Most Reverend Samuel Abidoye is the Spiritual Head of Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church Worldwide. The 94-year-old cleric spoke with Sunday Oguntola on his lifetime and ministry. Excerpts:
When you were installed as Baba Aladura 10 years ago, did you have any reason to believe you will serve for this long?
I couldn’t have known because nobody knows tomorrow. In fact, there were several visions that said I won’t last on the throne for more than three, five years. So, nobody expected me to have stayed for this long.
In fact, that is why gingered me to do the 10th anniversary to thank God. I marked it to tell God that even though human beings did not expect me to go so far it has pleased him to bring me this far.
By nature, I don’t celebrate birthdays or anything. But when this 10th anniversary was coming, I had to do it because human ideas are different from God’s.
That is why I feel it is necessary to let people know that nobody is greater than God. God is greater than everyone and He is in full control of the whole world.
10 years after, how far has the church come?
We have moved forward in many ways. I have created other things that were not all there. Before I became the Baba Aladura, I initiated the English service as far back as 1989 when our youths were running around to new generation churches.
I told the elders, ‘if you can do this and liven our youth, we would have them till tomorrow’. We started the English service and called it youth chapel in 1989. And then God has been very good to me personally because He continues to empower me to move around.
You still walk around unaided at 94. How is this so?
I acknowledge it is God. There couldn’t have been anything else. In my family, our mother had four of us. Two died at almost 90. She lived to over 90years herself.
It is easy to say it is genetic but I insist it is God. As far as I am concerned, I rely on John 3: 27 which has been my motto for life. It says “nobody receives anything except it’s given by God.”
To be able to move around at 94, it’s beyond my thinking but I have course to say thank you God. Anytime I work and feel so tired, once I’m able to sleep, I feel better. And I can sleep anywhere, even while standing. I don’t fall sick at all. Once I’m able to sleep, it refreshes me.
And you don’t use glasses?
I use glasses for reading. I don’t use glasses to walk around. I only use it for reading tiny things and I want to say thank you to God. Even at my age, I use computer more than you young ones.
Really? You use the system?
Oh yes.
To do what?
To do anything, such as writing books. I type my own books. When I was in England, I wrote about six books.
Till tomorrow, I have e-mails and I write books.
You surf the internet?
I have internet and the story of how I started using it is very instructive. I bought a house in London in 1963, which I was left with of one of the tenants whom I love when I returned to Nigeria.
Unfortunately, some squatters started occupying it. It was one of our Prophets, Senior Apostle S. Ayegbusi that told me except I take steps, I may lose one of my properties. So, with that I went back to London and I repaired the house with the help of government. So, I was staying with my son who goes to work. Whenever he comes back, he always found me at home. He would say, “daddy, find something to do. Don’t just sit down at home”.
By then, I was already a pensioner. One day he encouraged me to go to the library instead of doing nothing alone at home. On reaching there, I saw computer and started learning how to use it. I was going to evening classes in 1992. Since then up to this moment I have been involved in computers.
So, you check your emails?
Yes, not only that in 1996 I started taking computer serious. I went to school studied it for one year. I learnt publishing and so I typed myself the books myself. That was how I started using computer and writing book as a pensioner.
How come you are able to recollect dates vividly?
I don’t know because I can still remember I started school in 1934. The first school in my town was in 1931. I became a student in 1934 and was sent away to secondary school at Ilorin during the First World War. We had to vacate our school for the soldiers. We were taken to Bida and I ended up my studies at Bida where IBB and Abdulsalam also attended.
I can remember all these things, not all of them but many of the things that happened.
How are you able to do recollect all these considering a lot of your colleagues are already senile?
Well, it’s beyond my thinking. I don’t know. If I say I know, I will be deceiving you.
Are there people you grew up with who are still alive?
In 1939, the principal of our school, a white man, took our pictures with a small camera and I still have the copy. Whenever l look at it, I don’t see anybody alive there.
God has answered most of your prayers. What else do you want God to do for you?
My wish is to see His face when I leave this world. I don’t want to be thrown away. I am praying that God will give me the grace to enter the kingdom of God. That is my biggest concern now.
If God asks how many more years you want to live, what would be your answer?
I will say ‘father, I want you to take me away when it is right because I don’t want to be in the world and people will be begging death for me.’ I want to leave the world able to do what I am doing just like that.
Where do you see C&S in the next 10 years?
In another 10 years, I want C&S to proudly have a university where our children can go to because presently, all our children are trained by other religion where they copy from them. If we have our own, we can bring our children up in our doctrines and I am certain by that time, we would have professors coming from C&S.
What do you eat these days?
I eat anything O. America food, Africa food. I eat anything they give to me.
How will you choose your successor?
We don’t choose a successor in C&S; it’s called move by move and seniority. But God has His plans of putting somebody on the throne because even by seniority I should have been number four. I don’t think much on who would be my successor.
Why?
When I’m gone, I’m gone; the decision is in the hands of people alive. We don’t choose our successor; we allow God to determine because it’s God’s work and only Him can do it.
