The President of Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) Worldwide, Pastor Olukunle Akinosun, spoke with Gbenga Aderanti on the crisis in the church, the deal with the late Prophet Timothy Obadare and sundry issues. Excerpts:
When will you lift the embargo on creation of districts and zones?
We have also placed an embargo on ordination of ministers since my assumption of office. This we did because all these things have been bastardised. We sent memo to all the CAC branches. We said we wanted total restructuring of everything. It will soon be lifted when all the policy inputs from our districts and zones have been codified.
Indeed, we are already codifying the contributions made by our branches. We placed embargo on establishment of districts and zones because we wanted to check some abuses we noticed. We have since achieved stability in this regard.
Was there crisis before you assumed office?
The crisis or challenges facing the church is almost 23 years now. It started in 1991 when strange things, foreign things that the church was not known with, continued to creep into the church. Evangelism was being merchandised, before you knew it, people started planting independent churches within the church.
The people responsible for these acts were warned repeatedly but when the people refused to yield to the warning, the authority had to take some steps to discipline them, particularly the leader that started that thing.
He and his sympathisers were suspended and instead of apologising and repenting, they took the authority to court and to challenge the suspension. The judgment said that the authority of the church had the right to suspend them. Then they went to appeal court, the case is yet to be determined.
How have you been able to quell some of the crisis to achieve relative peace?
You see, right after my assumption in office, I took it upon myself to visit the leader of the faction to make him see the need to end this impasse and he promised me, but after that, instead of abiding with what we have said that we were coming together to end the thing, some of them that do not want the crisis to end started throwing stones, calling us names. Some of them said I was seeking for cheap popularity, that was why I was visiting them to end the crisis.The problem made the authorities, general executive council, go to court to know the authentic church, and by the judgment of 1st March 2011 that said our side is the authentic church and since 1998 Supreme (a faction of CAC) had ceased to exist. They are existing illegally and they said that we should do all we could do to show that we are the authentic church recognised by the government.
But because we are brothers, despite the problems, they are still CAC members. That is why we have been so lenient. We have been appealing to them because we do not want to enforce the ruling because if we had wanted to enforce it, we would have closed their assemblies.
After that judgment, they gave themselves titles instead of repenting. But we are still appealing to them to come back.
That means some of them are still stubborn?
Yes, some of them even say they are the authentic, even without having a licence, without having trustees.
Could it be that some people are using CAC church to promote their agenda?
That is what is happening. We are being patient to see that the crisis is over before enforcing the judgment because we are still going to address all these things. You cannot just go and build something and put CAC there.
CAC is a registered name, but people don’t care and they are abusing it and it is because of this problem. If you challenge any of them now, he or she will say he does not belong to your side.
But Obadare tried to reconcile all the parties before he passed on
When he was agile, he came to our meeting when we were holding a peace meeting that time. He said God directed him to hands-off the division. He said God directed him that his followers should join the mainstream. We told him that in all the court litigations, his name used to appear as first plaintiff and we told him that his lawyer should write to all the courts that his name should be withdrawn, but before he died he couldn’t do it.
You see, we learnt that some people dissuaded him from withdrawing it. But before he died, he sent his first son to us. He came here, several times we held meetings with him and we told him to go and appeal to his people.
At an event, the factional leader said he had accepted that CAC should be one, but a week later one of the factional leaders said their president never said that. How will you react to this?
That is what we are saying. There, the centre doesn’t hold. Their leader was president by name because they all gave themselves titles.
Since Obadare decided to end the crisis before he died, are you thinking about bringing WOSEM back to the fold?
That was the task given to Pastor Paul, Obadare’s first son. I told him that the ‘the problem in the CAC is the problem with WOSEM and now that Baba sent you to us that there’s no more acrimony, go and bring your people.’
I asked him to go and tell them what Baba directed him to do. ‘Go and convince them’ and he told us that he was going to do his best. But he came back that they refused to listen to him.
When the final burial of Prophet Obadare took place, many people were surprised that you and other CAC principal officers were not there. What was responsible for this?
The burial has come and gone. We give glory to God. Why not allow the matter to die like that. As for non-attendance at Prophet Obadare’s funeral, it was due to a very tight schedule I had at the time.
I had scheduled some activities for that period before the burial committee decided to fix the burial date for that same period. You could say why not send people? I want to assure you that our people were at the burial.
But contrary to what many people think, we invited him (Paul Obadare) here that we wanted to know about the programme. He said his father was beyond CAC. He said they were going to make an international programme and they made it. He said Obadare was not for CAC alone and because of that the programme was going to be international in nature.
Do you see an end to this crisis?
Even you may see the hand of God that the crisis is ending by the end of the year. Other factions are thirsty for reunification and by the grace of God, by the end of the year, we are going to be one again.
How do you hope to stop the court cases involving CAC?
There are not many court cases. All the cases in court now are at the instance of our brothers on the other side. There is an appeal by our brothers on the other side against the civil case in which the registered trustees of the church and the general executive council were adjudged to be the authentic authority of the Church.
There is also a criminal case being pursued by them at the Federal High Court, Ibadan against our leaders. On our part, we have withdrawn all cases instituted against them. They are the ones still prosecuting the criminal case against our leaders. We cannot force them to withdraw the cases if they think that’s what would settle the matter.
Christians are expected to be gentle and straightforward. Why is politics in the Church?
I don’t think it is politics; I think it is selfishness, inordinate ambition, looking for fame and big name instead of working for the development and growth of the church. It is about individuals seeking popularity.
Looking at the pictures of the past leaders of the CAC hung on the wall, they are all Yoruba. Does it mean that the Church is just for the Yoruba people alone?
It is a global church. The pictures you are seeing are for past presidents. They are all Yoruba because the revival started here. It is normal, but the secretary slot is allocated to the eastern area.
