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By Nnamdi Ojiego

His Eminence, Bishop Francis Wale Oke, is the National President of the  Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), and leader of the Sword of The  Spirit Ministries (a.k.a Christ Life Church) with headquarters in Ibadan, Oyo State. In this interview, the Chancellor of Precious Corner Stone University, Ibadan speaks on national issues, including insecurity and the myriads of challenges bedeviling the country. Excerpts:

You just finished your 2025 National Executive Retreat in Uyo. What were your resolutions?

 One of our resolutions is that we must not stop praying for Nigeria. We must push up prayer and fasting for this country because God answers prayers and we have seen that the problem Nigeria is grappling with is beyond what human beings can handle ordinarily. We need divine intervention hence we must all push prayer up. All our participants came from every state so we are sending ourselves back with that resolution to pray more for Nigeria. The second resolution is that our people must get involved in politics from the grassroots but not people like me because I cannot get involved in partisan politics.

As it is , everybody in all the political parties are my children so I cannot be biased but we tell our members to get involved and actively participate in politics beyond getting a voter card they should be involved from ward level and be the ones that will be voted for. This is the reason we created the Directorate of Politics and Good Governance in PFN to enlighten our members and let them know the need to actively participate in politics from the grassroot. Pastor Femi Emmanuel, a truly detribalized Nigerian who hails from Edo but lives in Oyo State and won elective political position in the state, is in charge of the department. He was an insider in what goes on in the political world before God called him.

He is educating Christians not only to pray but to actively participate in politics from the grassroots because we have been edged out for too long and it is time to get involved. Pastor Emmanuel and his team have set structures from the national to zones, states and all the 774 local government areas and CDAs. Now they are going to wards educating Christians on how to get involved peacefully in politics and political structures to influence the governance from inside and not from outside. Another resolution we took is to be the change that we want to see. If we are preaching against corruption, nepotism and tribalism, we ourselves must not be tribalistic. We must love every Nigerian equally for us to see the change we desire. We also told our people to go into the nation not only to do this but to educate their followers to do the same because we are the salt and light to the world and we know that just as darkness bows before the light, evil will bow before us and Nigeria will prevail over the present circumstances that we find ourselves. 

 You talked about the celebration of the 40th anniversary of PFN. Can you tell us about it?

 PFN at 40 is a banner and our theme is ‘PFN yesterday, today and tomorrow ‘. We are going to have a dinner and award night where we will bring five hundred eminent Nigerians together including past Nigerian presidents, vice presidents, governors, senators, House of Representatives members and business moguls who are Christians. We are going to bring them together to have a dinner and award night to recognise them for their contributions to the development of our nation and growth of PFN and that will be the climax of our celebrations on October 27, 2025. 

 How best do you think the government can address the myriad of challenges bedevilling the country especially banditry, kidnapping and killings?

 The level of insecurity in this country is totally unacceptable. Some people have said it is communal clashes but that is not true. It is an invasion by Fulani Herdsmen who want to drive indigenous owners of land out of their lands and forcefully take over their patrimony. This is what is happening in Benue, Taraba, Plateau and various parts of the country and federal government should know the truth about this and do something decisively about it. These rag-tagged army of these Fulani herdsmen carrying guns cannot withstand the highly organised army, it means something is wrong somewhere. There are inside agents that are colluding, conniving with the Boko Haram, ISWAP, Fulani Herdsmen. Therefore, the federal government should change the architecture and structure of our national security.

They should remove all the compromisers that are in position of power and influence that are determining what goes on and they should put people that are truly patriotic, who will flush out these marauders that are afflicting , killing, maiming, raping our people. And again , some people said it is not the Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria that are doing it, it is the Fulani’s that have come from neighbouring African countries like Chad, Niger and others. If that is the case, then, it means Nigeria is under foreign invasion and the Nigerian armed forces should be very ruthless with them because the primary duty of the armed forces is to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria to ensure that no foreign invaders come to trouble our people. So let the Nigerian armed forces wake up and flush out all these evil people that are oppressing, killing, maiming, raping our people and driving them out of their patrimony. But you see the Nigerian army cannot rise up except the commander in chief gives them clear command. We appeal to President Bola Tinubu to first and foremost, deal with this insecurity decisively.

The President should take another look at the security reports that are being presented to him because in most cases they are false narratives that make victims the culprit and culprit to become the victim. It is like standing the pyramids on its head , and that’s why we advise that people that have sympathy for these terrorists should be removed. The government should please rise up and deal with this matter decisively because there can be no progress and prosperity when insecurity is on the rise, like it is in Nigeria. For example, now food security is under threat when farmers cannot go to their farms because of fear of herdsmen except they pay tax to be able to plant and harvest their crops. This is not acceptable. These criminals invade villages, kill, burn houses, drive the owners out and change the names of the villages to their names, that is like there is no government in place and that’s Banana Republic.

The Commander-in-Chief should assume its role as Commander-in-Chief and change the people that have been running the security of this nation because they have failed us. We look unto God and we look unto the man we voted to be our Commander in Chief to ensure the security of Nigerians and the security of our borders. May God help President Tinubu to deal with this number one challenge of Nigeria which is having a negative impact on our economy. No foreign investors will want to invest in an atmosphere of insecurity. People cannot carry out their businesses as usual because the roads are not safe, the farms are not safe, the villages are not safe, the cities are not safe. We need security for our people, our properties wherever they may be, and we need our people to be persevered in their original land and not allow foreign invaders to chase them out and take over their land. We appeal to President Tinubu to change the narrative by changing those who are running the security of this nation because the time for that is long overdue. This is the number one need of Nigeria today. I do not advocate that all Nigerians should carry arms because that’s a call for anarchy but the government should rise up and deal with these evil people that are inflicting our people with all manner of evils.

 Do you think leadership is the problem in ending insecurity?

 I won’t say leadership, no, because to be fair and candid, our president is a tested hand, he is a seasoned politician. He is a courageous man and he is pragmatic, he is a man who is decisive and he knows what to do but you see when a leader is surrounded by people that are compromised, leadership is compromised , when a leader is surrounded by the people who are presenting false narratives to the leaders , leadership is compromised and this is the problem. As a good man, and as a capable politician that our president is, the people around him are his core problem and you see if the President goes on like this with the same people, he will keep getting the same result. Now, two years on, insecurity is unabated, we cannot be doing the things we are doing and expected a different result. If we haven’t gotten the right result, then it’s time for change. The President should change the people that are in charge of security and put the right people. And we are praying to God through our Lord Jesus Christ that God will guide the president, preserve him and let him rise up and be the answers to our prayers by removing those compromised elements that are giving him false narratives. Let him do the needful and be decisive in dealing with those who are making Nigeria to weep, wail, and mourn on a daily basis. We want an end to killings in Plateau Benue, Taraba, Zamfara, Borno, Sokoto, Ondo, Enugu, and in every part of Nigeria. We want Nigeria to be a safe country where no man is oppressed. We believe that President Tinubu can rise to the occasion and he should begin by changing those whom he has committed the security of this nation to their hands.

  Are you not worried about the issue of hunger and economic hardship in the country?

 The church is trying its best but the church does not have access to the resources that the government has. The government controls the economy, the oil, agricultural products, the waterways, forest, solid minerals. They control everything and I don’t quarrel with that but they should distribute these evenly across the states and local governments. They should let the wealth circulate down, they shouldn’t trap the wealth of Nigeria at the top so that the top five percent are controlling everything that Nigeria has. The government at the centre should let the wealth flow down to the people through creation of jobs, through palliatives and support for the poor, the needy, the elderly and the masses in general.

Government should make sure that the benefits of pensioners are paid promptly because they depend on it, they shouldn’t let them die. The government across board should implement the Minimum Wage Act that they promised Nigerians without any further delay and we are praying that God will give those that run our economy and our government wisdom to do the right thing.