By Vera Wisdom-Bassey
The rising spate of bloodletting and carnage in the country has been allowed to fester for so long because of the government’s lack of zeal and willpower to tackle the situation and keep Nigerians safe. This statement was made by Bishop Theophilus Ajose the presiding leader of Bishop Ajose Ministries International, Ikeja-Lagos. According to him Nigerian leaders in government must eschew parochial interest in the fight against terrorism and banditry in the country, and come all out in their efforts to curb the spate of killings.
In this interview, the former Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), in Ikeja chapter, Lagos, and Director of Social Security, in the Interdenominational Unit of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), spoke on the COVID-19 pandemic, and what must be done to roll the deadly coronavirus out of the world.
Also, Bishop Ajose, whose church is located in Maryland, USA and at Ikeja-Lagos Nigeria, speaks on his childhood, and his growing up years as a royal prince in Badagry Town.
On the rising security challenges in the country, can you give us insights into how this could be tackled?
The insecurity in the country cannot be solved from one angle alone. I have attended several meetings with the DSS and other the arm of the government on behalf of the church. And they have told us their area of challenges, and how churches should maintain security, plus how these killers infiltrate into our lands. but by and large, we discovered it is a government issue. Its the role of government to protect life and property, but (beers) the church don’t have police, we don’t have arms to help us. we don’t have the power of arrest. It is the government that will put in place things that will enhance life and property for the citizens. In a situation where the government will tell us that they (attackers) are foreigners, and yet those people have not been arrested. how can foreigners be attacking us in our own land? Is it that they have declared war against our nation? so there must be a willingness on the part of the government to take the security of life and property seriously. they are not Nigerians at one time, (attackers) so why do you allow them in the country talk less a whole community being attacked? so what we do as a church, is to pray. and that is what God has been using to help us. As we begin to pray, God gets them exposed and arrested. God is the ultimate security for anybody. so, according to the Bible, no King is saved by the multitude of an army, it is the government to take the security of life and property of the people seriously.
How was your growing up like?
I was born a prince in the Badagry Kingdom. growing up, my maternal grandfather was one of the missionaries in Nigeria. and we gave them the land where they built the missionary house, where the first storey building in Africa was built. and the first Christmas was held in my father’s compound, and we use the storey building for the first Christmas. the building is still there today, and we used that to welcome the foreigners too.
And as a young guy during Christmas, we used that house for Christmas. Lagos State still uses it. My mother, aunties all of them served the missionaries, as a royal family member and all that we worship the god of iron, and stone. I went to St Thomas Grammar School, I joined the scripture union at 13years. at a time my brother and I were driven from home because we became born again.
I have been a natural leader from class captain from primary even while in secondary school. In 1988/89 then I wanted to travel to America when I finished my National Youth Service, then my father was a former Federal Commissioner of Health, during the General Murtala Mohammed’s regime, and he died. He got retired and wanted to contest for Governor of Lagos State before he died.
Then things became hard for us because you have to survive on your own, everybody deserted us, so it wasn’t easy going through university for myself and my brother, we did so many things to survive.
So after your father’s death, how did you as a young man coped with the harsh realities of life?
You know people who are telling you they will do what your father cannot do. they will tell you the suffering your father cannot give you they will give to you. so, we have to learn to drink garri without sugar, even to buy water to drink, and all that a lot of things, and i started to look for jobs.
But then one of my uncles then came up with the Water Corporation Company and asked me to go and work there. Then after about four years, I resigned to go into my own business. I worked there for years before I left to go and do my business. Those days were so corrupt that I resigned. I was the commercial manager for the whole of Ikeja for that water corporation. From then I never earned a salary.
How then did you survive?
It was God. but God was very faithful. I just designed a computer just to survive on my own. If I look back I don’t know how I survived, but then God was faithful.
Tell us how it has been for you in leadership?
Right from primary school, I was made a class captain. so all along before I joined CAN I was praying and I never heard of CAN before, but God told me to join CAN. So I went to meet a woman who lives close to me at Ogba and I told her about CAN, what they do, she just told me that the next day is the meeting that I should come. and it was that day I was given a form and they nominated me for coordinator for Ogba and that was how the journey started. the spirit of leadership is such that if there were 1million people in this house, I will be nominated, so all in all God has been our stay. In 1999, the Lord spoke to me because, I heard a voice in the cloud that he has called me, and it was the voice I heard that launched me into the intercessory ministry.
The COVID 19 pandemic has adversely affected our lives, especially religion, economy, and others. And have even queried the relevance of clerics and prophets in the society since none of the prophesied to warn the world about the deadly coronavirus. What is take on this stance?
Since 2004 I always embark on 40 days fasting. I do this every year always between November and December. And by December 24th to December 31st every year, I release prophecies for Nigeria and the whole world. And for 2019, December 2020, on the eve, the Lord told me an event is going to happen to the world that has never happened before. And that He is going to surprise those nations that call themselves superpowers, and will take the whole world by storm. There are a lot of things that the Lord said, which I cannot say to the press, because of the nature of the society we are in. but the most important thing is that God warned us ahead of that an event is going to happen to the world, and he will show the superpowers that He has the sovereign power. You could see that when COVID-19 came all the superpowers that boosted that they have superior medical equipment suffered a higher number of fatalities, while the poor countries that do not have the best medical equipment have not even recorded 1,000 deaths since four or five months. but in one state alone in the US, they have recorded over 10,000 per day in Florida.
The Lord has already shown us. we know nothing happens without God revealing it. It’s just that the world does not listen to what the Lord tells us. we are still listening to ourselves, but it has now shown us that everybody has lost control of power. what they don’t even know how to handle, has affected everybody now.
So going to your questions, the Lord did reveal, but we did know the details of what was to be involved. and each time God does that, he wants us to know what is does, so that when we start praying God will listen to his children.
So what did God revel as a solution to this pandemic?
The solution is to return to God. the solution is to recognise God as the only superpower. God says as long as the world does not recognise Him, He will keep on showing them that He is the super-power. The solution is prayer, and to return to the Lord. a lot of people think they know what to do, and can rule the whole world. So God is calling man to return to Him. He has wounded us, He will also heal us, and the second day he will raise us up. We can see that the world now, families are praying to God, and in every house people worship God. we have more churches now than we have before the COVID-19 pandemic. God is calling people to pray. so everybody now has enough time to pray. The solution is to return to the Lord and to pray, and that is what the Lord is making us see. and we thank the Lord for that.
So are there times where God’s revelations and prophecies to you never came to pass?
A lot of us don’t know much about prophecy. prophecies are time-bound and time-sensitive. Angel Gabriel told Zechariah that he will become dumb because he could not believe his prophecy that shall be fulfilled at his appointed time. Everybody has attached to his appointed time of fulfillment. when Jesus Christ was to come, Right from the garden of Eden, all the people in Israel there was a time for Jesus Christ to come , there was a time for him to be revealed, nothing like God giving his prophecy freely time for it to be revealed, He might have spoke it three to four years back, yet it will come to fulfilment. The issue is that the church of God which supposed to be people of prophecy doesn’t even understand prophecies.
There are some prophecies in the Bible that are yet to be fulfilled, yet God spoke to those prophets at that time. Everything has its own time of fulfillment. we must have the sovereign time of fulfilment. So, if God has spoken, it will come to pass, so we need to find the divine time of the fulfillment of the divine prophecy of God.
He may have revealed this many years ago. God may not call it COVID-19, because it is the name that scientists gave it in the world. but in the Bible they are called plaques, afflictions, that is just the way it is.