size; it’s not a political body but a spiritual body. Let’s not turn the pyramid on it; let’s not make it a political body, no!
Under my watch, by the grace of God, I will do my best to keep PFN focused as a spiritual body that is influencing the politics of Nigeria by praying and giving good advice to those in power.
You recently advised Christians to be involved in politics. How do you reconcile such a call and the perception that politics is a dirty game?
It is not only in Nigeria but all over the world — politics is dirty. As a man of God, if I lie, I can’t sleep tonight. I must repent before God and even call the person I lied to and make restitution.
In politics, lying is part of the game. They call it diplomacy. Some politicians can kill and maim to get into office. Some may go to shrines and all kinds of evils; it’s dirty and messy. In most cases, it’s not only in Nigeria — it’s even in America, in Europe, everywhere.
They take care of themselves first before taking care of the people. If anybody thinks that a politician will think of you first, you’re joking. You know, because they spent so much money to get there. They have seen it as a business.
When they get there, they want to recoup their money. So, politics is dirty, and the reason it continues to be dirty is that clean people don’t want to get into it.
Some areas marked as industrial estates in some large cities in the country have been taken over by churches. Don’t you think this is a factor that can worsen unemployment in the country?
Not so at all. You see, the spiritual controls everything. What is happening that you have mentioned is a mark of a great revival in our nation. God has opened the heavens upon us graciously and has poured the Holy Spirit upon us, poured His word upon us, and many are turning to the Lord, and the Church is growing. If our people are spiritually sound and healthy, they will impact this nation very positively.
Nigeria would have been a hell but for the presence of Christians who are praying, who are living righteously, who are living godly. And I tell people that all we need to do for Nigeria to collapse is for the saints of God to stop praying. If the Christians in this nation stop praying, the nation will collapse.
Recurring abductions, killings, ethnic violence, and Boko Haram insurgency in the country are complex issues of grave concern. Do you think the government has done enough to fight this lingering insecurity?
This terrible state of insecurity is a great concern for us in the Church. We pray about it, we fast about it, and we cry to God for help. I know that not too long from now, God will deal with it. He will clear all the killers and take care of them.
Now, the government is doing all it can. There are two things I want to say about it. Firstly, the government can still do more. Our Commander-in-Chief, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is doing his best, but he has a golden opportunity to clear the bandits and evil people from Nigeria.
Some people say the bandits are non-Nigerians and that they are people from other nations surrounding us who are attacking Nigerians. If that’s the case, it means Nigeria is under invasion, and as the Commander-in-Chief, he should flush them out. That’s why the military is there.
But it’s both a security matter and a political matter. It’s like politics is winning over concerns for the security of the people. We want that narrative to change. We want our president to have the political will to clean the nation of these evil people who are making life miserable for us.
They (bandits) are giving a bad name to a particular tribe in Nigeria, who are good people, nice people, and decent, intelligent people. This is not right. Let’s clear the bad eggs out.
Secondly, the government should know that they cannot do it alone, and they should connect with spiritual leaders, so that as they are doing it politically and militarily, we are backing them spiritually—not just in the background, but openly working hand in hand to rid our nation of evil people that are putting pressure on the nation, shedding blood, and kidnapping, killing, maiming, displacing people from their land.
What is your advice to the federal government on the economic hardship Nigerians are going through?
They should do everything possible to push up the value of the naira, to recalibrate the naira. They should establish cottage industries to take the army of unemployed youths off the streets. Let’s develop our agricultural sector for food security.
How would you rate the current administration’s performance within the last two years?
The atmosphere in the nation when this administration took over was very terrible, and even the level of insecurity was horrible. Have you forgotten the attack on the train between Abuja and Kaduna, and how many innocent people, including the elite, were wasted? Others were kept in captivity for long.
I have one of my spiritual sons, whose immediate younger sister was kidnapped and was kept there for several months. The bandits insisted they must pay N100m. That N100m had to be paid because they threatened to waste her life.
My spiritual son ran around, sourced the money, and took the money to the bandits in the bush and deposited the money. The bandits insisted. When he came back, he said, ‘Sir, those guys are well-organised. It was an organised camp; they have a clinic, where any abducted pregnant woman could deliver her baby. They have doctors and even cells in every state of the federation.’
The level was so terrible in the last administration. The economy was bad, and life was harsh for the people. It was against that background that Tinubu came in, and then he announced that fuel subsidy was gone, and Nigerians are adjusting to it now. I appeal to the government to let the moneytrickle down to the grassroots; let it not be trapped at the top.
