General Overseer and founder of Calvary Kingdom Church (CKC) International, Lagos State, Archbishop Joseph Ojo, in this interview with SEYI SOKOYA, speaks on how the nation can be better under the incoming administration and what the church must do. Excerpts.
The country witnessed the election of a new president and other political positions recently, what is your take on the process and the emergence of the candidates?
What we need to do is just to seek peace and ask people to be peaceful and not to take laws into their hands. The truth of the matter is everything committed to God should be seen to be safe. Nobody can understand what God can use people to do. So, I just wish people will give peace a chance and not take laws into their hands.
The church also played a major role in the election, do you think the church got it wrong again with its choice of candidate?
Everything in life, including politics, teaches people different lessons. What some have learnt from this is different from what others will learn from it. This will lead some people to trust God the most, while this may lead to some people to think that God has failed them “but God never fails. That is the truth. He holds the whole world in His hand. All I think the church needs to do like what they have been doing before is to obey the Bible injunction of praying for those in authority. Whoever is there is a minister of God, that is what the Bible tells me, and let us see how things will play out. It will be wrong for anybody to begin to take laws into their hands at this time. When we are praying for the will of God at times we don’t know when God establishes His will. So, we just have to believe “if I have prayed for the will of God and this is the outcome, then there should be the assumption that this is the will of God.
There are notions from some quarters that the church is divided based on perceived pursuit of different agenda by the denominations/blocs within Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). How do you see this?
The reason why it is so is that every issue in life, people have different views about it, there is nothing you can do about that. Even where you have people raised in a nuclear family made up of the father, mother, five to six children, definitely there will be divergent views on the same issue, but it does not mean they are no longer family. The same way it is with CAN, there are five blocs, if there are issues and we do not agree, that does not stop us from being one.
What is your advice to the incoming administration and what should be done differently for a new Nigeria?
To prove people wrong, this is my own piece of advice to them. If people were thinking and maybe nursing some fear; they should at least prove them wrong, and people will change their minds. Even in the Bible, Apostle Paul had a shipwreck and people thought that vengeance was on him when he came to the island of Patmos. A viper coiled on his hand but he shook it into the fire and felt no harm. When they waited a while expecting him to fall down and die and he didn’t fall down and die, they changed their minds. By the time the administration is given time to pursue their programmes, those who were skeptical will change their mind – that’s the truth. It is for them to be a blessing for people that doubted them before and for them to have reasons to thank God.
Many in the Christian community are in the Lenten season. Do you draw any inference from having the election during Lent?
I do not want to go into something I do not personally participate in. Lent is mostly observed by the Roman Catholics, Anglican and some others, and not by all Christians. Most Pentecostals do their fasting in January and I am not sure they are ready to enter into another one so soon. I think if they are following what they have been doing, this shouldn’t disturb them and they shouldn’t be thinking that there should be a national holiday of proclamation. They have been doing it whether politics or no politics; elections or no elections “they should go ahead pursuing their God-given mandate and spiritual responsibilities. However, Lent should be observed all year round in remembrance of the work of grace and the blood that was shed for the remission of the sins of man at Calvary. Lent is about pushing out distractions and about focusing on the one thing that really matters to us as Christians. For Christians, the season of Lent officially begins with the Ash Wednesday where church members especially those of the orthodox section walk to the altar to receive the sign of the cross on their foreheads in ash, which is to signify and remind us that without God, we are dust, and we shall someday return as dust.
As we look ahead to Easter, what is your message to Nigerians?
Like God spoke to me, they should be glad and rejoice. The book of Joel says that we should be glad and rejoice. God will do a great thing and during this Easter celebration, God will be doing something wonderful. Very good enough, during the time also on the 18th, I think a week after Easter itself will be my 74th birthday. So, I will be glad and rejoice.
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