You need to listen to Archbishop John Praise to understand the pains and persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria. President and founder of Domin
You need to listen to Archbishop John Praise to understand the pains and persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria. President and founder of Dominion Chapel International Church, Abuja, he is the National Vice President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN).
More of an apostle than a pastor, he is the Secretary of the Interfaith Advisory Committee Against Corruption in Nigeria – a committee set up by the Federal Government of Nigeria. He adds to those responsibilities the job of the president of ILCOM – International Leadership Conference of Ministers, The African Director of International Reconciliation Network, The Deputy President of Pentecostal Bishop’s Communion of Nigeria, Coordinator and Initiator of Festival of Music and Miracles ( a Christian Cultural Festival that holds annually in his country).
A man of few words when he is not on the pulpit has been a pacesetter in the Nigerian Christian ministry for over 30 years. He would have been killed in secondary school when a Muslim got converted to Christianity through him. That initial persecution was a foretaste of larger persecution he and his people in Southern Kaduna would face later in life.
As he said in this interview conducted by BOLA ADEWARA, it is unbelievable that no Church in the whole of Kano has been given a Certificate of Occupancy, meaning the churches could be demolished anytime. Archbishop Praise also opens up on how the Muslims violated the innocence and tranquillity of Jos and turned it into a theatre of violence. Excerpts. Interview Conducted 2010.
* Archbishop John Praise
Will you say you are satisfied with the quality of sermons from our churches today?
It depends on what you mean and what you want. If you listen to John, you will get what John is offering and if you want solid meat you will always get it. It is not everybody that is preaching a compromised message.
There are people God has set up as beacons of light who preach the word.
I don’t like to become hysterical about the kinds of messages being preached because I don’t know the assignment God gave individuals.
There are assignments in diversified ways and I believe that people should follow the leading of God in what they do and they should be directed by the fear of God, obey God in all ramifications in terms of righteousness and holy living.
Sometimes it is amazing that even though the messages are good and people are encouraged to live holy, you still find out that people still mess up their lives. With all the teachings on holiness in our churches, people still go back to their vomit and that tells you the condition of the heart of man.
I think ministers should be encouraged to preach the undiluted word and ultimately we should allow God to have His way in terms of helping people to live for Him.
What is your calling?
I’m called to be a voice in the body of Christ in terms of fatherhood and mentoring. My core calling is to preach the message of hope to the body of Christ. I’m a pastor by calling, an evangelist by anointing and I operate like an apostle.
For how long have you been operating in the North as a preacher?
I have been in the north all my life. I was born in Southern Kaduna where the majority are Christians. We have many Christians in that part of the North because Usman Dan Fodio with his jihad team could not penetrate it, the people resisted him. Our people are warriors.
But when Christianity came through the missionaries, the Southern Interior Movement, they did a lot of work in evangelizing the people and bringing them to Christ. I grew up in an Anglican setting and when I was in secondary school, I was a member of the Fellowship of Christians Students. I got born again in 1976.
What is your experience regarding the persecution of Christians in the Northern parts of Nigeria?
A year or two after I became born again, I became a leader in the fellowship. I remember I almost lost my life in 1978 when a Muslim got converted through me. There was a lot of protest by students in the secondary school I attended in Daura, Katsina State.
About 400 students were calling for my head because somebody had become a Christian through me. But as God would have it, I was not in school when the protest started.
I was somewhere representing the school in a competition. But thousands of them had gathered in the school asking for my life. That happened on a Friday.
On Monday, the school authority expelled me but I had to be called back because I was one of the best Science students and the school could not do without me.
They had to call me back. So I finished school and later moved on to life. Eventually, I bagged my HND in Kaduna Polytechnic (Civil Engineering)
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How did this translate into a full ministry?
I became the Chaplain for the Christian community in Kaduna, and also the Corpers Fellowship president during my Youth Service.
I had asked God that if I was going to be a pastor, He should arrange it in a way that I will be the president of the corpers fellowship and He did it. After my NYSC, we started a group called Dominion Bible Club. It is from there that the ministry developed.
Recently, Jos, the capital of Plateau state became a theatre of a religious war. Why is this incessant religious crisis and persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria?
I believe this is caused by the insensitive nature of our people on the other side. Islam does not give up. They are trying to start Dan Fodio Jihad to extend their territories.
If they claim that they are from Jos, that they were born there, that does not give them a right to cause trouble in that part of the country.
In the north, no Christian has ever provoked any Muslim. If we respond, it was in self-defence. We lost quite a lot of people to the insensitiveness of some Muslims. Initially, we thought we were being persecuted but we have since found out that it is wickedness and not persecution.
If God wanted everyone to be Muslims, He would have done it. It is just selfishness and this attitude that Nigeria should be Islamised. But Nigeria cannot be Islamised.
It is not possible. God has put us together and for those that God want to convert, we should allow Him to do it His own way.
It is not by violence or force. Jos used to be peaceful but has since become a centre of violence because of some insensitive people.
In Kano for instance no church has a certificate of occupancy, no matter how big the church is.
That is why when I hear some of our southern governors give land to Muslims to build land, it amazes me. We don’t even know the bomb power we are sitting on.
Those of us in the north see our southern Christians as the only hope we have but when they begin to go into alliance with Muslims we are at risk. They have killed and maimed innocent citizens over the years.
The government set up a panel of enquiries to look into these crises. Has there been compensation for victims? There has not been any compensation that I’m aware of.
A lot of time, they set up these panels. Nobody looks into the report. How come people are camped in Borno State for two years and they are armed to the teeth in their thousands and the government pretended that they didn’t know.
A security man told me that the Boko Haram man was once arrested and released.
Would you then say that Christianity is endangered in the North?
I must say that it is not only in the North that the Christians are endangered. They are endangered all over the country because the Boko Haram people boasted that they had their places in Ibadan and Lagos and they could bomb anytime.
I believe there are arms spread all over this country by some insensitive people. If that is the case I will advise that our people in the south should not drop their weapons because we may call on them to come and help us when the extremists come on us.
They boasted that they are part of Bin Laden and there are indications that there are training camps all over the country.
So what has the government done? Where will you put God all these if Christians are getting to the point of calling for help to be saved from some extremists in the North?
God is there and he had already done what he needed to do by sending His son to die for us. He will not die the second time again.
We have the scriptures. Somebody said Christians should not be violent. We have not been violent. We are peace-loving and accommodating.
The only time we stood up is to defend ourselves even then we did not carry weapons.
But then why must somebody say I must become a Muslim by force. For me I think we are in a stage in the north where we have to fight for our independence from the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.
God is there. But the Bible says resist the devil and it did not tell us how to resist him. The devil comes in various ways and we have to do something drastic about our situations.
What role have the Christian Association Nigeria (CAN) and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) been playing in all of these?
In the last National Executive Council of CAN, we had a very hot session. Somebody in the gathering stood up and told the CAN president that sir, I’m more afraid of you than the Boko Haram people. He said Islamic fundamentalists are killing us and you are not doing anything.
CAN is trying but some of these things that are happening are political and you have to use wisdom but they can do more. Let our young people be prepared and fight if necessary.
Israel is a nation after the heart of God and they still fight war and God defends them. In fact, most of the deliverance they get is God that delivered them.
There was a six-day war and the Israelites won the war on the sixth day. If not for God, the Israelite nation would have been annihilated. There are testimonies of some Generals in the Army of Israel who said they literarily saw angels fighting for them.
We can’t just sit down and allow the Muslim nation to run over us. I believe that in this country, the Christians are more but propaganda is being used to create the impression that the Muslims are more.
How will you prove this?
In the whole of this country, there are only six states in the north where we have predominant Muslims. And this is talking about the core North.
The whole of the middle belt which we categorise as the North are Christian states. The major problem with the North is poverty. When I started my ministry, for six months I was under the bridge in Abuja to worship. We couldn’t pay for hotel accommodation.
But God has raised us to become a voice. The South has so many advantages. In the north, some of us are the first breakthrough generation.
How will you explain the fact that Islam is gradually penetrating the east?
I’m bothered, and so afraid that Islam may overrun this country. I was told in Ebonyi State, there is a whole place where they raise up Igbo boys and they give them loans and do all kinds of welfare programmes for them.
And that is what the former CBN governor tried to do.
They give you a loan without interest. But it is a lie. If you have a project of N100m, they will give you that money without interest but they reach an agreement with you that the profit of the business will be shared.
That is their own way of collecting interest on loans but they give this impression that they give loans without interest.
We are being told that weapons are being piled up in the east. And these people are tomorrow’s thinkers. They plan ahead. I won’t be surprised that an Igbo man ruling one of the states in the East is a Moslem in the nearest future.
But don’t you also think that churches are also not living up to expectations in terms of meeting the needs of the people?
That is why I’m not happy when people attack those who are preaching the prosperity message because to a great extent, the poverty in the church has eaten too deep. Is it not when somebody is full that he can help others?
In the case of the other religion, they get votes from Islamic countries to carry out some of the projects they are into.
The church has started rising up saying the church has to come out of poverty.
But I think things should be balanced. I don’t think we can be glorifying poverty.
A professor told us that there is huge capital being brought in to do the work in many of the private universities owned by churches.
When we analyse the cost of running a university, we will find out that most private universities are not breaking even.
So what are you looking forward to in ministry?
I’m like a pacesetter for the body of Christ in the North. We are trying to build what we call the Bethel City, where people can be trained and instructed.
These are some of the things we are doing. We’ve been trying to build up that city for God and also want to build a Destiny University in the north. I also want to ensure that the Northerners can lift up their heads.
Tell us about your wife?
I have a great wife who has been supportive of the work in the ministry. My wife was in Deeper life when I met her because of my zeal and commitment to God I was the one taking the Bible Study group at the conference she attended.
That was where I met her. When I met her something struck and we got talking. And we became husband and wife.
