“IDAHOSA WAS THE SCHOOL I ATTENDED; ANYTHING I AM TODAY, I AM BECAUSE OF IDAHOSA”

Archbishop Joseph Ojo is the General Overseer of Calvary Kingdom Church (CKC) international. He served under the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa of Church of God Mission (COGM) International. He is a marriage counselor and Bible expositor. He is the President of Able Ministers Association, President of Calvary Institute of Leadership and Theological Studies (CILATS). He is also a dedicated member of the National Advisory Council of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN). He has travelled far and wide, giving out the undiluted word of God to the world. In this interview, he elucidated on some issues concerning the church of God, his life and tutelage under Bishop Benson Idahosa, why some of the new generational pastors have turned the house of God into business, and so many other issues.

Can we meet you sir?
I am Archbishop Joseph Ojo, born on April 18, 1949. I am the General Overseer of the Calvary Kingdom Church International (CKC). I was brought up in the church by my late spiritual father, Archbishop Benson Idahosa of Church of God Mission International. I keep telling people jokingly that God did not call me. God called Idahosa and Idahosa called me. (We all laughed) I am a member of the National Advisory Council of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), the President of Able Ministers Association (AMA), President of the Calvary Institute of Leadership and Theological Studies (CILATS) I am blessed with four children and lovely wife.

Briefly tell us your educational background.
I had my B.A in Biblical studies from Lagos Bible College, Tampa Florida and also studied Theology at ICI of Brussels, Belgium, A certificate in Public Administration from University of Benin and a Masters degree from West Africa Theological Seminary (WATS). I also studied at the famous Christ for the Nations Institute too.

Did you set out in life to become a pastor?
This is a long story. I never ever thought I will be a pastor. I had become one before I knew I was one or meant to be one. I was ordained a deacon on the 6th of November 1976. In 1979, I was a business man, using a Volkswagen beetle. One day, I drove to the Church where I met Idahosa. He called me to his office and handed me a letter. He then held my hand and said let us pray. He said in prayers that … “Father, you know Your son more than I do, he has served me faithfully as an usher in this Church. Now in his new post as a pastor, I pray that You will grant him the wisdom…..” he prayed and prayed.
After the prayer, I asked him what was that suppose to mean? And he said, you are transferred to be a pastor of a new branch and the pastor there, who had been ordained long before me will be my deputy. I objected that I am a deacon and the pastor there, who he said will be my deputy, had bee ordained long before me. He said No, I should go and be the pastor. He said “God told me that you are a leader, a pastor. I cannot keep you away from what He has ordained you to be”. He said I do not understan d but I shall understand all these later.
Reluctantly, I went to the church he said I was posted to. Soon some problems began and the Church did not take off again. He then posted me to take over from another church. Reluctantly, I went there and the youth in the Church protested against it. I then went to the Miracle Center to meet Idahosa. When he saw me, he said the Youth of the Church wrote to him that they don’t want me. I said yes, they said I am a deacon not a pastor. He said they were wrong and I am also wrong, and I will understand all these later. I had to leave everything to God and fortunately, the church grew rapidly. When the job was becoming very absorbing, I had to fold up my business and became a full time pastor.
But after I became a pastor, I began to preach to my parents, my mother especially to become a Christian. She said it was me who was ordained as a pastor, I should leave them alone. One day I asked her to explain why. She said when she was carrying me, she went to a native doctor, as mothers then do, to ask for ways to have normal delivery. She said as soon as the native doctor threw down his materials of divination, the man hurriedly picked them and said she should go away, because the child she was carrying forbade fetish practices. She warned her never to come to her place again on account of the child.

She said she went to another native doctor and the man also told her the same thing, adding that the baby inside her was cursing him already. She said she was sent away and that was how she began to pray into a cup of water and drink till she had me.
She said my own pastoral work was a matter of destiny and so I should leave them alone. But I thank God that before she passed on, she gave her life to Christ and worshiped at a branch of the Church in Benin.

What were you doing before becoming a pastor?
I was worked at the Ministry of Works in Benin, and then I set up a transport business where I had three taxis and a mechanical workshop. I was ordained a deacon at age 27, became a pastor at 30. As at the time I became a pastor, many people hated the job because there was no money and glamour in it as it is now.

What was your relationship with Idahosa like?
He brought me into all these. Let me say with all honesty that apart from his immediate family, no one was closer to him than me. I was very close. There was a day he told me that before he had children, he had had me. I was with him for 26 years and one month. I also stayed with his wife, whom we call Mama for four years and two months, making a total of 30 years and three months.

Day Idahosa died.
I was here in my house at Okokomaiko in Lagos . I was to travel to Benin on March 13 for a meeting we were to have with him. But on the 12th, I got a call from Rev. (Dr.) Akioya, one of the leaders in Benin asking if I was coming to Benin. I told him yes, tomorrow. He said he would like me to make it immediately, I said why the hurry? After all, tomorrow was just some hours away. He pestered me to come immediately that Idahosa was not feeling too good and that he was in the hospital. I was surprised because since I knew Idahosa, he was never ill.

The next day, I left for Benin and straight I went to the Miracle Centre where I saw few sad people. Still I never knew he was dead. I then went to Faith Arena where there were still few, then went to his house where I met people crying. There I was told he had passed on. I said it was a lie that until I saw his body. They took me to a room where his remains was kept before I believed.

There were media speculations that his death was followed by controversies on who should become the next GO. What actually happened?
Speculations would always be there but the will of God prevailed. I believed that if it was the will of God that I should take over from him, nothing, nobody could have scuttled it.
So I want to believe that it was not His will that I took over. It was passed to Mama and I have no bitterness. Like I said, nobody knew Idahosa would die so soon so nobody, including me was thinking of any succession.
People outside the Church had their freedom to speculate. The print and electronic media had their say. But I was an insider and I knew where the pendulum was likely to shift. It did not bother me at all. I had the peace of God and I’m grateful that all that happened to the glory of God.
The truth was that, though I was not the Number 2 man. We had other Bishops, but I was the foremost Bishop. My province, Lagos and the West also spoke of my ability and demonstrated that I was next to him.

Recently, I taught some students at our Bible school that the size of a man’s heart is equivalent to the size of his fist. The size of a pastor’s heart is equivalent to what he has done. By His grace, what God did through me in Church of God Mission showed that I had a large heart. So the Lord said “in everything, give thanks. So it never bothered me. That was why I remained with Mama for another four years so that the people will not say I left because I was not made the Archbishop.

When it became very obvious that I had to go, I had to go to God in prayers. After 30 years of service, I did a Letter of Appreciation to Mama, thanking her for allowing me to contribute my quota to God’s work through CGM and I am requesting for retirement. I did not say resignation because after 30 years, only a foolish man will talk of resignation.

Not only that, after sending my letter, I went to Benin, gave one of my sons in the Lord
N50, 000 to buy a cow and take to Mama’s house, that was on Friday 24th, 2002. On Saturday, I went to her house. On seeing me, she said ‘Bishop, I saw the cow, what does that mean?’ I then said I thank her for allowing me to serve for these years. And when the Igboman (an ethnic group in Nigeria ) have served his master for years, he does what we call freedom (graduation). That cow is for my freedom. I told her I need her prayers so I can retire. She laughed hilariously. I knelt down, another Bishop who was there and Mama then prayed for me. I felt so relieved and peacefully, I left.

But why did you leave?
I left because the situation was getting so bad. I remember that one day, at a meeting of the top shots in the Church, an elder in the Church, one Major Bawado stood up and said he was speaking the minds of 70% of the people sitting there that Mama could not succeed in leading the church as long as I was there. He said it was either I leave the Church for Mama or Mama leaves the Church for me. It was as bad as that. They saw me as a threat. They thought because I was not made the Archbishop, I was hurt. I kept telling mama not to believe them. Anything I did was regarded with suspicion. So I had to leave.

But today, thank God for our relationship. It is cordial. She has come to preach for me here and I have also preached for her. I still go to Faith Arena and Miracle Centre. It’s still my home.

Recently, you were coronated as an Archbishop. What informed that sir?
I moved into the office of the Archbishop for numerous reasons. First of all, the good book says no one taketh this calling for himself except he who is called of God.
Also, it is natural that in life you aspire to move to the next available level. I was coronated a Bishop 20 years ago by my spiritual father, Benson Idahosa. Since then, I have been in the leadership arena, and right now leading a group of about 30 Bishops who are also General Overseers of their churches. In other words, I am a Bishop of Bishops. I have children that are bishops. So, it became necessary that to be an Archbishop.
Moreso, CKC is growing and we have branches. Beginning from this year, we are beginning to consecrate our own bishops.

Running towards age 70, could you mention the most memorable day in your life?
I became the head usher of Church of God Mission, Benin City in 1972 and was ordained a deacon in 1976. In 1979, I became a full time minister. I was ordained a pastor in 1982 and a bishop in 1993. I remember the day when late Archbishop Benson Idahosa gave me a letter to pastor a branch of Church of God’s Mission but I told him: ”Sir, I am a deacon and not a pastor.”

He replied: ‘God spoke to me that you are a pastor and a leader and He has instructed me not to withhold whatever He wants to do with you. You know you are my son and I love you, physically. I would have retained you here but I don’t want to hinder what God wants to do in your life.’
I reported in the church but the members rejected me and said they wanted an ordained pastor. However, God gave me the grace to preach a message that changed their mind. I told them that day ‘I was a good shepherd, all that came before me were robbers but the good shepherd had come to lay his life and that was how God changed their mind.”

Can you tell us the impact of Churches in Nigeria?
The Church has done a lot of works in terms of preaching the good news of the lord and creating employment opportunities for young graduates in the country and praying constantly to avert war. Though some of these new generational pastors do not have spiritual fathers that mentored or tutored them before they started their own ministries. We have contributed largely to the developmental growth of the country. Some pastors believe that ministry is an easy work because of the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria; most pastors felt that their educational backgrounds qualify them to be pastors or own a church. If government can provide enough jobs, you would not see mediocre pastors in Nigeria anymore. Ministers of God like us served our spiritual fathers very well before we got real confirmation from God to set our own ministries unlike some pastors that came into the fold to do business rather than God’s work. Every genuine ministers of God must have ministerial trainings. We still have faithful pastors but few.

What have your ministerial challenges been?
The first challenge was when Idahosa died. The church where I was serving had so many challenges. There was the issue of acceptance and oppositions from here and there. It was like I was at a dead end and I began asking myself, ‘Where do I go from here?’ It was such a great challenge to decide what next to do when your mentor is suddenly cut off.
The second challenge was when I was beginning this ministry, Calvary Kingdom Church in 2002 at age 53, without adequate planning. You have served a church for 30 years and you are now suddenly to begin your own thing.
Starting a church is never a child’s play. Moreover, I had no plans of starting a church. I keep telling people that if the leadership of Church of God Mission had not raised issues allowed me to remain in the CGM to fulfill what the Lord called me for, there would be be no need to start Calvary Kingdom Church. But the leadership felt otherwise. So I took it to god ion prayers and He told me in 2002 to move on. In spite of this, I still stayed in CGM for four years after Idahosa died. As I said earlier, some of the leaders that time did not just like me.
As I said earlier, at a meeting tagged ‘Moving the Church Forward’ one day in 1999, a year after papa died, one of the elders I mentioned earlier stood up and told Mama Idahosa that he will be speaking the minds of 60-70 percent of people at the meeting and that she cannot succeed in leading the ministry except I am out of the church. I sprang up to challenge posed by the elder but Mama intervened, telling me to leave him, that everybody had a right to their own opinion. I sat down in agony. I almost urinated on my body because I didn’t know I was brought to the meeting to be so disgraced.
So as I said, I had no plan to leave the church. I was loyal to Idahosa. It was difficult for me to just leave. So I had to wait on God until He released me.

Who was Idahosa? What was working with him like? You must have learnt so much from him …

The experience could be summed up the same way John the Apostle wrote it in the gospel, that all the things that Jesus did, if the whole world was a book it cannot contain it. All my experience, studies and impartations I had under and with Benson Idahosa, if the whole world was a book, it not big enough to contain it.
I once said Idahosa was the school I attended; and I am not joking about it. Anything I am today, I am because of Idahosa. Idahosa was open in his life and teachings. He taught me the rudiments of courage, the boldness to surmount challenges, how to do big things with little things.
Through him, I knew that being a pastor is not about standing before the pulpit, holding the mic and preaching; you must have some building engineering skills. These are the things I replicated here. He made me know that no architect or engineer should be influential or powerful enough to misinterpret my vision and that whatever vision God gives you concerning the structure is personal to you. God told Moses to build according to the specifications He showed him on the mountain. No architect could alter what God gave Moses. He was the person to instruct the architect what God told him. Idahosa taught me many things.

What else would you have been if you were not in the church?
I told someone recently that I have some natural talents and gifts that would have made me do well in my life outside the church, like being a very powerful and influential artiste, doing very well in the entertainment industry as a comedian.
How would you advice the young pastors and those with eyes on the ministry?
First of all, they need to hear from God. It is not by their power or design or education. The basic foundation of a ministry and minister that would succeed is to hear from God. Nobody should go into ministry if he is not called of God. Ministry life is not established on the failure to succeed in your secular life. Some have written several applications for employment and failed and their last hope starting a church because they have the cash to rent a hall or have a parcel of land somewhere on which they can build. And if the church grows, offerings and tithes will come in with which they can manage their lives. The question is did you hear from God? Did God send you? If he does, he pays the bill. If not, you will pick the bill yourself. I can exemplify this analogy with the Jonah experience. God sent him to Nineveh. On getting to the seaport, he went to the opposite direction. Who paid the bill? He did. If he was to go where God sent him, he wouldn’t have paid but because he was going to the opposite direction, he had to pay. But check out when he got to Nineveh through the belly of the fish, did he pay? If God didn’t send you, same thing will happen to you.
Closely following this is knowing where he wants you to stay. These days, the young pastor desire to stay where he things rich and prominent people are living, thinking by that will big tithes come in. It is not by the prominence of those who attend your church. A soul is a soul. If you hear from God and God tells you where to go, then definitely you will flourish there.
Thirdly, the need to work and walk patiently is imperative. There must be priorities. First thing first. Success is not an overnight, sudden flight. The big cars, the big titles, the big church, big television ministry, it’s not a sudden thing. So many people say they are Bishop and have no church building and stable congregation. We need to justify whatever we call ourselves.

The Christian faith in Nigeria and the world over is largely seen as greatly bedeviled. How did we find ourselves here?
Simple. Worldliness. Loss of priorities. We are majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors. The world has entered church. The other day, I was watching a Christian children programme on the television. The dance steps of the children was baffling. You couldn’t distinguish between the world and the church any longer and its like nobody cares. They were dancing like Michael Jackson inside the Church and their parents were applauding them.
It does not end there. The corruption and malfeasance that is in the government has deeply entered the church. Church leaders are prone to the mundane. Many of them now ride the most expensive cars that even corrupt politicians think twice to ride. Church leaders are now scared of their shadows that they now go everywhere with armed policemen around them. If you are not a thief why use police to protect yourself? Are we not enjoined to live the life of Christ? Where did we see all these? This flamboyant life is giving the church another image. Immediately they start this kind of living, it becomes difficult for them to depend on the little income; so they have to cut corners by cajoling church member s and raising unnecessary offerings. The Nigerian church and some of the leaders need prayers. I am not saying this because I detest them but I am speaking it because many of them have irredeemably gone astray.
Those who accused Idahosa as starting the prosperity message are wrong in their accusations. Yes, he preached prosperity and lived well but there was no greed in his approach as we see today. He was dashed an aircraft and he rejected it. Today, some pastors have many.  They litter cities like Johannesburg, Pretoria, New York, Nevada, London with buildings but they forget that we brought nothing into this world and we are not taking anything away.

What are those things that inspire you?
God’s faithfulness. That is my theme for this year. Anytime I am down or challenged by one trouble or another, and I remember his faithfulness, I am always happy. God’s faithfulness inspires me.