The Chairman, Central Working Committee, Assemblies of God South-South Council, Nsikak Akpan, blames the love for material things on the crisis in the church, in this interview with Etim Ekpimah
Which of the two factions does the South-South zone belong to? Is it the Prof. Paul Emeka faction or that of Dr. Chidi Okoroafor?
My faction is that of Rev. Dr. Chidi Okoroafor. In this church, we listen to our leaders; this is the way we are instructed. Since our leader decided to follow a different path, we all have to toe the line. Although when it comes to the grass roots, we have been telling the people that what we are doing as a church is not right. But there is a point when you cannot argue further, and in order for you to be loyal, you must be a follower and since then I have been following him.
Some Nigerians have described the crisis in the Assemblies of God Church as an embarrassment to the Christendom. How do you react to this?
It is too embarrassing to me as a person, as a child of God and as a man of God. I am not okay with it. They really messed up the church because in Nigeria here, the Assemblies of God is known to be the mother of Pentecostal churches. But the way we are portraying ourselves in the media or what is being published about the church has now been crisis, beatings, backbiting, while other churches are propagating the gospel. So, it is a big mess, though our leaders are not seeing it that way.
Is it true that the present crisis began when Rev. Emeka sacked the principal officers of the Evangel University without consulting the executive committee members or was there another issue?
Well, I will not say whether it is true or not since we don’t have the opportunity of working with them at that level. So, I don’t really know what caused their problems. But one thing we know is that this church has a set of rules; we have guidelines. Even if something of that nature was going on, I believe that there should be a way for them to call him to order and say this is not how the church is supposed to go. At least, to protect the name of the church and the name of God or what people will say about our church.
Is it also true that if Prof. Emeka is not referred to as ‘Rev. Prof.’, he gets angry?
Personally, I called the professor and asked him, ‘is it this professor issue that is making you angry?’ He said ‘No’. Because I know that Rev. Dr. Osueke, who was our former General-Superintendent, was not referred to as a professor. So, whether he is a professor or not a professor, he can still become our General-Superintendent. I do not think that is the problem.
What is the update on the rivalry in the church between the factions?
The problem that we are having now is that after a lot of negotiations, dialogues, and more, we are trying to see how we can talk to our leaders to agree with us that what is going on in the media and what people are saying about our church is not good. But, instead of listening to us, they said there are rules in the church. One’s voice will not be heard and as a result of that, no matter how much noise one makes, nobody will hear. But I personally told them that there is a way we can resolve this issue rather than disgrace ourselves as we are doing now all over the country, and in many parts of the world where we have churches.
Many years ago, Assemblies of God Church was the pride of many churches with the way it maintained discipline, but now it is one crisis after another. What changed?
As I said, we still remain the mother of Pentecostal churches though we have failed. I believe that the Bible said that a righteous man will fall and rise again. We will come back if only they will listen to a simple guideline from God. I tell you that if they will take to the recommendation of decentralising the affairs of the church, I believe all the troubles we are going through will cease.
I take time as a person to project this issue of decentralisation. I consulted people, held meetings and asked, ‘what is really the problem?’ When we asked what we could do in order for us to settle the problem once and for all and regain our dignity as a church, we discovered that the only thing that would bring peace back to our church is decentralisation and nothing else.
You have called for the decentralisation of the general council administration; is that not calling for chaos?
We discovered that with this decentralisation, we will fall into zones. By this, we will determine how many zones we are going to have, whether it will be based on six geo-political zones or that of the church, which is based on 12 zones.
Do you know that our case is in the Supreme Court? Let me say that the Assemblies of God’s case is in the Supreme Court of law and as a result of that, most of our preachers no longer preach on radio. What will you preach? Which church will you mention at the end of the programme? Where will you ask people to go?
They do not know what we are going through. Many people have left our church and we have now discovered that there is a group of people that have sworn that they can never belong to Chidi’s faction and then the other side swore that they would never belong to Emeka’s faction. And we now said, how can we bring these people together in order for us to regain our dignity and we saw that the only way out was to decentralise the church’s administrative structure.
Apart from crisis that we are hearing about which we have investigated and discovered that it is not about any other thing but material things. Materialism is the cause of all these things. We also know that it is because of power tussle, because of position and so we believe that if they will allow this decentralisation to come and stay in the Assemblies of God, automatically the court cases will die. Automatically, Emeka will be forced to return to his own zone and Chidi will go back to his own zone and everybody will turn to their various zones.
Then from there, there will be little economic power at the centre to cause struggling among people. There will no longer be a situation where people will say, “I will kill you if I cannot be the General-Superintendent.” We believe that this is the only way to bring peace, oneness and togetherness to the church.
Some people have said that your suggestion will only lead to indiscipline because then, no one can monitor how the different zones handle finances.
I have told people that it is not only about staying at the national level. Go to the grass roots, go to every zone, or conduct a kind of grass roots conferences. Let us go and listen to what each zone is saying about our church. Many injustices are going on and there is marginalisation. People are crying in these places. Everything is being focused on only one region, and people are complaining about that.
For over 76 years now, if I should count from 1939, it is over 76 years that the Assemblies of God in Nigeria has been in existence and one region occupied the place of the General-Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent.
When you talk about the directors that work with them, it is about only one tribe. So, when it comes to this, people are not happy. You will even discover that before you can be known in the general council, someone needs to introduce you and everything is around this one region. Apart from that, the same thing happens in the area of assets. Every asset is always situated only in one region, whereas other zones also contribute to the church.
You have made allegations of marginalisation and gross injustice but why is it that it is only your zone that is having this complaint? None of the other zones has raised these complaints.
In Assemblies of God as I said earlier, if you want to say the truth, you may be sent out, suspended or dismissed and as a result of that, many people shut their mouths. What I am doing now, if not that I am being sent by God to do it, I would have been afraid of the fate that will befall me. But I am not afraid of anybody.
I just want to tell them the truth to their faces because people are afraid of saying it. Do you know that in this church, a Reverend Minister would be going home with over N5m, some N1m, while another reverend of the same ranking elsewhere would be going home with less than N1,000 per month as salary. I mean in this same church- Assemblies of God.
As a result of this, if you don’t belong to a certain group or had the opportunity to be sent to a bigger church or a mega church, a church that is vibrant, then you cannot send your children to school, you cannot build a house, or do anything useful for yourself. So we are saying ‘let us talk about these issues so that others will also have a sense of belonging to this church’.
So just because you are close to the Superintendent and he now gives you a big church to manage, as a result of that, you will be going home with over a N1m or over N500,000 per month, and then I will be going home with less than N1,000 in the same district.
Is that good? I will love the media to come to the grass roots, go to the interior areas and ask big reverend ministers. Many have died and the worst of it all is that some that have died left behind their children who nobody cares about. The people who hawk around, the people you are seeing that are becoming wayward are children of the pastors of Assemblies of God.
Some people have described the remuneration of ministers as good and that if ministers are not greedy, there should be no reason to complain. How do you react to that?
That is what I am explaining to you. For example, if you are fortunate or you belong to a cabal or lucky to get a church that is vibrant, you can go home with N200,000 or N50o,000 a month. Someone of the same rank that does not have such an opportunity and is in a remote village and presiding over a small church, can be getting N2,000. They can go home with less than a N1,000 per month .If you come there; I have more than a thousand of such persons that can testify to this.
Some members of your church are saying that your zone pulled out from the national body for selfish reasons, so that you can have more access to funds. What do you say about that?
Well, they call it pull out but I do not call it pull out. I call it re-organisation. It is re-organisation and not pulling out. I call for decentralisation. We are still one but we have noticed that everything is only going to need region, including assets and appointments. Whatever goodies that come to the church are only going to one region while people in other regions are crying. So we said in order for all these things to stop, so that cries of marginalisation and cheating will stop, the solution is decentralisation.
Even the case in the Supreme Court will also die. Let us have decentralisation so that the zones will plan and use the little money they get for themselves. From there, the zones will have different generals that constitute the conference of generals, and not just one person directing everything to his own zone. At least, this will stop the rivalry among ministers. The cries of people that you are hearing now will not be much when compared to what will happen tomorrow if they fail to listen to us.
You have said that the church has grown too big, too expensive to run and too inefficient, but there are bigger churches in the country like the Redeemed Christian Church of God and the Christ Embassy that are being efficiently managed. How do you explain that?
I am not into those churches to know what their structures are like but I believe that it is better for somebody to borrow a good idea from somewhere and practise it to help him in his own area. In the Assemblies of God, we have what we call sections. When the section is growing too big, maybe when a section grows from three churches to five or gets to eight, nine or 10, they will call for a division. The section will be divided. The same thing also happens in the district; when a district grows too big, they will call for a division. But there is no provision in our congregation that talks about the general council.
We have discovered that there is no provision that mentions this in the general council. We want to believe that if not for this, many people in the Assemblies of God would have come out from different areas to agitate for this. But since the provisions are not there, they have kept quiet.
The reason why I have come out boldly like this is because I believe that as children of God, we ought not to allow this kind of rubbish to keep going on everywhere in the church, where people expect their souls to be saved. But people would rather forget about souls and run after material things. It is not good. So as a result of that, we believe that this is the only way so that all these things will die and the church can be focused. I want the Assemblies of God to focus on God again and not on material things as some of them have been saying that we want to control power and money.
Last year, an Assistant General-Superintendent of the church petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, saying that factional leader, Okoroafor, embezzled N100bn belonging to the church. What does your zone make of that allegation?
It was an eye opener to everybody that this church has so much money but yet ministers, the contributors of this money, are dying in abject poverty and crying every day. In this region, South-South Zone 1, they cannot boast of a church that the general council bought a piece of land and built. They cannot boast of it anywhere. I asked them to tell me anywhere that they have used the general council money to do that. We heard that about N220m has been taken out to Germany to buy a church in order for them to send their men to Germany to operate there. But what about here where people are dying? And anybody that comes out to say the truth will be threatened with suspension. You will hear, “I will suspend you; I will send you out from this church.” Now, suspension is a tool of intimidating people. Suspension should be for individuals who do something wrong. But with the way our leaders are behaving, it is only to shut people’s mouths.
People expect the issues to have been resolved by now after about two years, what are still the contending issues?
I had the privilege of being with Rev. Okoroafor on February 6, 2016 and while we were talking, I asked him “Papa, now that this case is in the Supreme Court, what will be our fate if the court judgement favours Emeka? And he answered that nobody could force anybody to serve God. It was then I told my people that these people had sworn to themselves that they would never settle no matter the outcome of the court case. I also asked that supposing the court judgment comes, will you people sit up so that this church can become one? But what my Papa, Rev. Dr. Chidi, told me was that they were ready for something, which meant that they do not want peace in the church.
What would you suggest as the solution to the crisis affecting the church?
The only way to put an end to the ongoing national crisis, which has divided the church, is to reorganise it. And this reorganisation would be to decentralise either into six geopolitical zones according to our Nigeria setting or into 12, according to our sense of God setting of zones. With this, if the zones will have their differences, it will become like a family issue, which can be settled amicably in order to continue to raise the dignity of the church and also protect the image of the church better than what we have today.
The court will only bring judgement but not peace to the church. Let us fall into different zones, then we will have a conference of generals and anyone that will be on the seat as the chairman of the church will be there on part-time basis. It will be by rotation and it will not be resided in one region. This is the reason why we have said that we are not pulling out but the South-South Zone has said that it wants to initiate peace and unity in the church so that other zones can follow. Emeka, whether he likes it or not, will have to face his zone. Whether Chidi likes it or not, he will return to his zone. The court case will die naturally.
So do you think the issues affecting unity in the church can ever be resolved?
It is only God that will help Assemblies of God. It is the structure that we have said that is not good, so we want to change it. – Culled from Punch.
