PASTOR Idowu Iluyomade graduated in 1981 from the University of Ife, Ile Ife and was called to the Nigerian Bar the following year. He did his youth service from 1982 to 1983 in the Lagos State Ministry of Justice as the Director of Public Prosecutions. He presently combines his legal practice with his ministerial responsibilities as the Pastor-in-Charge of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (City of David).

He is also the provincial pastor of Lagos Province 4 and the head of the Apapa Family, proprietors of Excel Charity Foundation, a social intervention vehicle with emphasis on transforming lives restoring dignity and reforming the society. He spoke to newsmen in his office on plans for this year’s Excel programme and sundry national issues. Our SAM EYOBOKA was there. Excerpts…

Theme of this year’s event is; “Signs of Change” and it’s scheduled for May 31 and Sunday June 1. On May 31, all our churches will embark on massive CSR. We will commission additional 16 solar-powered streetlights in about six streets in Mushin, bringing the total to 38 solar-powered streetlights we have provided between last year and now. Sunday will be for the service at Tafawa Balewa Square at 7:00 a.m.

Mushin was the beneficiary last year and this year. Why Mushin? Are you from Mushin?
No! There’s a lot crime in the Akala area of Mushin; and we have seen massive change in that area since last year. I believe that if you institutionalize whatever you are doing, there’ll be greater change, greater impact. And I believe that if signs of change are seen in that area which is the most problematic area in Mushin, then the whole of the community will be transformed.

We believe that it’s good for us to concentrate, especially when it comes to streetlights, in one area for now, and hoping that people will see what we are doing and other churches and organisations will join in and then we can spread the impact all over Lagos.

Who are we expecting at the year’s occasion?
On Sunday, we are expecting our General Overseer, Pastor E.A. Adeboye who will be ministering along other men of God. We are also expecting captains of industry, members of the diplomatic call and the general members of the public.

Are we talking about change in Lagos State or change in the nation?
Change starts from the individual. You cannot change anything unless you change first. So our primary focus is transformed lives, transformed thinking in line with the Bible. So wherever you are, you are the change, that’s why we said ‘be the change.’ Our base in the Apapa Family, with over 1,000 churches all over the world. So the impact is not only for Lagos. As we are doing this year, they are doing it in all our centers all over the world. But of course you know they say charity begins at home.

What would you say is unique in this year’s event?
The uniqueness of this year’s event is that over the years, we have institutionalized all the things we are doing in the various areas of intervention. We have intervened in the area of health care, education, youth development and entertainment, infrastructure, sports and various other areas of intervention. Those little things have grown, right now we have a cancer screening and diagnostic center which we dedicated in 2011 in Surulere and it’s the first by a church.

And we have treated over 10,000 people at subsidized rates. Most of these things are free. Right now, we have a full fledged hospital and diagnostic center, Healing Stripes Hospital that cost over N200 million. In the past few years, we have treated about 8,000 people. We also have a dialysis center. In March alone, we performed about 80 free dialysis for people. Between January and March, we have had about 560 dialysis intervention for people. There’s Mercy Ship, we take people there free.

In the area of food, initially when we started, we had just one soup center, but we have moved from one to 17 soup centers. We were feeding about 10,000 people daily, but right now, we are feeding 60,000 daily.
In the process also, we have served over 1.2 million meals to people between 2011 and 2013 at a cost of over N200 million. Also about 9,512 souls have been saved. Concerning the food initiative, we spent over N500 million in recent times.

So the uniqueness of this year’s event is to let the world know that our church is not a church that just takes from people; we give back to the society much more than anybody can give to the church, and I believe that is the gospel that we have come to preach; love in action. This year is unique because we are showcasing the growth, the signs of change, the massive impact that we have had in various areas.

In sports, we are the only church that has a football club that has seven teams; from the first team, to the Under 16, to the women’s team, and that we are in the national league. We have a professional football club, COD United. So we are making great impacts, taking the children off the streets.

Pastor Adeboye had used the pro-gramme to endow professorial chair for mathematics for some universities. Where is he going this year?
Our general overseer because of his love for education decided to endow chairs in mathematics at various universities in Nigeria, and right now he has done five. Because he identifies with what we are doing, every year he gives about N50 million to the universities so that research can be done in various areas, and a professor will be appointed to the chair, and lectures will be given, in the department of mathematics, because he is a mathe-matician. He has done five right now at the cost of N250 million to show us also that the church is giving back to the society.

If G.O. has endowed chairs in five universities, it is sufficient, and we need to make sure that those chairs are occupied. Of the five chairs, it’s only Unilag that has appointed a professor to occupy the chair. So there’s no point for us giving the money to various other universities until we see that they are appointing professors and doing what they are supposed to do. So that’s why we said this year we are not going to endow more chairs, let’s make sure that the ones that were endowed are working.

I just want you to throw more light on what the Family is doing in the area of education.
Apapa family has about 30 schools including some in rural communities where we pay the teachers, feed the children everyday and buy uniforms. We have indigenous schools where we teach Hausa, Yoruba and things like in Lagos. We have a school, Hope Centre Primary School in Makoko. We built the school, feed the pupils.

We built a house for the Baale there and of course there is a medical outreach, and we are building a clinic there. We have a rural school in Oko-abe which is offshore Epe. When we discovered that some children travel by boat to come to school in Lagos, we decided to built a school there beginning with a primary school. We are now building a secondary school for them and they don’t pay anything. We also built houses for the teachers and headmasters. And we have similar schools in the east.

If you were in President Jonathan’s shoes, what would you be doing at this point in time regarding the security challenges facing the country?
I believe just like our G.O. has said, help is coming. We believe as Christians that the spiritual controls the physical so you must opt for prayers. The Bible says that if we pray that He will heal our land. In RCCG, we started this year with a 100 days fast, and I believe that the situation would have been worse if we did not fast.

I believe that we must start from the spiritual realm. Second, I believe we shouldn’t see the thing essentially as a religious problem, that Muslims are attacking Christians. We see each individual as a soul, we must have a burden for every soul.

It cuts across religious grounds. So we are not going to be involved in all the polarization that is coming. It’s a problem which started as a spiritual problem. The devil is out there working through the terrorists and all the things that are happening in this country. I believe that the government should have been more responsive at the initial time when these things started. Concerning the Chibok schoolgirls, a lot of things have happened before the girls were kidnapped.

Twenty people had been kidnapped, some have died, if you go through accounts, you’ll see that a lot of things have been happening in that community that nothing was said. I believe that the government should look at our citizens as souls that must be helped and taken care of. If we do not do anything, they’ll end up in hell. We need to be more responsive to anything that is happening to the citizens of this nation.

My advice to Christians and Nigerians is that we should continue to be beacons of light, be our brothers’ keeper, we should be the change and catalyst of change, and make sure that whatever we are doing to improve our little community are measurable.