National President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, on Monday, celebrated his birthday by giving out cheques of N50,000 each to about 30 disabled individuals from different parts of Delta State. In this interview, he laments that for two years now, Nigeria Inter-religious Council, NIREC, has not seen the need to meet despite the growing menace of insurgency in parts of the country. When asked whether constant attacks on his person will deter him from speaking his mind, his answer was: “God forbid. It cannot!” Excerpts…
What’s your birthday wish for Nigeria?
My birthday wish for Nigeria is that we will have a nation where everyone is equal; not just by national anthem, not just in words, but in deeds. That Nigeria will be a nation where people are not judged by tribe or by religion, but purely on the quality of their character, their person. My wish is to have a nation where anybody can go from Sokoto to Calabar and be accepted as a Nigerian. I don’t have to change my religion to live in a certain part of the country.
To mark your birthday, you gave out cheques to disabled people in Warri. What inspired it?
That is my life. The major thing that gives me joy in life is to give joy to other people. When I have opportunity to do that, I jump at it because it does something to me. I feel fulfilled. Yes, I’m a Christian, I’m spiritual, but I feel like a human being when I touch other people. It reminds me of my own humanity. It reminds me that if not for God, I will not be who I am; I will not be where I am today. You saw a woman giving testimony and then she said she had stopped doing business. Whatever stopped her from business, obviously stopped her from a livelihood. It just occurred to me there, ‘why don’t you just help her?’ She is healed, she is happy, but why not just take it a step further and help her to have a livelihood? And you could see her reaction.
Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor,
That gives me fulfilment. December 26th is an incredible day for me here in Warri. I did not fully understand the word Boxing Day. I thought it was a feast thing, but then I began to understand that it is a day where many things are packaged; it’s a day of boxing things to give to people. So we do that here every December 26th. We give out cars, tricycles. That’s my joy. I’m a pastor. How much do I have? What can I do? Very little. But there are big businessmen, big companies; if we all try to do a little; everybody seems to be pushing it all to government but government can’t do everything. We can all do something. If I do a little something, and somebody else does, and everybody else does, you would be surprised how many people we can take out of poverty, how many people we can actually put on their feet so they can stand for themselves and fend for themselves. It will change this country.
The theme of the Jubilee:Talitha CumiArise 2015, does it have anything to do with next year elections? What’s the purpose of the theme?
I have a chair in my bedroom where I kneel to pray, but sometimes I sit if I’m praying for long, it’s like a rocking chair. I was sitting there meditating some five months ago. I can’t explain whether it was a trance, but I saw something like a screen, and written on it were the words:‘TALITHA CUMI’.I happen to know that phrase because I’ve preached from it for years and I know that it means, `Damsel arise’. Underneath it I saw ‘ARISE 2015’. I know we are in 2014, why 2015? And the impression from God came to me that this year is preparatory towards 2015. Many things have been predicted about 2015, but the Lord impressed on me that many things that were dead will come alive. Hopeless situations, God will bring life into them. But also that Nigeria will arise. This nation will not go under. Nigeria will not be consumed. Nigeria will survive. It will be tough, but God says we will arise. So it’s very prophetic. It will definitely affect 2015. Call it the election, call it the aftermath of the election, call it whatever, but we will survive 2015. When Nigeria survives 2015, Nigeria will survive anything.
In view of the growing insurgency in parts of the country, why has NIREC not held any meeting to address the challenge?
I am as puzzled as you are because the Sultan and I are co-chairs of that organisation. We’ve not had a meeting now for almost two years and I’m puzzled because at least three times I have been informed of a meeting. We were supposed to meet in Gombe, only for the Secretary/coordinator, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, to call to tell me it won’t hold, something happened, the governor was going somewhere or something. We fixed another date, he came up with something again.
We fixed a third date; they came up with something again why it could not hold. At a point, they even said there was no money. But early this year, I was told that there was some money now, so I said let’s do it. I talked with the two very important people involved. I suggested some dates; they said those dates were not good. So I’m still waiting for a date.
So it has nothing to do with me. I would love that we sit and talk. And we should be able to put these issues on the table and put timeline and agree on how we want to solve some of the problems facing Nigeria today. The traditional rulers, the religious leaders and political leaders; these three groups of people are very crucial to solving the problems facing Nigeria today.
Recently we heard that there was a ceasefire, later we were told that there was no ceasefire whatsoever……
I think I’m the wrong person to ask this because, first of all, I was not part of it. I don’t know anything about any ceasefire. You people should ask the relevant authorities to explain what they meant by ceasefire because I have no idea. What I know from what some very devout Muslims have told me is that when a Jihad starts, they don’t stop. The Jihad has to be completed. They either die or they achieve their goal. And the goal is to Islamize Nigeria. The real war is a war between the ideology of Sharia and the ideology of democracy. This is the war that is going on, and it is a worldwide war.
In Nigeria, we are ostriches; we put our heads in the sand. The western world is doing the same. They think as long as they are hiding in the sand, their problems will vanish. It’s not going anywhere. We have to face reality. The problem is real. Boko Haram will not negotiate with anybody. It’s a waste of time, energy and effort. They may end up talking with some people. But the problem is there are people who are still killing people and raising up their flags every day in different places. This is the reality on ground. Let’s stop the deception. Let’s stop the games. What is happening is real. People are being killed on a daily basis. So what ceasefire? There’s nothing like that anywhere. Shekau himself has been coming out almost every day, saying he doesn’t know anything about any deal. What deal is anybody going to strike with you that is going to stop this trend now that is going on?
Four-way solution
To me, there are three or four things that should be done to solve this problem of insurgency in Nigeria. I don’t know if we can ever totally eradicate it but I think we can reduce it drastically and isolate it.
Number one, Christians must not relent in their prayers. There has to be a divine input into what is happening. I have a feeling that God has helped us as a country; if not, the situation would be worse. So I want to plead with every well-meaning Nigerian to pray and pray harder.
Number two, the military must not relent. They must buckle up. I find it very difficult to criticise them and just pull them down to say they are useless and all that. I’m not telling you that I’m satisfied with what I see, but I find it difficult to do that. There are many reasons for that. Number one, these men are Nigerians like us. The difference is that they signed to become soldiers. They are married with wives and children. They are being killed also and their wives made widows and their children orphans. Why should I stand here now to say that they are useless? Having said that, there is a serious problem in our security agency, the problem of sabotage. I’ve been crying out about this for almost two years now, now a lot of people are talking about it. There is serious sabotage. It’s been there, it is just being magnified more and more. All our security agencies have this problem. There are people sympathetic to Boko Haram; some of them are even literally Boko Haram themselves. They leak information every day. It has become so bad that even reporters now get the stories.
The other day I read where a plane was to go and bomb a Boko Harm stronghold which could have stopped the recent invasion of Mubi; but as the plane was approaching its destination, the pilot got a call that he should return to base and he returned to base and these people did all they wanted to do, then they said he should go. So who made that call? Well, I don’t know if they’ve found out who made the call now. There was also an armoured car that was abandoned intentionally. When journalists report and say the soldiers ran away, they make it sound too simple. That’s not what really happened.
From the information I have sometimes, there are some commanders, not all, who will refuse to give the command. By military operations, soldiers cannot attack or respond without a command. Now, if the man who is to command them is not giving them command, and it’s obvious they are going to kill them, what do you expect them to do? So some of them drop their weapons and run. The picture has to be painted correctly. So that’s why some of them run away like that. Then there are some who the thing has been arranged, the people want to leave these weapons for the other people, so they are instructed to run. So they just run away and leave the weapons. It’s not really that they are afraid or can’t fight, but it’s still this sabotage issue. They have to work out the mechanisms by which they can fish out these people.
No matter the equipment you buy; you can buy all the modern equipment, it is getting to a point where the problem is not of poor equipment, the problem is that these saboteurs are using these equipment against government in the sense that they are handing them over to the insurgents. So these crazy people use these same equipment bought with Nigerian money to kill Nigerians. This is an issue that must be looked into seriously and addressed urgently.
Now the third thing; this is also very important, Nigerians, I beg us, let us stop this pretence. It is either we are totally ignorant, which I will be surprised of, or we are totally wicked and pretentious. We keep saying that this thing is not religious; it’s an insult to the sensibility of the average Nigerian. So when will we agree that this is a religious problem? When Nigeria is wiped out? When these people overrun the whole nation before we will know? I read in the papers today that an insurgent was walking around the streets of Mubi preaching. The report states that Boko Haram patrol captured towns preaching to residents. Are they going round begging for food? They are preaching. Preaching what? Don’t we know what they are preaching? They are preaching Sharia. Why are we pretending to be politically correct?
Doctrines
There are Muslims that are good friends and I associate with. I love them. I cannot hate Muslims. Why should I? My religion forbids me to do that, but I am begging these people that Muslim clerics, the notable ones from all the denominations of Islam, because Islam has denominations; all the Muslim clerics, all the Muslim political leaders, all the Muslim traditional rulers; these three groups should please for God’s sake and for the sake of Nigeria and for the sake of their own future and their own children and children’s children, they should come together.
Boko Haram will not listen to me. Boko Haram is an ideology. Please ask this question, what is the Salafi ideology in Islam? What is the Wahhabi doctrine in Islam? Are there doctrines like that? Yes. What are the doctrines that these terrorists around the world believe in? The doctrines they are teaching, are they not coming out of this Wahhabi and Salafi doctrines? Boko Haram is basically an ideology. To defeat an ideology, you need a superior ideology. Many of our Muslim brothers have come to say to those of us who don’t know much about Islam that these people are not Muslims.
Alright, but what are these people preaching? Is it not from the Quran? Now you say you have the real thing that this is not the real thing. Then match the real thing with the unreal thing or with the fake. In other words, they must engage these people. There are few Muslim clerics that these people respect till tomorrow. From what I hear, they like discussing the Quran, up to Shekau himself. They must find ways to engage them. I will never have access to them. They don’t even want to hear anything about me because I’m an infidel.But they would listen to some of these clerics. They must locate them, find ways to engage them probably through some of these their Quranic studies and scholars, they may be able to get to a point where they can discourage some of their activities and gradually get them to become sane again.
Local intelligence
Number four will be for these same religious clerics to help us go to the grassroots and start convincing the average person on the streets probably in the mosques, that they are Nigerians and Nigeria is a good place to belong to. Because certain things are being told to the people; they should start telling them that this is a great country to believe in. They should make them understand that Boko Haram is not fighting for them or for their good. They are the ones that can say these things to those people. If they gradually do that, a lot of them, even at the risk of their lives, will give out better information to our security agents. Because you can’t fight a war like this successfully without getting good intelligence from the local people. Some are afraid. If there is nothing you can die for, then you really have nothing to live for. The reality is if you don’t give out these information, one day, these same people will kill you. If you give out information and they catch you, they kill you. If you don’t give out information, one day, they will still kill you. Is it not better to give out information? They have to try to convince them, to make them feel that they are Nigerians.
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
