Christy Anyanwu
Pastor Femi Faseru is the overseer of Kingsway International Christian Centre, (KICC) in Nigeria. He is an ardent preacher of the word and a man that believes in excellence in all ramifications. In this interview he makes interesting revelations about his mum.
First, give us a snapshot of your mum.
My mum, Mrs Modupe Faseru, is a lovely mother of six children. I have an elder brother who is a pastor with Christ Embassy. He worked in the banking industry before going into private enterprise. My other brother, Professor Babalola Faseru, is a professor of Medicine at Kansas State University, USA with special interest in public health. My first sister, Tomi, is married. She works with Heritage Bank. My second sister is a lawyer. The baby of the family and my baby brother is in making waves in Nollywood and enjoying what he is doing, entertaining people and helping keep their blood pressure down. He has featuring in Jenifa’s Diary and some other movies. I consider my mother very fortunate. God has been gracious to her. God has given her children who love her so dearly and she loves us as well.
Growing up, what advice did give you or values she inculcated in you that you still hold on to?
She always wanted us to work hard and not to depend on anyone else; she wanted us put in our best in whatever we are doing to be self-sufficient. She didn’t want us to think that we had to look for any inheritance from our father. She wanted us to be very respectful. She saw to it that we gave every one respect, no matter who they were. She insisted that we must give respect to the driver as long as he was older than us. She said that we must not see the staff as just staff, but as older people in the house and treat them that way. Some of the people who worked with my father over the years, we grew up to see them as uncles and aunties up till today.
Was she a business woman?
My mum was a civil servant in Oyo State. She retired in 1982-83 and started a supermarket business. I think got bored after some years and then became the Administration Manager at International Breweries Limited, but she is in full retirement now. She now travels all over the place from visiting one child to the other, generally enjoying her life as a grandmother.
Being an enlightened woman, how did she feel when you left your job to become a pastor?
At that particular point in time she knew who I was. She knew I wasn’t careless with the decisions I made about my life. She knew I made decisions out of conviction. I didn’t discuss being a pastor with my mum. In some sense, I gained a degree of independence much earlier than my siblings. For whatever reasons, maybe I didn’t like the regimented life. My father being the Chief of Protocol, we did things in orderly fashion. You could tell when my father would come back to the house if he went out. Wherever my father was, before 9.00pm he would come in because he had to watch the NTA Network News back in the days. I didn’t like that regimented life but I had to live through it. I fought for my independence so early and the way I did that was for me to say that I wanted to live abroad. After my first degree, I began to fight to go and live abroad. They persuaded to do the national youth service first, after that they got me back to the university for a postgraduate diploma in Computer Science. Thereafter, they got me a job. After working for a few months, I realized they didn’t want me to go. I decided that I would go anyway. One day, I just went to his office and told him I was ready to go. I wasn’t waiting for him anymore. Don’t forget that I had started to work, so I could afford it myself. I said that because I had left the country to go and live in the United Kingdom on my own, I have had to make decisions on my own before and decided to come back to Nigeria in 2003 out of conviction. The Lord wanted me to come here, I didn’t know why, but I had to obey. It didn’t make sense to anybody when I said I was leaving England. I had a job and business there, it wasn’t sensible to come here but I knew what God spoke to my spirit in June 2002 to leave the UK. I came to Nigeria and my mum had to accept that. So, when I was about to make that I knew I wanted to get into full time ministry; I knew I didn’t have to ask her. At that point in time she had come to have confidence in my decisions, she knew I make decisions out of conviction. Funny enough, the same person that didn’t like a regimented life back then, I think right now that’s the kind of life I live.
Do you remember the pranks you played on her, growing up?
You don’t want me to say that on the pages of newspapers, do you? (Smiles). Aaah, she was shocked when she came into our church service one day. My cousin was in the service too. I had to say to her, that there were days she thought I was sleeping in the house whereas Lekan (my cousin) and myself myself, when everyone had gone to bed, we would drive out of town sometimes out of the state to go and party and we would be back before the day would break. And we did that almost every night for about three months. She didn’t have an idea until that day I said it on the pulpit. So, while my mum was sleeping in her bedroom, thinking that her son was in his own room, she didn’t know that we were out somewhere partying and before the day broke I would be back in the house and Lekan would go to his house. I always pray that my sons would not do that to me.