Minister-in-charge of Omega Fire Ministries, Lagos zone, Rev. Fidelis Ayemoba has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to prove beyond reasonable doubt to Nigerians that change is actually what he came to cause, just as he called on political leaders in the country to give dividends of democracy to the masses. Speaking in an interview with Olayinka Latona and Jumoke Kolawole at the Vanguard Christian Fellowship end-of-year prayer and thanksgiving programme, Rev. Ayemoba who graduated from the Federal Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State where he studied Mechanical Engineer, lamented that over a year of the current administration majority of Nigerians are wallowing in hunger and poverty. He said there is need for the President Buhari-led
administration to put smile on the faces of the masses. Excerpts….
Why did you abandon your profession for full time minister?
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| Fidelis Ayemoba |
I never intended from the onset to be a pastor because we had a life we thought was our life but basically and fundamentally I remember in school days, I had an encounter with God and that culminated into my salvation. I met with our father in the Lord, Apostle Johnson Sulaiman whom God used to transform me from whom I was to what I am today. I was deep in the world when God used Apostle Sulaiman to bring me to this world and I am in the ministry today because I was called. Jesus told Peter, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. God has raised His servant, Apostle Johnson Sulaiman and he began to call Matthew, Peter, Nathaniel, Philip and I am one of those God called. He confirmed that God called us, to make us fishers of men and I thank God for that.
I wrote in an article titled: “From the pit to the pulpit”, and I wrote a book: Cultism and Destiny, because my encounter with Christ was a mystery. It was not something that I pre-planned or bargained for. I am like Saul in the book of Acts 9 on his way to Damascus, though his own was to persecute the Christians while we were executing what we call social and some terrible devices when God redeemed us and brought us to where we are today. I can tell you categorically that I never intended to be who I am today. God came through His servant to help us to be who I am today and I can say that I do not regret the salvation that I found.
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How has it been so far in the ministry?
It has been lovely, unique, exciting and wonderful. Every great glory, there is a great story. There was a story line that got a glory line. Like my father in the lord often says to us that if you meet a man that tells you of his glory and never tells you of his story, just be rest assured that he will soon make a story out of you because behind every glory there must be story. If there is no cross, there is no crown.
Your encounter with Christ What’s the brain behind your slogan: “I am going for rice and I met Christ”
(Smiles) Obviously, you have done your work as a journalist, there was a birthday party I was invited after I renounced my membership of a campus cult and the pastor invited me for a birthday. Obviously rice is something that is excited before we went to the dimension of what we have today: it was rice I went for. I did not go for the invitation he gave me as a student because I know there will be such thing available. So I went for rice and in rice, I met Christ. I can tell people categorically that there are rice that can make one rise.
How would you react to insinuations that President Buhari has failed Nigerians?
There was a factor that brought the president to power and if people are not seeing it, it means, he is a failure. He came up with the mantra of change and obviously we thought they were going to move us from where we were to where we should be but when we discovered the contrary people are bound to react.
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Are you saying where we are now is not better?
Two things are involved; one is that the president’s policy of change is not causing a change the way it was expected. Right now because of hunger nobody believe the change is even coming. So he needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt in the next possible time that change is actually what he came to cause.
How do you think he can tackle the recession?
First of all, if you are in our shoes who genuinely deal with the masses, you understand that there is hunger in the nation, people are suffering and the Bible says where there is gross darkness, much grace is bound. This is the time for people to get to know their God better, believe in Him, trust in Him better and have this confidence that He is the God of all situation. That is why we say our faith and confidence are not in the world economy but in the kingdom economy and the kingdom economy can never fail.
What is your assessment of leadership in Nigeria now?
I can say to you categorically that if we are driven out of the cycle, we will discover that solution is very close to us than the solution we less imagined. What do I mean by that? Nigeria has recycled leadership over time that younger generations have no place in what is happening in the system and unless we walk out of this cycle we’ll make very slow progress. There are people who are firebrand; they are young men. In Nigerian system when a young man goes out of the school with so much vision, with qualification in terms of papers there will be criteria that disqualifies him: work experience and that is the secret behind the old people in the power and the young sitting at home. Children are always begging fathers to eat, instead of fathers retiring and the young ones providing for them.
The younger generations are depending on the aged father to feed them till they die and when they die, they hand over to the old man. It is a continuity of the old head and whether you like it or not, medically there is a stage you get to and your thinking faculty begins to diminish. Smart thinkers are relegated, dying brain are still being paraded. We should stop looking down on the younger generation who are genuinely on fire and can bring necessary change to our country.
Do you think the nation’s democracy is under threat as our older generation refuse to step down for the younger generation?
Yes! Because the younger generation have not had the opportunity to maximize their potentials. Youths should not be pushed to the wall. When you push a goat to the wall, it will bite and we don’t intend to get to that. We need to learn on time from history, so we do not start writing stories for children to read.
Advice to Nigerian youth and leaders?
My advice to Nigerian youth is to be hard working, keep praying for opportunities to emerge. Their birth right should not be traded with portage and they must not mortgage their destiny and future for anything.
For my nation, I recommend only one solution and it is Nigeria needs to understand and embrace the personality of the Almighty God in the person of Jesus Christ.
My advice to Nigerian leaders is that, they should do the right thing because they know the right thing. They know what to do. Nigeria is not as poor or bad as they portray us. Politicians have a way of putting bulldozers and tractors on the road and grade it a little and wait till the end of four years. Our leaders should put our resources to use for our future; do the right thing now that they have the opportunity to serve the nation.
Credit: Vanguard
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