Bishop Francis Wale Oke is the National President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and the Presiding Bishop in charge of Sword of the Spirit Ministries, Christ Life Church in Ibadan, Oyo State. He spoke with AYOYINKA JEGEDE on national issues, especially on ways to address insecurity, economic challenges, and others.

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 out of their lands and forcefully take over their patrimony. This is what is happening in Benue, Taraba, Plateau, and various parts of the nation. The Federal Government should understand the truth about this and do something decisive to stop it. These ragtag armies of herdsmen carrying guns cannot withstand the highly organised army. It means something is wrong somewhere.

There are inside agents colluding and conniving with Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Fulani herdsmen. The Federal Government should change the architecture and structure of our national security.

They should remove all the compromisers currently in positions of power and influence who determine what goes on, and they should appoint truly patriotic people who will flush out these marauders that are afflicting, killing, maiming, and raping our people.

Again, some people said it is not the Nigerian herdsmen that are doing it, but those coming 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 Nigerian Armed Forces is to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria and ensure that no foreign invaders trouble our people.

So, let the Nigerian Armed Forces wake up and flush out all these evil people that are oppressing, killing, maiming, and 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 a clear command.

We appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whom we believe has done a lot of good things, to first and foremost deal with this insecurity decisively.

President Tinubu should take another look, and that’s why we advise that the National Security Advisers should be changed, and those who have sympathy for these herdsmen should be removed or replaced.

Herdsmen have been part of Nigeria for ages past, and they were peaceful. They had their own way of doing things; they were not killing, maiming, or raping, until recently.

For example, now food security is under threat when farmers cannot go to their farms for fear of herdsmen. When those who go to the farm have to pay tax to plant and harvest their crops, it means they have become slaves on their own land. This is not acceptable. When these people invade villages, they kill, burn houses, drive the owners out, and rename the villages, this suggests there is no government in place. That’s a banana republic. Yet some people give false reports to the President.

It is true to a good extent because the three states I mentioned, Benue, Plateau, and Taraba, are predominantly Christian states, and these invaders focus on these three states, as well as other Christian states. That is not acceptable, and we want an intervention.

As for me, I do not advocate that all Nigerians should carry arms because that’s a call for anarchy. Rather, the government should rise up and deal with these criminals who are inflicting our people with all manner of evil.

Let me say that the people being kidnapped and raped are not only Christians; they include others. But take note: those doing the killings, maiming, and raping, hardly can you find Christians among them. No! It is the other side, and they claim they are doing it as a Jihad because they feel Nigeria belongs to their great-grandfather, and they must conquer it from the North to the sea. This assumption is not acceptable; it is a lie. Nigeria is not a conquered territory but a sovereign state under a sovereign government.

I won’t say leadership, no! Because to be fair and candid, President Tinubu is a tested hand. He is a seasoned politician. He is a courageous man, he is pragmatic, he is decisive, and he knows what to do. But you see, when a leader is surrounded by compromised people, leadership is compromised. When a leader is surrounded by people presenting false narratives, leadership is compromised. And this is the problem. As good and capable a politician as our President is, the people around him are his real problem.

If the President continues like this with the same people around him, he will keep getting the same results. Now, two years on, insecurity remains unabated. We cannot keep doing the same things and expect a different result. If we are yet to get the right results, then it’s time for a change.

We want an end to the killings in Plateau, Benue, Taraba, Zamfara, Borno, Sokoto, Ondo, Enugu, and in every part of Nigeria.

The Church is trying its best, but the Church does not have access to the resources the government has. The government controls the economy, the fuel, oil, agricultural products, waterways, forests, and 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 Nigeria’s wealth at the top so that the top five per cent are controlling everything.

The government at the centre should let the wealth flow down to the people through job creation, palliatives, and support for the poor and needy.

The government should make sure pensioners’ benefits are paid promptly because they depend on them. They shouldn’t let them die before paying their gratuity.

Governments across the board should implement the minimum wage bill they promised Nigerians without any further delay. And we are praying that God will give those who run our economy and our government the wisdom to do the right thing.

In many ways. First and fundamentally, the Bible says righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach. We teach ourselves and our people to live a life of righteousness that is acceptable before God. You see, when light shines, it drives darkness away. Nigeria would have been filled and taken over by darkness but for the presence of the saints of God. I use the word “saints” because every believer who is born again is a saint of God.

PFN is an agent of transformation, and we have been transforming people’s lives spiritually and in all facets, including homes and marriages.

In the education sector, there are many schools, primary, secondary, and tertiary that are Christian-based institutions.

We are raising our children to be great leaders of this nation, not only in primary and secondary schools but even in tertiary institutions.

As the National President of PFN, I took a cursory look across the nation and counted 27 private universities that are faith-based and within the fold of PFN. In our universities, there is no room for strikes. You can tell from the day your ward enters the university when they will graduate, and that doesn’t change.

There is zero tolerance for cultism. Cultism is never heard of in our faith-based tertiary institutions. There is zero tolerance for hard drugs.

I am the proprietor and Chancellor of Precious Cornerstone University. You can’t hear of strikes. No cultism. There is zero tolerance for promiscuity, sexual abuse, or harassment, whether among staff or students. No! We raise our students in an atmosphere of godliness and give them the best form of education and exposure through partnerships with universities across Europe, North America, Canada, and others. We use our influence to run exchange programmes.

In the midst of economic hardship, PFN has always provided welfare packages and palliatives to support people. We don’t stop at palliatives, we create jobs. The schools we establish employ qualified teachers and administrators, who are in the hundreds of thousands across the country.

In this way, PFN is helping to drive the economy. Many of our universities also have university farms where food is produced.

That’s a false narrative. Those who give licenses to private and government universities are not fools. They know that the establishment of a private university is a highly capital-intensive project. If you don’t truly love this nation and our youth, you cannot get into the business of private universities. It is an investment that doesn’t yield instant profit. It’s only after a long time that returns start coming in.

Take, for example, Precious Cornerstone University. It is about eight years old, and we are still pouring huge money into it monthly, not because we are making money from it.

No! If the Church had been romancing politicians, I would not be speaking as I am now. I am speaking as a man of God. I love politicians; they are part of our flock. They are Nigerians and deserve to be loved, protected, and cared for like any Nigerian, but we are not compromised at all. We are ministers of God, and we speak truth to power. We want the government to rise up and do the needful.

About the Department of Politics and Good Governance in PFN, I set that up to educate the masses, especially Pentecostals in this nation. By available statistics, we have over 65 million Pentecostals in Nigeria. No president has ever won national elections with 61 million votes. So we felt that if our people are properly educated to get involved in politics from the grassroots, by joining political parties of their choice, including dominant parties in their states, PFN can change Nigeria’s narrative.

Christians have been voting for politicians, but they are not actively involved in politics because we’ve been taught that politics is a dirty game. The best we’ve been doing is to get voter cards, and we vote, for whom? For the same people who brought us to where we are.

We want to get involved because we are the salt of the earth. For our impact as salt to be felt, we are telling Christians to get involved in politics from the grassroots, from their ward levels, and in party activities in their states. When it is time to pick delegates to party conventions, we encourage Christians to be there. When it is time to pick local government heads, state leaders, and National Assembly members, Christians should not be behind the fence, only praying.

Christians have been praying, and we will continue to pray—but let them get involved. Don’t sit on the fence by only getting a voter card; be the person to be voted for.

We established the Directorate of Politics and Good Governance in PFN to enlighten our members about the need to participate actively in politics from the grassroots. We appointed someone with experience, a truly detribalised Nigerian, who hails from Edo but lives in Oyo State and once won a political position there. He is an insider who understands the political world before God called him into ministry, Pastor Femi Emmanuel. He is educating Christians not only to pray but to participate actively in politics because we’ve been edged out for too long, and it’s time to get involved.

Nigerians should not lose hope. We shouldn’t be discouraged. Nigerians should not allow depression. We should look unto God.