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Reverend Abayomi Lawal recently led out the entire congregation of the Ikoyi Baptist Church in a thanksgiving service to celebrate the church’s 50th anniversary. SEYI JOHN SALAU engaged him on the reason for the celebration, the projection of the church for the next 50 years and other issues. Excerpts:
By way of introduction, may we meet you Sir?
My name is Abayomi Lawal, I have been a Christian all my life; well I know nothing about other religion other than Christianity. I became a Christian in 1967 at the age of 15, and I got a call to be a pastor in 1972 and went to seminary in 1973 and I have been a pastor all my life.
At what point did the journey into pastoral work start for you?
The journey started after my four years in school; in 1977, I pastor the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Sapele, Delta State, and I spent three-and-half years there and then proceeded for further studies abroad in the United States of America (USA) where I got my terminal degree; doctor of ministry in 1986 and came back to Nigeria straight to Ikoyi Baptist Church in 1992 till date.
The church recently marked its 50th anniversary, how do you feel leading the congregation at this moment?
I feel privileged, and sincerely I appreciate God for allowing me to actually be a part of this. It is not that I deserve it, and I do not think anybody deserves anything order than what God gives one.
Nigeria is said to be very religious; on Sundays, the Christians go to church while the Moslems go to the Mosque of Fridays, but that does not seem to reflect on their level of spirituality; does this bother you as a preacher?
It had been so even before Christ Jesus came, the Jews disappointed God in the sense that they were not living like they should; you can read in the scriptures and God will come back to punish them. Preachers today have shifted the goal post to prosperity, longevity and to things that actually benefit self other than preaching the word that God has mandated us to do. That to me is a failure, even though we know there is still some bible-believing churches who actually will preach the truth, teach the truth, and knowing full well that Jesus Christ our Lord said: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. Today, a lot of people go to church but they are in bondage, they are in bondage of what their pastor said; that is self-inflicted bondage.
Christ has given us the power to break every bondage when He said it is finished on the cross, how can we help people to break loose from their self-inflicted bondage?
The only thing for you to actually get out of the bondage is for you to now apply yourself to knowing the truth. The bible, the infallible word of God should be held above any interpretation of man because whatever interpretation we give cannot in anyway be held as the complete truth. And we can also exert the interpretation, and the only person that can give us the interpretation is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is there to teach us all things.
Back to the church, what would you say is the most remarkable experience of your time here as pastor?
My way of looking at the church is actually to see that we are truly a church and not just an assembly, where there is no love, God is not there. I can see God here through these people, we do not just preach love, we preach and live it; we do not just talk about it, we practise it and we have known peace all these 50 years, and we thank God for it; no pastor left because he got suspended, and we have only had three pastors in 50 years. Actually, the first pastor, who actually was the leader of the church and later the pastor of the church served for 24 years, and then we had an interim pastor that stood between the first pastor and this present pastor for one year, and I have served by the grace of God for 25 years plus and thank God because we are stable, we are united, we are loving and the celebration is actually about God: what God has done and not what man has done, and I believe that 50 years of our existence is worth celebrating.
Let’s go national; at the moment there is insecurity across the country; is there something the government is not doing right in this regard?
Honestly, when you have unemployment so high as it is the case with Nigeria, you will have insecurity. The truth of the matter is this; there is disparity between the rich and the poor, the gap is too wide and the poor will be thinking and saying: wait a minute – are we not actually in the same country; am I not working hard enough? Again, when you think about the embezzlement in the government and the approach to work, it feels like the government is not doing enough to get the money back and when they get it back, what do they use it for; to be embezzled again. There is that frustration, and the frustration is valid in a way, but to now go into kidnapping, into armed robbery, is a wrong way of expressing your frustration because two wrong cannot make a right: and I will like to appeal to the government to be sensitive to the needs of the nationals. The expatriates make it because they are brought here for a purpose and they are paid very well. In fact, they can feed fat in our land than even the nationals. The thing about it is that we need to get suited to really see to how to take care of our citizens, and I pray sincerely that the government will begin to do something about it because it’s unfair to treat people like they do not care about the citizen. It is like let them take care of themselves, let them kill themselves and before you can get to Aso Rock, unless you actually use ‘juju’ or you become a fly or grasshopper before you can get there, but if you become a lizard they can kill you before you even get there; so I think the movement to Abuja could be responsible in some way because the government is no longer in the heart of the people who actually elected them into office.
This administration came in two years ago with a campaign promise to create a social welfare net; would you say they have not done enough to get into the heart of the people or is there a mismatch somewhere?
I think actually when you know the number of people they have given this money, you will know that there is a lot of people to be reached and the other thing about it is that when you hear about what actually is going on in the government, especially those of us who are religious leaders who are not conversant with current affairs and other issues: you hear few things about all the past presidents getting a lot of money for salary every month, and you look and say; wait a minute, I cannot earn that working for five years: one would likely say how come they are not paying pensioners who labored, sweated, and actually sacrificed their lives too and they earn it by sheer diligence, and it is the responsibility of the government to take care of them, to at least give them something to live on but they are being denied of their rights, and these past presidents do not have to beg for the money to be in their account. There is actually a misapplication of what to do as a people; I believe when you take care of the masses, sincerely speaking the masses will be more productive, and when they become more productive, you will never lack as a nation. But we are caring for the few and neglecting the masses, hence, a lot of outcry.
The North have been facing lots of security challenges with the Boko Haram insurgency; what do you think the government can do to permanently contain it?
They have tried to call them to the table for talks but for you to understand the situation you have to be in the helms of affairs. But you see, it is not actually about fighting corruption rather it is meant to eliminate some people because they are not of the same faith with them, and they cannot force religion on anybody. I just believe that the people supporting this particular movement, Boko Haram, should be dealt with because they are the ones making them to really go on; without funding you will see that the organisation will crash, but they are receiving a lot of funding and where they are getting their funding from, I do not know but it shows that somebody highly placed, maybe in government, may actually be funding the movement. There has been movement here and there, and I believe it’s only a matter of time, the truth will be revealed someday but the sad thing is that what has gone bad will not be corrected.
There has been agitation for restructuring in the country; some people have argued that the government as constituted is too expensive; where do you stand on this?
I must be honest with you, I do not know how expensive this administration is but one thing I know is that the Senate and probably the House of Representatives may be earning too much. The allowances they are earning and everything they get, I believe they should try as much as possible to know that politics is not a way of just enriching oneself. If they are giving the service, maybe one will not complain but they are just there, and we are not seeing the effect of what we elected them there for. But, can I blame them, not really because I know how much they spent when they were campaigning; how much they used to bribe people, how much they used to buy form, and they have to prepare themselves for another election. So, I think we are all wrong for collecting money from these people and we will have to pay back one way or the other.
