CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor
President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor in this interview with Ozioma Ubabukoh, bares his mind on controversies surrounding churches, the Boko Haram insurgency and sundry issues
Apart from being a general
overseer in your church, you head Nigeria’s highest religious
organisation, the Christian Association of Nigeria. How do you feel when
people criticise you sometimes on all fronts?
Criticism is part of life. Anybody who
does not expect criticism should think again because criticism can
actually enhance a man’s capacity to do better. Criticism for me is not a
problem. The only thing that is a problem, in my own opinion, is when
you are not doing what is called constructive criticism. Disrespectful
criticism is also wrong. It is a free world and people are free to
criticise. I will also say that as a person, I believe that truth must
never be mortgaged. That, perhaps, is one of the things that get me into
trouble with some people. If you watch events in Nigeria, and if our
Nigerian press would give me credit, they would realise that many things
I predicted eventually came to pass exactly the way I said them.
Boko Haram has launched an onslaught on the church for some time now. How do you feel about this?
Boko Haram is an organisation of
cowards. If you wish, quote me and print it boldly: Every member of Boko
Haram is a coward. Cowards shoot people in the back. Cowards kill
children, women and harmless people. They are cowards and I want to
recommend that when such people are killed, their flesh should be given
to pigs because they are not better than pigs. The cowards also include
those who finance the activities of Boko Haram; those who give them
moral and logistic supports. Anybody involved in Boko Haram is a coward
and a nuisance to himself, to the society and to God whom they say they
propagate or proclaim. It is difficult for any rational mind to believe
that what they are doing is what God professes. I don’t know the God
they are talking about. It is a disgrace to humanity.
Do you think government is doing enough to tackle this problem?
Members of the security agencies are
Nigerians, like you and I. That’s the first thing I want to say and
because of that, we must understand that the battle they are fighting,
they are fighting on our behalf. But they have their constraints. First,
they don’t have enough troops. They have said that they are
overstretched. There must be a deliberate effort to recruit new people
into the army and into the State Security Service and other intelligence
agencies. While this is being done, the people being recruited must be
properly screened. The second constraint they have and I think this is
very serious, if not even more serious, is the constraint of sabotage
within the different formations. I have been saying this for more than
two years now. But I think eventually, a lot of people who used to
criticise me are beginning to say the same thing. There is sabotage
within. There are people within the security agencies who are
sympathetic to Boko Haram. It is strange, but it is true. There are also
those who think that Boko Haram is defending their religion and so
would do anything possible to sabotage the effort of the military. There
are people in the military who are more loyal to their religion than to
Nigeria. I can’t imagine how a religion would encourage the madness
that we see in our society today. We have these two sets of people
within the military and within all the intelligence agencies. I believe
the Nigerian military is capable. It has the capacity to win the war. I
believe our security men can do it. I believe they would do it. But
what I am saying now has to be looked into critically. The third thing, I
will not call it so much of a constraint as such. I would rather
suggest that the military should continue to upgrade its equipment. It
has to be continuous because you are dealing with desperate, crazy
cowards. To deal with this kind of people who are constantly looking for
ways to get new equipment, the soldiers must also upgrade their own
equipment. Then number four, I will say that the Nigerian government
should start now to ensure proper policing of our very porous borders.
It is a major problem. Where are all these military hardware coming
from? They didn’t fall from heaven and we don’t manufacture them in
Nigeria. They come from the porous borders and seaports. Emphasis is on
the seaports because we have had more than two or three occasions when a
lot of arms and ammunition were seized at our seaports. The land
borders should be patrolled by people who are passionate about Nigeria,
not people who are more interested and more committed to religion.
These borders should not just be manned by people who really care about
Nigeria, but by people who will not succumb to bribes. The fight against
Boko Haram must never be left to the military and to the government.
Every Nigerian, especially Nigerians who presently live in the affected
areas, must tackle the Boko Haram problem. Muslim political leaders and
Muslim religious leaders must help us; they should go beyond condemning
the acts of Boko Haram. They must not allow themselves to be used or
destroyed. They must help us begin to develop the structure of loyalty
to this nation and among those in the local communities because if that
is done, gradually we would begin to find people who will take the risk
to come out and give information about Boko Haram activities. One of the
reasons many local people do not give information is because they are
afraid that if they do, they would be killed. There are also those who
don’t give information because they think erroneously again that Boko
Haram is protecting their religion. These people should be re-oriented.
They need a re-education. I say all these with a high sense of love and
responsibility and with the belief that my Muslim brothers are my fellow
brothers and I have nothing against them.
I will now tell you a little story to
show that I have nothing against them. About nine years ago, there was a
religious crisis somewhere in the North. Many people were killed and
majority of the people killed were from the South-East zone. When they
brought the corpses back home, there was a reaction. People were sad.
They were angry and went after some of our Muslim brothers in Onitsha.
Many of them ran across the bridge. They passed through the Niger Bridge
and crossed over to Asaba. I heard of it here in Warri. I bought relief
materials and drove to Asaba. I located them and gave them relief
materials. I apologised to them. I told them that they should understand
it was the pain of seeing corpses of their people that made our people
to react the way they did. I also added money to the relief materials. A
man who hates Muslims would not do that. Nobody tells that part of my
story. I have still not seen any Muslim leader that has done what I did
and just said. If there is any, please I would like to know them. I hope
they have seen the number of structures being bombed and destroyed. A
Catholic seminary was just destroyed in Maiduguri. The businesses of
Christians are being destroyed everyday. Schools and children of
Christians are being killed and maimed. Many widows and orphans are
killed almost every hour. I am still waiting to see when some of our
well-to-do Muslim clerics, political leaders, and religious leaders
would have a change of attitude to all these. I am waiting to see when
traditional leaders would come out and approach these Christians who
have been displaced and say let us do these to help out. I was reading
in the papers that the men that killed a religious leader in Zaria had
been apprehended. Within the last nine months, many Christian clerics
have been killed and I don’t say this to take away from the fact that
what those men did by killing that Muslim cleric in Zaria was bad. They
killed him, killed his son and even killed his wife. It is a terrible
thing for anybody to do. I pray that God would continue to comfort their
family members that are still alive. But what I am trying to say is
that in the last nine months, many Christian clerics in the North have
been butchered and slaughtered. We know it is Boko Haram, but nobody has
been apprehended. One of the victims was the secretary of CAN in Borno
State. They went to his house, in the presence of his daughter, and
slaughtered him. They sliced his throat despite pleas from his daughter.
This was just barely a year ago. Just about a month ago now, the
chairman of CAN in Kastina Local Government Area, Katsina State, was
killed. They said they saw the corpse of a child close to his house.
They went into his house, beat him until he became unconscious. He was
rushed to the hospital, yet they mobilised and went after him in the
hospital where he was eventually killed. The police keep telling us they
are on top of the situation. I cannot hate Muslims. They are my
brothers. We are all Nigerians. What I am asking for is justice.
Everyone should be treated equally in a nation that belongs to all of
us. That’s all I am saying.
Do you think the declaration of state of emergency by the Federal Government is working?
I think it is working because all we
have to do is look back to when the state of emergency had not been
declared. We were all aware that Boko Haram had taken more than half of
all the local government areas in Borno State, literally. In fact, it
had brought down the Nigerian flag and hoisted its own flag in those
local government areas. The governor of Borno State was governing less
than half of the state before the state of emergency. But today, at
least you can say he is the governor of the whole state. I just showed
you about six or seven constraints confronting the military as at today.
If those problems were not looked into, solving them would be almost
impossible. Mainly, many of the people who are active in Boko Haram
today are from the Republic of Chad. There are some from Niger and
Cameroon. How are they entering Nigeria? These are the questions. They
are recruiting some local people as well. The point is that a lot of
these people are coming from outside.
Does CAN have any programme in place for orphans, widows and widowers from Boko Haram onslaught?
It is very shameful that the umbrella
organisation of Christians in Nigeria has no money. I run CAN generally
with my own money. It may shock you and some religious leaders, but it
is the truth. CAN doesn’t even pay my hotel bills when I go to Abuja.
CAN has no place for me to stay. I had to furnish my own office in CAN
with personal funds. I do most of the things I do by myself without help
from anywhere. Some of the richest people in Nigeria today are
Christians, but they refuse to finance their own religion. It is a
shame. But let me tell you that on my own, I have tried to reach out.
For example, I told you just now of the CAN secretary in Borno State
that was killed. Right now, as we speak, we are in the process of
relocating his wife somewhere else that I can’t mention now. The first
Christian cleric that was slaughtered was a gentleman by the name Oje.
He was from Benue State. The Muslims talk about the founder of Boko
Haram, Yusuf, who the police killed, but nobody talks about the people
he (Yusuf) killed. I single-handedly relocated Oje’s family from
Maiduguri to somewhere else – his wife and three children. I paid house
rent for them for two years, bought her a car, a generator and
established a little business for her. I also helped with the children’s
school fees. As we speak, I still send them money constantly,
especially during festive seasons. There are churches that are doing the
same thing. It is not just me. But the point is, as an organisation, we
have not started doing that directly. CAN consists of different
denominations and some of these denominations are also making their
contributions. If you look at it from that angle, you could say CAN is
doing something. But as a body, we still do not have that means.
People claim churches milk the poor and live big on them. What’s your take on this?
It is cheap to criticise; even to
criticise what you don’t understand. Let me put it this way, in every
good thing, you would always find some bad people. The church is the
greatest institution that has made the country today. If you look back,
you would find out that the church brought education to Nigeria. The
church brought hospital to Nigeria. I think the church should be given
credit for that. People don’t understand what they say about the church
milking the poor. Can a poor man have money to pay tithe? A man who has
no job, can he pay tithe? No, he won’t be able to pay. So how do you
milk a man who has no milk? In a church, you have both the poor and the
rich. It is generally not the poor that finance the church. It is those
with the means. A man, for example, who earns N10,000, how much is his
tithe? His tithe is N1,000. A man who earns N500,000, how much is his
tithe? His tithe is 10 per cent which is N50,000. How much would you
milk from a man who pays a tithe of N1000? We won’t say things like this
usually because the church is a level-playing ground. Whether you are
poor or you are rich, God sees everybody as equal. It is because of a
question like this that sometimes, we have to take time to analyse
things. I even hear people say that the poor give money to start
schools, but their children cannot go to the schools. How will they give
this money when they are poor? The truth is that, the people who
actually give this money are those who have the means to do so. Those
people make it possible for churches to start schools. Now again, why do
churches charge high fees in school? You didn’t ask me that, but I’m
just throwing that in free. People must understand that there is a
standard. The church wants to maintain the standard. In those days, some
people will say that when missionaries started school, it was free.
Don’t forget that those missionaries were being financed from different
places. Who is financing us today? We are financing ourselves. If I got
free financing, why won’t we make education free? You must also
understand that at the time, the cost of living was not the way it is
today. The educational system of Nigeria is in serious trouble, so we
need to up the standards. And to do that, you should be able to hire the
best hands. If you hire the best, how do you pay them? Where do you get
the money to pay them? How do you put the right infrastructure in
place? How do you do many of the things that need to be done? How do you
run the generators?
Why do you think we have so many poor people in the church and many rich pastors?
Remember that the pastors are pasturing
both the poor and the rich. They are all in the same assembly. Both the
poor and the rich, those who have the means in the church take time to
be kind to their pastors. That is something most people don’t realise.
They give their pastors money, food and different things. For example, a
member of the church goes to his pastor and says, ‘I feel led to give
you a car. Take this car.’ Now the pastor has a car. Did he steal it? As
I sit here talking to you now, I can tell you that I am training almost
100 people in institutions of higher learning. Nobody is going to
broadcast that. On every 26th of December, I organise what I call
poverty alleviation. I have been doing it now for about eight years.
Your children in the ministry
bought aircraft for you recently, but Mallam Nasir el-Rufai claimed it
was a gift from the President. How do you feel about this?
I am glad that there are people who
challenged him. I would only be dignifying him if a person at my level
starts exchanging words with a small person like el-Rufai. He is too
small. I will not dignify him with a response. People responded. They
told him that since he knew who gave the gift, he should provide the
proof, which he hasn’t done till today. Obviously, he didn’t have any
proof. That is the problem with Nigeria. We continue to celebrate people
like el-Rufai. He is too small for me.
Are you considering legal actions against him?
If I did that, I would be giving him
publicity. el-Rufai is too small for that. I shouldn’t have anything to
do with him. If there are other Nigerians who will want to take him to
court, they are free, but not for me. Going to court with who? el-Rufai?
el-Rufai is too small. I won’t waste my time on him.
How do you feel when people accuse you of fraternising with the President?
I am ashamed of people who say that. I
am a Nigerian and Mr. President is a Nigerian. I wonder why no one has
ever made a comment on Muslim presidents who are close to Muslim
clerics. So, why is it an issue with President Goodluck Jonathan? Why is
it an issue with Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor? President Jonathan goes to
every church now and people are criticising him for doing that.
Sometimes, when I have a reason to give a report, I don’t get the
opportunity to meet with President Jonathan. Mr. President goes to the
churches of other clerics, so why aren’t they criticised for it? Some
even said that I don’t criticise Jonathan. I was not called to the altar
to criticise. I was called to preach the gospel. There are things the
Federal Government has done that I criticised. Last year, at the
International Conference Centre in Abuja, I made a statement and no
newspaper carried it. I said I was appealing to all elected and
appointed leaders in this country to donate half of their salaries for
one year and that it should be put into a joint account. I said credible
Nigerians should be allowed to manage the account for people to start
small and medium scale businesses. If that statement had been
highlighted in newspaper editorials and opinion articles, all these
people would have accepted it by now. There are certain people who own
the press and they use that to create certain perception about people
like us who the press don’t like. These same people attacked the
President last year for going to pray in Israel. What is so bad about
the President going to the origin of his faith to pray?
People wonder why Nigerian pastors fraternise with politicians believed to be corrupt…
There might be pastors who do that, but
there are also others who don’t do that. A church is an open house.
Jesus said a church is supposed to be a house for sinners. Church is not
just meant for people who have repented, but also for those who need
redemption. Giving a corrupt person a position in church is wrong. It
must never be accepted. As for anybody coming to church, whether corrupt
or not, you can’t stop the person.
What is your assessment of Jonathan’s government?
You asked me if I were a politician and I
said ‘No’. Now you are asking me my assessment of President Jonathan’s
administration. If I say something here now, you would use it against me
tomorrow. But I would say this: President Goodluck Jonathan is the
President of Nigeria and Nigerians. In my opinion, given the
circumstances surrounding him since he became the President of Nigeria, I
will say he has done well. From the day he was announced President,
violence broke out and it has remained so. Apart from the religious
colouration, it is also political. In the midst of the challenges, he
has been able to function. That does not mean it can’t be better. I
think he has tried, but things could be better.
Former chief security officer to the late General Sanni Abacha, Al Mustapha, was here with you days back, what was his mission?
He said he came to partner with me and
the church to build bridges of peace, love and unity among Nigerians. We
had a very fruitful time and discussion. Ensuring justice in the
country was also part of our discussion because that is the bridge
between peace and unity. I appreciated his coming. We are with him as
far as working for the peace and unity of Nigeria is concerned.
How will you react to the decision
of Osun State governor to merge Christian schools with Muslim schools
in line with the state’s new policy on education?
First of all, Osun is a very important
state in the country, so we can’t take events there lightly. There have
been governors in Osun but there was never a time we had religious
tension in that state, why now? The activities of the present governor
are very worrisome. I am not a politician, but one cannot but be
concerned when a state that used to be peaceful is now full of religious
tension. What does the governor mean by re-classification of schools? I
am aware that when the state government handed over mission schools to
their owners, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with schools; part
of the agreement is that the names of the schools should be left
intact. That is why the names of the schools have not been changed. It
was agreed that the heritage of the schools should remain intact-whether
it is Muslim or Christian heritage. Is the solution to dilapidation of
schools in moving Muslims to Christian schools? That’s confusion.
Government should either rebuild dilapidated schools or build new ones.
This is high level confusion. I believe the governor has an ulterior
motive. Students now trek four kilometres to get to school. I learnt a
document was signed in 2011 by both Muslims and Christians in Osun
State, where it was agreed that Muslims can’t wear hijab to a
Christian school. Now if it is true that this document was signed by
both Muslims and Christians, is the governor not aware of it. I appeal
to the governor to reverse himself which is not a sign of weakness; it
is a sign of strength. It will be a great mistake to think the tension
in Osun is over. There are undercurrents still going on. The way to
solve the problem is for the governor to reverse himself. If he doesn’t
want to do that, then he should say categorically that Muslims can’t
wear hijab to school. There is a case on this in court. These are
avoidable problems, things that don’t have to happen. For the sake of
peace, the governor should reverse himself.
For some time, there have been
reports of Fulani herdsmen killing hundreds of people in Benue and
other parts of the country, some people think this is another Boko Haram
in the offing, what do you think?
If government at all levels especially
the Federal Government do not critically look at the issue of Fulani
herdsmen, we may be having a problem bigger than Boko Haram on our
hands. They may be a link to Boko Haram. They are everywhere, not only
in Benue. It is happening everywhere all over Nigeria-Delta, Plateau,
Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Bayelsa. Who are these Fulanis? When I was growing up,
Fulanis carried sticks and knives but today they carry AK 47. Where did
they get guns from? Who taught them how to use guns, why is it that
they are not being arrested in huge number and prosecuted? Who are the
leaders of the Fulani community in Nigeria? We need to ask them what
they are doing about this, you can’t forcibly take over another man’s
land and expect them to keep quiet. That is unacceptable in any
civilised community. What are they doing to tackle the problem? People
in London eat meat, they eat meat in Indonesia, Turkey which are Muslim
countries, they eat cow but cattle don’t roam the streets. We are aware
that modern ranches have been built for these people. These people came
from somewhere, why not take them back to where they came from? There
are huge hectares of land where they could stay, even schools can be
built for them, another business can come out of it. People can own
trailers that would be carrying frozen meat to the south, it’s happening
all over Europe. Frozen meat is packaged. We don’t need to be leading
cows in the 21st century, it is outdated. We will have a worst situation
on our hands than Boko Haram if we don’t move fast. This must be
tackled immediately. Government must sincerely look at it, government
should not be interested in being politically correct.
Punch
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