The President of Sword of the Spirit Ministries, Bishop Wale Oke, is one of the pioneering Pentecostal preachers in the country. He spoke with Sunday Oguntola on his proposed Precious Cornerstone University (PCU) as well as the 25th anniversary of the church arm of his ministry. Excerpts:
By February, Christ Life Church will be 25. But there is a nagging question you can’t run away from. People said you
should have remained a field evangelist and not start a church. How do you react to this?
No. It is not people that determine my call; it is God that determines my call. I have not stopped being a field evangelist and church-planting has not hindered my evangelistic works. Our evangelistic works started in 1976 and we never planted a church until 13 years later. We only held crusades and conferences.
My friends and colleagues told me to start a church and I said no. My senior colleagues also said the same and I said no. My friend, Bishop David Oyedepo, came to me to start a church, I said no. Baba Adeboye said so and I insisted. The late Archbishop Benson Idahosa also approached me and I said no…
… So, what made you change your mind?
I didn’t change my mind but I simply listened to God. I am a servant of God and in ministry works when you listen to a man and run into troubles, you will only be able to count on the support of that man. But early February 1989, I was preaching for somebody in Lagos and he lodged me in SMA Guest house in Yaba. I was praying in the morning when the Lord spoke to me very clearly from the last verse of 2 Chronicles 6 that the time to start a church had come.
And because God spoke, I had to move. I mean I can argue with Oyedepo, Baba Adeboye and the late Idahosa but who am I to argue with God? When He said that was the way to go, I gave in. The following Sunday we started and it was like wildfire. Under one year, we were over 1,000. Under one year, we had bought this Victory Garden and God has been with us.
But people still say you are no more on the fields like you used to be
I am still on the fields. I am still going tomorrow. You see, if that is your calling, nothing can tie you down. You can never be fulfilled until you go. I am still so much on the fields. Last year, we held so many crusades that ended in Ibadan with one that brought all the churches together. I ministered with Morris Cerrulo.
Lately, not much has been heard about you. Are you hiding or something?
(Laughs) Bishop Wale Oke is alive. It is amazing that people say they have not heard from me that much. We have been everywhere, but the only thing is I don’t do much of media talks and evangelism. I have come to realize that we must do much of that these days. Other than that, I am still well and alive, kicking in the Lord.
25 years, what lessons has church work taught you?
It has taught me patience. The job of the evangelist is back-breaking but the work of a pastor is heart-breaking. One stretches your back and the other breaks your heart. I have come to understand and appreciate pastors better. I have over 500 of them under me across the world. We are ordaining about 200 of them in February.
So, I have learnt to be patient. The evangelistic work is combative but pastoral work is all about endurance and being gentle. That does not come easy for an evangelist like me.
During the Obasanjo’s years, you prophesied seven years of abundance to be followed by another seven of scarcity. What is the update?
I should be asking you (laughs). You know, the seven years of abundance came. As soon as that word came, the prices of crude oil shot up. But when God gives prophecies, they are not cast in stones. He told Hezekiah to set his house in order, that he was going to die and the man prayed. God reversed it. I led a prayer chain across the 36 states of the federation that ended in Abuja against famine.
I thank God that he answered the prayers. Our economy is still one of the fastest-growing in the world. But the truth is there is no day that lasts forever. When we are in the midst of abundance, we should prepare for the future. We should invest in infrastructure, education, power and build up our reserves so that when shaky times come like it has hit them in Europe, we would have something to fall back on. That is my counsel.
In 2007, you did the stone-laying for Precious Cornerstone University (PCU). Six years after, what is the update on the project?
The update is that we are taking off finally in September this year. NUC has come and we are at the final stage of approval. You see, a university project takes time and consumes money. It is not a quick-fix. For the past six years, we have gone through all manners of processes.
We have already submitted the final papers for licence. They have been here to see what we have on grounds. They told us what to do and we have reported back to them. We are waiting for the final nod and ready to take-off. We are using Victory Garden as a take-off point and we have another five years to complete our permanent site on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. We have fenced the land, did the gate house, constructed a borehole and did parts of the campus roads. NUC has been there to see what we are doing and they are happy. After five years, we can move there.
Nigerians still have issues with the involvement of the church in university education…
The church brought education to the country. The best years were when churches were in charge of the education sector. Government took over and messed them up. Our university is also in shambles and we are here to rescue the situation. We don’t want strike for even a week. If you go abroad, you find out that Harvard University was started by a church; Yale was by a church.
So, the experiment of university involvement by the church in Nigeria has been good. Go and check and you can always see the difference. Besides, I am someone who will never do anything in ministry except God ordained it. So, I have his word to do a university…
God told you to start a university?
I can assure you He did.
But the impression out there is that starting a university has become a contest among churches…
It is good. If it is a contest, it is a good one because the Bible said we should provoke one another to good works. But PCU is not a matter of contest but a product of divine instruction.
So what will be different with PCU?
Well, here we are producing entrepreneurs, job creators, not job seekers. Two, it will be a bilingual university. Instructions and classes will be in English and French. That is because that is the way the world is going. If you are proficient in English and French as an undergraduate, the world is under your feet. There was a candidate for a United Nations job sometime ago from Nigeria that lost out just because he wasn’t bilingual.
I said to myself then, ‘if I have an opportunity, I will make every graduate in Nigeria bilingual.’ It is a good thing. It opens you up to the English and French worlds. It gives one a competitive edge. So, our students will catch it naturally.
But what about those who don’t want to be bilingual?
It is fine if they don’t want. But you must know that this university will not be for everybody. Law is good, but not everybody is interested in it; as good as medicine is, not everyone is doing it.
Will PCU also observe strict regulations and rules for students considering that many argue most universities run by churches are advanced secondary schools, more or less?
All those places where there are rules, go and check. Are there results? Do students do better? Of course, they do because the students are not distracted. There are no sugar daddies to chase the girls. No blackberry to chat nonsense. So, we are going to have strict rules and that must be stated from the word go. We don’t want a situation whereby sugar daddies can have access to our students and be telling them some sweet rubbish.
We want graduates with good morals, not intelligent crooks who will squander our resources.
Good, but the exorbitant fees charged by these universities are rather a put-off for many Nigerians…
Okay, look at PCU now. We started over six years ago and we have been pumping money into it. By our estimation, our break-even point is five-seven years. Sustaining a project like this is massive. Whatever we charge cannot be enough. We have to keep pumping money. Besides, good, quality education is expensive everywhere in the world, whether it is run by the church or otherwise.
What has God told you about 2014?
God has told us that He is in charge of the nation. There will be challenges and troubles but everything will end well. He said we should not be afraid.
