General Overseer of Calvary Kingdom Church (CKC) Lagos, Achbishop Joseph Ojo, speaks with Adeola Ogunlade on how Nigeria missed out and the palliative measures the church uses to accommodate indigent pupils/students. Excerpts:
We have had Vision 2000 and Vision 2020. But Nigerians are wondering what vision the nation is pursuing…
… I think my vision 2020 is Acts 20: 20. That’s my vision 2020, not government’s own. Like I was saying in one of my services here I think few weeks ago, People can’t understand it. The bible says “we are in the world but we are not of the world”.
Though we are here in Nigeria but the Central Bank Governor for us is in Heaven because our citizenship, the bible says, is in Heaven.
Acts 20:20 says: “How I hid nothing from you, but have declared unto you publicly from house to house.” That is my vision 2020. This year, we want to take the gospel from house to house. I am not waiting on government policy, their own is ‘chop, chop and chop’.
I have not seen a government that is sincere, including this one we are in now. I have not seen somebody that has come to serve, all of them put together, they are just coming to get.
Until you see somebody that has a policy, a 10-year vision that can really affect the generality of a population, then we can’t move forward as a nation.
My vision 2020 is Acts 20: 20. It says: “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you…” I wish the government will not keep back what is profitable to the populace of this country.
Keeping it to themselves is not helpful. “I kept back nothing that is profitable unto you, but have shown you and have taught you publicly from house to house…”
Your church is close to the land borders. What is your take on closure of land borders?
I think it has an advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is Nigerians should learn to manage what they have. If our country can produce enough rice and make it more tasteful, we won’t need imports.
I have tasted some Nigerian rice, you would want to throw up; it does not have taste and it is not like the Nigerian rice we ate in the 50’s and in the 60’s.
I was privilege to be a rice farmer way back in the 60s. I had rice farms. And the way it is being done now, I don’t know whether it is the chemical that they are using in production that makes it tasteless or they don’t learn from foreign rice producers.
So, positively, I think it will help us to look inwards. Until they build the in-house possibly also, it’s affecting the livelihood of the people.
Whether you like it or not, there are people that are surviving by it- whatever they get from there. So, they should be able to use wisdom to manage it so that people will not over tight their belt until they die. That’s my counsel. It’s good in a way; it is bad also in a way.
Is that a way to say Nigerians need to look inwards and let go of some of their foreign taste?
It is the same thing; we take all things with levity. That’s why today we are having problem in knowing our exact population. Because in other civilized places, they plus and minus.
They don’t do the census we do here often. They take data from hospitals because there is nobody born that his or her birth is not registered.
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There is no person that died that is not registered. When you calculate the number of death plus the number of birth, you add it to last year’s, you will know your population. But in Nigeria, every five year or so, we are doing census because we lack planning.
God someday, somehow will give us leaders who are reasonable and sensible enough that will not put money first but will put service first.
How come many church members cannot afford mission schools again today?
It is the perception of the outsiders; people who are not close, they think like that. You know from Genesis chapter 1, God made man with moral choice.
If I cannot choose, for example, a big university, I can choose the one I can afford. Most people when they see churches, they say it is the tithe and offering. Most times it is not true.
Like what I have here, 100 percent of this structure is my personal money, not church. But, members that are there, what we do is that we give them rebate.
If you are a member of this church and you have a child there, you pay less. If you are a member and you have three children there, you pay for two and you leave one.
Every one of these ministries has their different palliatives that they give to people but the outsiders will not see it. They don’t even understand that the people saying their penny is not in the church.
You have deacons, pastors, elders and when you bring record, their name is blank; they don’t pay anything. They are just there. And most of those people make a lot of noise like the saying that “an empty vessel makes the loudest noise”.
