Paul Adeolu Adefarasin is Founder and Senior Pastor of House on the Rock. He tells CHRIS IREKAMBA why ministers of the gospel need to be on guard against jealousy. Well known for his messages of hope, he also shares his vision of a nation where plight of the masses gets adequate attention and affairs of government are run with discretion.
You said some preachers are killers. How true is that?
WHEN I said ?killers? I don?t actually mean literal first-degree murder. I mean, preachers are human beings; preachers can be victims to the plight and wiles of the enemy. Preachers can be ambitious, and as a result, jealous. Your success will bring out the ambition and the jealousy or the jealousy of the ambitious people around you.
An ambitious person can kill you; if he thinks you have taken the space he wanted. It will be ignorant for a preacher with a large ministry to believe that every other preacher likes him. Just like your newspaper would be ignorant to believe that another competing newspaper loves everything you do. And if you are the iconic paper, you must be sure that somebody else would like to have that space.
Even Paul was attacked by the 11 apostles; they were weary of him because of his prowess, his competence, his capacity. So, I personally find safety in greater men. Greatness does not necessarily mean larger; it means being secure and fulfilled in purpose. I find safety with greater men who can venerably be transparent with you.
You talked about being sensitive. How can the political class, especially this new administration, be sensitive to the plight of the masses?
I think they should take the bus more often. They should live where we live, sit where we sit, suffer what we suffer, mingle deeply with the people. Not to escape from the life of the people, so that they are in touch with our realities, our plight, our pains.
It is easy to live in Government House and be completely insulated from the suffering of the people, who don?t have that privilege. Nigeria certainly has resources, if they are properly invested, properly developed. Nigeria has resources that are sufficient to ensure that everyone has enough. So, the opportunities are there for everyone. What Nigerians do with the opportunity is another matter.
I like Yakubu Gowon. I was his ring bearer at his wedding. Yakubu Gowon would get out in his Volkswagen Beetle and drive around Lagos at night. He used to visit our home at night on Tuesdays to meet with people.
I like Babatunde Fashola: he doesn?t parade himself with a siren. He?s with the people; he?s among the people. Leadership should never be above the people; it should be among the people. At best, he?s the servant of the people.
But, we have a very worst paradigm in Nigeria where the elected officer is the lord of the people. And he?s to extract from them rather than deliver to them. So, my feeling is take the bus, ride in the Danfo, live the life of the people, never be far away from where the people live, so that you can be sensitive, be under authority as you are also in authority.
The Church must continue to preach that, and before the Church should preach that, it should exemplify it.
Sensitivity can make you feel very awkward, if all you do is give instructions and direct, because, as a visionary, that is part of your job.
However, I love to be given instructions. So I?m always looking for my leaders ? Pastor Ayo, Bishop Mike, Pastor Adeboye, Bishop Simeon Oka, Dr. Felix Omobude, the list is long. I want to be told what to do. It helps to give you balance and sensitivity, so you know what it is to be on the receiving side of instruction and directive. So, when you give instruction and directive, you can do so authoritatively but also sensitively.
I think that our leaders need to be bold. The Roman Centurion drew a tremendous miracle from the Lord. I have been a branch pastor and now ?General Overseer?. So, I have been there before. I understand what it feels to be a branch pastor. I have been a parishioner, I have been an usher and I?ve been a steward. I?ve been a deacon in the church. So, I understand what it is.
What is your take on recurring violence in the North?
I think it is the selfishness of some greedy politicians who capitalise on potential sentiment or the enthusiastic sentiment of religious extremists and adherents. And they stir up religious sentiment and engender strife between the two major religions. I think what Federal Government must do is embrace the political will, without fear or favour, and strictly bring the perpetrators to justice. There must be no sacred cows and there must be no captives. Whoever is guilty must be properly prosecuted. Our deepest condolences go to those who lost lives.
We have extended a lot of benevolence there and we are still carrying the grief from bereavement, and it must cease. If any people or person is constantly the target of those kinds of genocide and attacks, it?s their prerogative to embrace self-defence. Self-defence is enshrined in our constitution, and whatever they have to do to defend themselves, not to offend others, but to defend themselves, right meaning people must be able to protect themselves. But it is first the responsibility of the Federal Government and its law enforcement agencies to provide that defence for life and property.
However, I have often said that peace is not the absence of tension; it?s the presence of justice. If we operate the laws of the land justly, if we do what is called justice in the land, the poor man will have his needs met and will no longer be poor. Nigeria has enough resources to go round, if they are properly stewarded and managed. If the poor and the rich have what belongs to them, this mayhem will no longer exist, if everybody is educated and understands that conflict and strife of that nature doesn?t help us.
Long time solutions if we are going to have peace
Nigeria needs to develop and provide education and human capital development for people who will run Nigeria for the next 10-40 years from now.
So, without education, if you send people who are not enlightened into private and public offices, they will not know how to rescue, develop, progress and industrialise this nation. If we are industrialised, the things we are fighting about we won?t be fighting.
Only 20 per cent of Nigerians can claim education today. So, if we are educated across board, any unscrupulous member of the political class that hoodwinks Nigeria will not be able to get away with it. Two per cent of the budget for education is too little. The continued expenditure of subsidy on petroleum importation needs to be looked at carefully, studied and through a gradual process, the subsidies can be removed and not put in pockets? appropriated to capital projects, industrialisation, refineries, power generating plants, so that with the kinds of gas and fuel we have, we don?t need to be putting diesel in individual power generating sets. We have enough gas to power our turbines for the next 100 years or so, I?m told.
So, remove the subsidy, develop our own refineries. The subsidies need to be removed gradually and carefully to prevent a labour crisis.
I understand that Mr. President is putting together what we hope and what we hear will be a good cabinet, particularly in the area of finance, petroleum, budget and planning, infrastructural development. Those areas are key.
And then, crisis management in the Delta and security issues in the North. If he puts a good cabinet and trouble comes and the subsidies have to be removed and there is a potential labour crisis and fuel point price rises, when we look at the cabinet and we see competent people there doing their work, we know they will navigate us through the crises.
I like what he is saying and I believe he?s up to the task. I see him as a very humble man and as a listening leader. I?m personally aware of the pains he?s tasking to ensure that in spite of the pressure from interest groups, he?s looking for the best kind of cabinet that can deliver on the dreams and inspirations of Nigerians.
We have to completely kill this importation of fuel. It?s a shame. What it means, we produce the cocoa, we export it, they put the value of their own intellect on the cocoa, they create chocolate and send it back to us. We produce crude, we give it to them, the western world will put their intellect and value on it and they sell back to us our petrol.
Now that you?ve raised the issue of subsidy, are you supporting FG?s plan to remove petrol subsidy and PHCN to increase its tariff?
Let me use a parable, ?if you put a frog in a boiling hot water, it will jump out, but if you put that same frog into cold water and you slowly heat the water till it boils, the frog will die there slowly.
When you want to remove the subsidy, it has to be through dialogue with labour unions that are a good representation of the people. And there must be an open dialogue in your sector, the media, on the subject. The voice of the people and their will must be heard and the understanding of the government, which is the privilege that they have almost exclusively to know the details of the problems in a first hand way. They also need to explain that to the public, and through dialogue, we will arrive at a safe compromise.
Well, you don?t remove all the subsidies immediately. You remove some, let them acclimatise, you discuss with the economists, you discuss with agriculturists, you discuss with all the people involved, how is it impacting on the value of the naira, on the inflation indices what can the people bear?
And then if you are going to take subsidy from the price, you cannot put that subsidy in your pocket. It must go to visible and clear industrialisation projects that will make Nigeria stronger economically; that will enable us and empower us to develop our own refined projects here. Where we are not consuming refined products from abroad, but are exporting refined products and crude products. Anything short of that, to me, would be quite criminal: to remove some of the subsidy and plough that money in an accountable and transparent way, into needful projects particularly refineries and power generation.
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