|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Reverend Eric Ighalo is a pastor in The Potter’s House, Lagos, one of the expressions (churches) under Freedom House, as well as the president of the 77-year-old Student Christian Movement (SCM) of Nigeria. In this interview with SEYI JOHN SALAU, Ighalo speaks about the ‘new devils’ fighting the church and its youths. Excerpts:
What is your take on the state of the church and its response to the recurring violence in the country?
The Nigerian church, unfortunately, does not seem to have a good image anymore and that is the credibility of our Christian leaders being put to test. I just think we should continue to pray for our churches to be the light of the world that they are meant to be. Again, not all of the church leaders have the problem of integrity. For some churches they feel they live in their own world and are not bothered by national issues. They feel that somehow God would take care of things. When you see conflicts happening in the North, you wonder what the religious leaders are doing, and when you see apathy in the South, you imagine what the religious leaders are doing. Any nation where the religious leaders are not actively and righteously engaged in the economy always has challenges. It is not enough to pray because prayer without action cannot do much. Pentecostal leaders should take more interest in peace resolution issues; it is not taking the Bible or Quran to preach but having skills for peace resolution. That is why we have some agencies called to equip churches with these skills. The Nigerian church is not doing enough in this regard, which is why our Northern brethren feel betrayed by the Southern churches. But I am glad with the response of some Christian leaders to the Kaduna State governor. The national secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Musa Asake, responded to the Kaduna issue very clearly. In few debates the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja Diocese, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has also spoken clearly. But there is still need for us to continue to speak clearly in unison as Christian leaders. So there is also a need to carry the youths along because they represent the powerhouse. To prevent future occurrences, there is need to have culprits convicted. We also should have a forum for healing and reconciliation. In South Africa, there was healing and reconciliation forum but it did not work out here when it was introduced. It is the church that can still engineer this. We need to help our churches in the North. The rebuilding of that area demonstrates the love of God.
What can you tell us about your own ministry, House of Freedom, and the different expressions?
The founder, our senior pastor, Tony Rapu, back in the years led the modern parishes of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Apapa family. He was sent by Pastor Adeboye to give birth to these parishes and some outside the country until he felt that assignment was over to something new by God, so he moved. The entire house called House of Freedom is unique as you won’t find House of Freedom in Ibadan or any other state like some other churches. It is part of his response to the apostolic call of creating new things. So, each of the expressions (churches under Freedom House) responds to certain needs and serves different people, though we cannot serve everybody no matter what. We have The Dome in Lekki, which is our highbrow church; we have the God Bless Nigeria Church, known largely as our outreach church to rehabilitate young people and drug addicts by giving them new hope and new life. We have Holy Trinity, for instance, where we have traditional service with hymns, it is for the much mature people who would want to take five hours in a service, and it is at the Muson Centre. In the Potter’s House in Surulere, the idea is that it is a place where dreams are birthed and shaped by the potter; we help young professionals to birth dreams, nurture those dreams and unleash the dreams to serve. We also take responsibility for supporting some of the works of ministry within this area. We have these aforementioned expressions and others come together as one big family – The Freedom House.
As the president of Student Christian Movement, what can you tell us about the movement?
SCM is the pioneer of the church movement in Nigeria, founded in 1940. It is focused on calling young people to faith in God and the Lord Jesus Christ and also equipping them to serve the society and the church. It is also the handmaid of the church; it is for developing leaders for the church and society. The SCM does not feel that there is a dichotomy in our lives. We are steward for the earth and we are responsible for our society, neighbour and for governance. So an SCMer is a Christian who is actively engaged in transforming anywhere he or she is by living out his or her faith. SCM works primarily amongst students. The pioneer founder puts the idea that the student world is the key to transforming any society. So we work largely with secondary and tertiary institutions. In recent times we have branched into primary schools in some states and theological institutions. Also recently, because times have changed, a lot of our students are in transition, either they are not yet in the university or are out of the universities but could not get jobs immediately but still want the feeling of SCM. So we have SCM for out-of-school fellowship. And for those who have graduated and are no longer students, we call them senior friends; they act as mentors, advisors and financiers.
In your view, how is the movement faring?
I have served many years before in different capacities; I have served at the state and international levels. I was once the national secretary in 1993 or thereabouts. I must say a lot has changed in this time. The student world has changed and the economy has changed. The educational world is in complete disarray, standards have fallen; let me use the Christian language, there are a whole lot of new devils that have arisen and so the SCM is in need of a re-engineering in discovering new weapons to tackle the issue of youth restiveness, gay and lesbian activities, the issues of increased cults, violence in which young people are main actors. They are all new confrontations that the body needs to respond to. For me as a president I continually look for new ways, new partnership, and new wisdom on how to reposition the movement to truly be the blessings God has called it to be to the nations. I must say it is not an easy task but it is doable and I am glad we are making some strides. Nonetheless, we are open to all forms of partnership that will do the society good.
What is SCM doing in combating the ‘new devils’ you spoke about?
We have been able to bring developments, birth great leaders in churches and we have a tradition in SCM and a vision worth dying for, and to start revolution on our campuses. We truly believe that when we equip our young ones they would be able to do well. Some of our leaders are going on and we need a replacement by young people. We were able to launch a campaign for children against corruption on some campuses including, University of Uyo and University of Nigeria (UNN). This is to say that as young people we say no to corruption because it has cost us so much. As vanguard of discipleship, we also think that prosperity messages preached in churches have cost us a lot, it is time we emphasise the virtue of hard work.
Many believe the older generations of Nigerians have failed the younger generation; do you share similar view?
I think there is a general sense in which the young people feel that the leaders have failed them. I once heard one of the national leaders who apologised for having failed the nation. It is so unfortunate that you find young people trekking through the desert for ‘greener pasture’ which is as a result of failed leadership. And we have everything that we need to be good; somehow it does not just add up in this part of the world. The young person struggles to go to school, finish, get a job and the young person keeps hearing of billions of dollars looted. We have some leaders that we really could celebrate but, unfortunately, they are in the minority.
