Apostle Faith Eden Osakwe, the President of Kingdom Redemption Outreach Center International with headquarters in USA and branches all over the world, recently came to Nigeria to establish an orphanage called “The Citadel” that will cater for the education of the less privileged children and youths, in this interview with Omolara Akintoye, she explains how she intends doing this especially for missionary children from cradle to university level on scholarship.
Your growing up
I was born a Muslim as Mariam Sahidu, I got born again November 1, 1990, before then I tried to get born again but because of the attitude of the Christians around me which really put me off, a lot of hypocrisy, going to some churches where members cover all parts of their body but they are full of wickedness inside so those attitudes pushed me away from being a Christian but by 1990 the Holy Spirit Himself arrested me.
I was crying to God that if Islam is the true way, I want to know, I don’t want to waste my time being a Christian because I came out of a village surrounded by Imams and my mother was a princess of the village king, I came out from a Royal family. On that day, November 1st 1990, while I was in Kano in the midst of Muslims, the Holy Spirit visited me and I gave my life to Christ.
Since then the zeal to serve God in totality consumed me and within a week of being born again, the Holy Spirit took me through the entire Bible and taught me all that I know. I left for USA in 1998, God did it and the journey began from there.
Tell us about your ministry and what you do?
The Ministry is called Kingdom Redemption Outreach International, we build schools in several cities, hospitals, clinics in villages, Bible school and vocational schools where we teach people how to be handy so that when people finish school and cannot secure a job with their certificate, they have something to trade with.
What is your plan on giving back to your society?
My plan is to inspire youths in skills acquisition, I am planning to build a school with vocational centre currently the satellite campus in Ibadan is under construction, we are going to have a clinic on the campus, supermarket, a farm that will cater for different farming such as the fishery, animal farm, vegetable, crops. The school will have a technical college, we are also going to encourage sporting activities of all kinds, so that youths can compete with their contemporaries from other countries. That is the vision, to have missionary children and orphans put on scholarship, by this my vision is to reduce crime rate and youth restiveness in our nation because when we keep the youth busy, it will reduce crime rate and fortify the safety of our nation and our people.
What is motivating you into doing all of these?
The Nigeria I am seeing now does not look like the country I was born into, in those days there was free education, but nowadays the rate of
crime in our country has become worse, if you go abroad and you mention Nigeria then you are already tagged a criminal, it’s as if the name Nigeria is synonymous to crime. So we want to change that internationally, Nigerians abroad are excellent but many of them don’t claim they are Nigerians because once they mention Nigeria the cloud of crime will just fall on them but I am proud to be a Nigerian, anywhere I go I tell people I am an African woman and Nigerian inparticular.
Can you share your experience about Christianity?
Christianity today is beyond the days of confession, confession is good but we have a lot of people now who know Christ but are just teaching about confession, there was a time everything about Christianity was about prophecy but the Bible says ‘In the Days of His Power the People Shall be Willing’ for our nation to come back to God we as the Body of Christ and His followers need to begin to walk in the demonstration of His power , this is the day of the Apostles, the Apostolic era is back, where the demonstration of God’s power overrules the demonstration of the power of darkness, when Moses in the Bible threw his rod on the floor and the Egyptian magicians who represent power of darkness came to challenge God, the rod of Moses swallowed the rods of the Egyptians. Christians are complaining that darkness is ruling the nation, the Bible says Sin is a Reproach to a Nation, the nation that is ruled by darkness will be full of sin and when it is full of sin definitely it will be a reproach , what we are suffering in this nation today is because of sin because darkness has been given power, God did not give darkness over us but we gave power to darkness, Christians have sold their birthright for what they would eat just as Esau sold his birthright for a pot of porridge but God is raising His Apostles again who will demonstrate His power, the Bible says Those that Know Their God Shall be Strong and do Exploit but it is a pity that the exploit most servants of God are doing is to buy private jets, expensive cars, build mansions and so on. It is not as if it’s a bad thing to be rich as servants of God but when all our focus and all we are after is to acquire wealth that will perish then
we have missed it. When there is no power in us then what have we machieved, the material things being acquired will perish some day.
What do you think has contributed to the rot in the country?
The church has deviated from the will of God, the church has become corrupt, the body of Christ has become worldly they are no more spiritual and we are the one that suppose to set the pace of what goes on in this country but we have missed it already, the giants are sleeping, they wait for problems to come before they start praying that is when you see them calling for national prayer,, asking Christians to come together and pray. Let’s repent of our evil ways before you can talk of coming together to pray, after the fasting and praying, has your way changed, nowadays the world is more godly than the church, that is where you hear people say, they prefer doing business with an unbeliever than to do with a Christian, the issue is that the church has become worldly and the power of God is no longer moving in the church our spiritual diameter is on zero level.
Your advice to Nigerians in Diaspora
Let us play our part to make our country great again; Nigerians should support those in the Diaspora that want to bring true change to the
country. Most Nigerian in Diaspora are afraid that when they come home to make positive changes, they get killed, we have heard stories of people that came home to do something different and before you know it, they are dead. So most Nigerians abroad are afraid of coming home
so that they don’t get killed. They are not given chance to operate freely, so my advice is that government should also support genuine
people who want to change the nation for the better, let them not be frustrated.