* Ayo AkereleAyo Akerele is one of the Nigerians in the diaspora doing our image a world of good. With five different degrees in his kitty, he has con
* Ayo AkereleAyo Akerele is one of the Nigerians in the diaspora doing our image a world of good. With five different degrees in his kitty, he has consulted professionally for at least seventeen multinational corporations in the last twenty-one years. Now, he is more focused on the preaching of the gospel, while still working professionally as a private consultant and adviser to several organizations in Nigeria, Canada, and the United States. This is a revealing interview. You need to know how his father, a Muslim got converted to Christianity and how he (father) swept his family into the faith. Taking a look at the Buhari regime, Akerele said that the man at the helm of affairs is a full-blown religious fanatic and bigot who has dwarfed Abacha in wickedness and made him a hero of Jonathan! Excerpts from an interview conducted with Ayo Akerele in the US.
Tell us about yourself, where you are coming from, growing up days, background, education, family, etc.
I am Ayo Akerele, a native of Ilesha, Osun State in Nigeria. I come from a family of eight people, including dad, mum and six siblings, the first son and the third born. My early years were spent in the ancient city of Ibadan, where I had my primary, secondary and university education. My mum is late, dad is still alive, having retired as a lecturer of a higher institution in one of Nigeria’s leading academic institutions.
* Ayo Akerele
I graduated with a BSc degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Ibadan after which I worked with three different organizations in Nigeria before proceeding to South Africa for a post-graduate degree at the University of Pretoria.
Later, I proceeded to Aberdeen, Scotland, UK for my MBA at the Robert Gordon University after which I pursued my doctoral program at Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University. In summary, I hold five different degrees and have consulted professionally for at least seventeen multinational corporations in the last twenty-one years.
I am now more focused on the preaching of the gospel, while working professionally as a private consultant and adviser to several organizations in Nigeria, Canada, and the United States.
What are your memories of your early days as a Christian, parenting, friendship?
My parents were highly disciplined. I would call my dad a very strict disciplinarian–something that is very common with academic people.
My mum was very amiable and supportive of our upbringing as Christians. Dad was born a Muslim, but in 1984, he got saved while on academic research work in the Northern Part of Nigeria. He came back to lead all of us to Christ. We began our Christian journey at the Orita-Mefa Baptist Church in Ibadan after which we branched out to set up the New Life Baptist Church, from where we joined the Nigerian Pentecostal movement in 1990.
I used to be an introvert. I never really had more than four or five friends at a time. I was preoccupied with books (Christian and academic) and the house chores given to us by my parents.
I wish I can speak to your dad about what he saw in Northern Nigeria that converted him to Christianity…
Well, he had an encounter in his hotel room. He bought the Bible and placed it side by side with the Quran, reading both at the same time. According to him, he saw a more confident saviour in Jesus than in Mohammed. One said, “I don’t know where I am going or will end”. Another said, “I am going to heaven to prepare a place for you and I will come back to take you to myself”.
The church was shot down by the bullets of the prosperity doctrine that was shipped to Nigeria in the late 80s from the American church. I do not think we’ve got more than ten per cent of remnants of faithful and truthful churches in Nigeria at the moment.
The stark differences were just too much for dad. Both personalities were diametrically opposed to values and promises. Dad, being an academic person could not fathom why he should stake his life after Mohammed. And consequently, the Holy Spirit took over the process right in his hotel room.
He had been preached to by a faithful female colleague for years, and the seed had been sown. So, everything just worked together and the Holy Spirit hijacked him. He knelt by his bed and turned his life over to Christ, and that was the revival that swept all of us into Christianity.
Can you still see such traits in the present-day church and Christianity? What has happened to the church?
I am forever grateful to God for getting me saved in the early 80s. This gives me the capacity and experience to effectively diagnose the current problems with the Nigerian church. I have written most of these things in many of my books.
The Nigerian church began with fire and fervour, but the glory has left, and all we can see today is a church with burnt gates and broken walls. The church was shot down by the bullets of the prosperity doctrine that was shipped to Nigeria in the late 80s from the American church. I do not think we’ve got more than ten per cent of remnants of faithful and truthful churches in Nigeria at the moment.
The church is very corrupt and carnal and the fruits that attend to a new life in Christ are almost completely eroded. Another bullet shot at us by the enemy is the disunity propelled by the explosion in denominations–a development that exploded doctrinal errors and false teachings in the church.
This explosion in church denominations also fed into the explosion in church planting work, which initially was packaged as kingdom expansion projects, but which have now become money expansion and empire-building projects for many church leaders in Nigeria. The situation is now so bad that several pastors in Nigeria and some church leaders are passively and actively in the occult.
One of the major criticisms people make against Christians in Nigeria, nay Africa is that of gullibility. From your observations, are they gullible? What is the difference between faith and gullibility?
The typical African culture is that of respect. It is that of, “the elders cannot be wrong”. It is that of, “the anointed cannot be wrong”. Given these cultural mindsets, a lot of false pastors crept into the church to deceive God’s people using voodoos and various types of manipulative tools such as, “The Lord says or The Lord told me”. Once people hear this statement, “they submit their wills to the pastor and do whatever they are asked to do”. I don’t want to use the word, “gullibility”. The right word is “manipulation”.
There is a lot of illiteracy and ignorance in Nigeria, for example. The government has failed the people. There is intense poverty in the land, and the only hope of the people is God. So, they go into churches as broken and battered people. And in that state, a lot of these false pastors weaponize their poverty and ignorance to deceive them with fake prophecies, false doctrines, and the people–with absolutely no other source of solution to their problems–fall flat before the pastors.
Faith is acting on advanced information from God which is different from acting on fake information from a pastor, Unfortunately, many Christians think that they are working by faith when they give all their salaries to the pastor only to wait endlessly without getting the prophesied results. It is a very serious problem. There are genuine pastors, but they are few and are being submerged by fake pastors.
What is your rating of the pastors in Nigeria and Africa? Can their sermons and examples take their church members to heaven?
I won’t attempt to rate anyone as this is the exclusive preserve of God. I am also in the same body of Christ, and I am also trusting God for grace to see me through. However, if I would express my opinion. I think most of the church leaders in Nigeria and Africa have failed to produce sound disciples for Christ, and for the most part, all they have raised are members.
Disciples are different from members. Members don’t change nations. Disciples do. The messages on our altars have become watered down. For the most part, greed and covetousness and egocentrism have taken over the hearts of a lot of believers–courtesy of what they hear.
Further, there is a lot of syncretism and paganism in most of our churches. Believers are forever doing rituals. Bring brooms to church; bring candles; bring this, bring that, drop a seed; 24-hour turn-around. The true gospel has been replaced with adulterated and paganistic messages, and the result is all we are now seeing–carnal, greedy, weak, and covetous generations of Christians who are disgracing the name of Christ in their careers, marriages and government.
There is a lot of illiteracy and ignorance in Nigeria, for example. The government has failed the people. There is intense poverty in the land, and the only hope of the people is God. So, they go into churches as broken and battered people. And in that state, a lot of these false pastors weaponize their poverty and ignorance to deceive them with fake prophecies
From scriptures, access to heaven is only by faith in Christ–expressed by genuine repentance from sins. In other words, most of the people claiming to be saved from many of our churches are not saved. You can’t be sleeping with different women as a married man and claim to be saved. You can’t be lying and back-stabbing people and cheating and stealing and claim to be saved.
The quality of our Christians has so much fallen. I am afraid. But many Christians from our churches may not enter heaven. They think they are saved, but their lives bear no resemblance to true salvation. The lifestyles of many of our church leaders are disgraceful and embarrassing to heaven. And people will always reflect the values of their leaders. We need to go back to discipleship and genuine salvation messages.
Can you compare and contrast the Goodluck Jonathan government to this Buhari government? Are you one of the Nigerians who had high hopes in Buhari but are disappointed today?
Buhari is the worst leader in Nigeria’s history. Not even Abacha–as ruthless as he was, compares with Buhari. You can’t compare the isolated political killings under Abacha with the widespread, city to city, village to village ethnic cleansing that is going on under Buhari. It is mind-blowing.
Jonathan was more democratic than Buhari. Buhari is a full-blown religious fanatic and ethnic bigot. It is Buhari that turned Jonathan into a hero. However, Jonathan himself was and is not a good leader. So, I am dismissing both of them, but Buhari is the worst of the two. Well, I rooted for Buhari–despite the many warnings we were given. But it didn’t take me 1 year to backtrack when I saw that we had bought a bad market.
This does not mean that his government has not done any good thing for Nigeria. But here is the issue: A student does not always fail an exam because he did not answer any question correctly, but either because he didn’t answer the right questions or because he provided poor quality responses to the given questions.
Buhari is a textbook definition of failure—having turned Nigeria into a much worse killing field with his bad policies and nepotistic value systems. He has entrenched injustice so much more than any of his predecessors. And there can be no peace in the absence of justice.
This has nothing to do with his person, but I am speaking about his leadership potential and capacity. His nepotism, lack of sound education, lack of exposure, Fulani imperialist mindset, and religious fundamentalism have contributed to his failure. Nigeria does not need a Buhari or a Jonathan again. There are better leaders across the 36 states of the nation. Let’s develop the right process and systems to fish them out and harness their potentials.
If you have one hour to speak with Mohammed Buhari on his governance and what you have seen, what would you tell him?
You have got about 18 months more sir, do you care to leave a legacy? Have you thought about your children and their future? Why don’t you suspend this Fulanization mindset and bring this country together? How will you do this? By killing nepotism, sir.
Re-organize all our security architecture and every single appointment in this country to conform with the federal character principle. Release all the activists and innocent people your administration has locked up. Stop releasing Boko Haram insurgents. It is breeding injustice—which is fueling revenge and sectarianism. Charge them to court and let them be prosecuted.
Sanitise your government by relieving all the Boko Haram sympathizers of their jobs, and prosecuting the ones found wanting. Convene a peace meeting among all groups in the country–IPOB, Yoruba Nation; Niger Delta; Middle-Beltans etc. and apologize to them on behalf of the country and compensate everyone for all their losses and withdraw all charges against harmless agitators.
there is a lot of syncretism and paganism in most of our churches. Believers are forever doing rituals. Bring brooms to church; bring candles; bring this, bring that, drop a seed; 24-hour turn-around. The true gospel has been replaced with adulterated and paganistic messages, and the result is all we are now seeing–carnal, greedy, weak, and covetous generations of Christians who are disgracing the name of Christ in their careers, marriages, and government
Finally, re-organize the DSS and the military to curb all their anti-democratic practices. Let all court orders be obeyed and start doing monthly presidential chats with Nigerians. Act like a father. Bring everyone to the table for negotiation. With these recommendations, Nigerians will forgive Buhari, and the nation will move forward.
If you are to speak to Nigerians on followership and how to react to good or bad government, what is your message?
Nigerians must embrace the values and principles of speaking out against falsehood. The evil culture of silence must be expunged from our values. Second, Nigerians must make a vow never to trade their votes for any political candidate. Third, Nigerians must unite and back up credible candidates.
The era of party loyalty at the expense of credible candidates must be done away with. We must follow people with traceable and visible records of integrity, not people with audio integrity. We must demand accountability from our leaders. Asset declaration must be the number one consideration before rooting for any leader.
If you become the national CAN president today, what would be your suggestions and policies on Christianity in Nigeria. How would you speak to Nigerian Christians?
First, I must find every means possible to get the Nigerian church regulated. All churches must provide their financial records and financial activities to a Christian led government agency on an annual basis for record-keeping and accountability purposes.
I will make sure that parish proliferation is highly regulated and monitored by designated ministers with credibility and integrity. I will make sure no one starts a church without theological training in a government-approved seminary. I will make sure that all general overseers and leaders come together to iron out doctrinal differences. For Nigerian Christians, I will call for national repentance.
I will bring together all the GOs and church leaders across all denominations and work out modalities for a national repentance movement. Then, I will work with various churches and denominations on how the church can become kingdom-driven–that is, how we can begin to set examples for the world around us.
I will root for the deliberate sponsoring of qualified Christians into political offices across the nation. I will root for a Kingdom political party that will champion the needed transformation of Nigeria through the church.
Are you satisfied with what you see of Nigerian youths? Are these youths ready to take over the leadership of this country?
The youths are direction-less and vision-less courtesy of what they see in the fathers. The culture of get-rich-quick has damaged our youths. Many of them–in the church–or the larger society knows little about value system development.
I must find every means possible to get the Nigerian church regulated. All churches must provide their financial records and financial activities to a Christian-led government agency on an annual basis for record-keeping and accountability purposes. I will make sure that parish proliferation is highly regulated and monitored by designated ministers with credibility and integrity.
The current breed of youths in Nigeria will be worse than the current leaders they are criticizing if we don’t develop an urgent framework to re-shape their values. It doesn’t start with the youths. It starts with us and with the fathers. We must provide them with enabling environments.
We must show them examples of good and superior values. We must put the right leaders in charge of the nation at all levels, and these leaders will be the ones to shape the values of the youths in their respective domains. Values are not changed overnight. Values are changed over time.
And nations are not great because of the values of their wealth, but because of the wealth of their values. The youths need a lot of value system re-orientation which must start now if Nigeria would ever dream of a secure future.
COMMENTS