2022 CAC Pastors’ Conference: Pastor Henry Ojo, President Supreme Council Speaks

He Opens Up on the Impediments to CAC Peace Process, Adds his Voice to Nigeria and 2023 Elections, and Why the Church Remains Embattled.

Following the hope raised by the reunion of the two prominent factions of Christ Apostolic Church in 2018, the expectation was that the two feuding leadership would continue the process of the reunion, but for about three years after, under new set of leadership, it doesn’t look as the gap is being closed.

In 2018, the two groups of leaders met in a historic reunion meeting in Ikeji Arakeji and Ikire, both in Oyo State, they later had a common theme for the year’s Pastors’ Conference, and this was followed by running joint Sunday School programmes, but this year it’s like the two main factions are going their separate ways.

PTL News sought the views of the two camps, while one posited that the process was still on, to the other it is like the other faction was not so sincere to have a lasting solution. Here the President of the Supreme faction Pastor Henry Ojo, who at the initial stage was part of the peace process before he became a President spoke to PTL News, and he spoke on what he saw as the current level of the crises of over 30 years.

Can we start from self introduction? Can we meet you sir?

My name is Pastor Henry Ojo, I am the President of Christ Apostolic Church, Supreme Council, Nigeria and Overseas, thanking the Lord for another grace given to us by God to see a new day.

On 2022 Pastors’ Conference

Your Church is preparing for the annual Pastors’ Conference sir. How are you preparing?

The theme of our conference this year, we tag it as Triumph, and the theme is the Secrets of God’s own General. We are expecting the Lord to visit us in a new way, in new dimensions we know that all the generals both in the bible and in our contemporary times the secret of their success is the ability to triumph in every situation. They were not giving themselves to defeat and did not give themselves to whatever setbacks or feelings of pains that come along their way. They fought the battle rigorously, diligently, and they triumphed at last.

Many of them, not that the journey was so palatable to all of them, they had their issues which they faced in the course of running their ministry, and that is why there is no one of them without their scars as a result of running the ministry. But irrespective of the scar, irrespective of the confrontation, irrespective of challenges, we saw them triumph over all. We believe God is going to strengthen His ministers, as we are coming to the end of the world, God will strengthen His ministers. The more we are coming to the end of the world the more the battle will be more fierce, and so strong.

A lot of things are challenging the church these days but for the Church of God to move on lies upon the anointed and that is why David said in Psalm 2, that ‘Why do the heathen rage, why do they imagine the vain things?. He said, ‘The kings of the earth gathered themselves together against His anointed.’ Though that Psalm is talking about what is going to happen at the second coming of Christ when the anti-Christ will gather to fight against Jesus and His Church. Taking that Psalm to our daily life today we can see that Satan and its hosts are battling every day to fight against the anointed of God, and who is the anointed of God? The Church of Jesus Christ.

It is not today that Satan has been fighting the Church, it has been fighting on many occasions right from the beginning of the Church, Church has never had rest concerning the rage of the devil. But thank be to God who always prepares His generals in order to carry the church to the next level. That is what we are expecting in the life of all our ministers and Pastors that will be present, that God will inject them with new visions, inspirations and fresh anointing in this conference by the grace of God.

The theme is loaded and one can see it as something that is pregnant with a lot of meanings and interpretations. Can you throw more light on some of the activities?

In the activities we have the main talk, whereby many men of God will dish out on the tag and the theme of the programme, for understanding of the people and for a kind of revelation that would come through His words. Then we have series of seminars and these seminars have to do with the present day Church and what we need to do to carry the church to the next level. Through all these seminars God will really impart a revelation to every minister to know what the church particularly the ministers in this 21st century will do to make sure that the church will be carried forward.

Also we will have workshops. These workshops will address some issues that are facing the church today, things that the church has been doing but are no longer doing particularly in the area of discipleship programme. We discover that discipleship programme is what the church is neglecting today. We have series of fire revivals, series of outreach but we neglect the discipleship aspect. There is no amount of revival we do but without discipleship it will amount to nothing. That is why the Church today becomes weak, the church today is becoming a kind of wandering church which is not stable where the Lord places them because they don’t know the purpose and why they are members of the church, and they don’t know the reason why church exists and why God called them to that congregation.

Without discipleship programme they will never know. It is until when you push them through the discipleship programme and we nurture them and they become stronger from the valley that is full of bones. That is about the programme we have.

We have other programmes like Praise and Prophetic Night, whereby many of the well-known artistes are coming, to lift the Lord up because we know that praise is the only food of God, after we must have done everything we need to bless the name of the Lord. Whenever we get to heaven, we will not do any other thing apart from praises. It will be praises and praises all along. There are several other programmes which we put in place in this particular one week that we are going to be in the presence of the Lord.

You said some ministers will be expected. Are they coming from within or outside the Church? Will you like to mention some of them?

We are expecting Rev. P.F. Owa, one of the outstanding ministers of this age, he is going to come and other ministers are coming to bless us in that conference. One of our fathers for example Dr. J.O. Kayode, Jesu Oloore, he himself will be around in that conference to bless us.

How about security, considering the state of the nation now?
The state of the nation now needs a very well organised security to look after those that are coming. Though God is our security, at the same time we must do what is in our capacity to make sure that the place is well protected. We have arranged with the police, we have arranged for our internal security. We are using the military too for those who will be at the programme, and guard us throughout that period. This has been what we have put in place.

Church Update on CAC Unification

That was our expectation too. Since we have come to this office, even from your publication we see that you really attended to us when we came to the office, and since that time we have been working seriously because our father who retired commissioned us. They started it, they wanted peace to reign and for the church to come together under the same umbrella. Since we came to this office, that is what we have been working on.

During the last year Pastors’ Conference, I think we explained some details of how far we have gone. We have persuaded our other side to sit down and that we should hold a meeting together to settle our differences. I think we have held more than 13 different meetings but what we discover is that our other side is not ready for peace because all the efforts we are making they always give us a set-back.
The last time we met together I cannot know the date now except the secretary is here to tell us the date. We wrote our terms of settlement, we expect each one of us to exchange the terms of settlement so that we really need to scrutinise it and later come to what to stand upon for settlement. But to our greatest surprise we submitted our own they failed to submit their own. The next thing they are campaigning now is that they say we want to take over the whole of the seats completely. They will never give the copy of the resolutions to their members to see the terms of settlement, but will just wave it to them that see o, what they write is that they want to take over the power. That is a kind of hypocritical aspect of their life.

Probably you would have read it in the papers last year, they published it that they were the only CAC and there was no other CAC any more and if there is any other one that tried to call themselves CAC who are not under their authority they are ready to take them to court. They published them in the newspapers and television, but we didn’t reply them. But finally just about a month now they summoned us for another court case. It is still in the court now, after which we have said in our past meeting that every matter of court must stop, that every publication that would affect the peace must stop, but what we discover is that they go ahead to go and do some other things.

We have not resumed that court for hearing because the court is not in session for now. That is where we are. By the grace of God, God has helped us in the sense that all the factions that were taken from us are all back and we have had a unity meeting together. You might have been hearing of a group called Agbowo, before our father retired, they had separated themselves from the Supreme Council, but today by the grace of God we are now one. We have come back together, but the other side are the one that took us to court now. That is where we are.

This is one area people believe the leaders should see reason and allow peace and oneness to reign including non-members of CAC.

That is our prayer and our own expectation. In spite all the negative things they do against us we have never taken it against them. To us we know that no court will settle this matter. Except we sit down at a round table talk which they don’t want to materialise. So this one we are talking about now is yet to be known to the members of CAC, except this one we are talking about. But there is no way the people will not know because at the conference people will ask us some of these questions, and we must open up to the whole world so that people will know where we are. So that people will not see us as what we are not because we have been hearing some things like we are the ones that don’t want peace to reign. How many of them know what I am telling you now? Thank God for the press that will blow things up and allow the world to know it. We are not happy about all these but what can we do? So that is it.

What we usually hear is that the peace process is in progress and very soon, it will be over.

Yes, that is what they keep on saying, when Pastor Olusheye was there, same under Pastor Akinosun, and now that Pastor Oladele is there, they are using the same method. But the different thing that is happening now is that the leaders at that time are not the set of the same leaders that are there now. Our fathers then for many reasons might not be able to talk to the whole world, they might like to conceal a lot of things but we cannot conceal it. As we are in this office what is in our mind is that anytime that the church becomes one we are ready to vacate the office, if need be. So that is it.

That will be a very great decision and sacrifice.

We have said it many times before them. All what we are saying is that … Let me give you a clue of what is our terms of reference for settlement. Before our father left, the agreement they had was that from the five principal officers they would give Supreme Council two, and they will take three, that was the agreement they had before they went on retirement. But later on they said they cannot give us two. They would give us one, and the one they said they would give us is the General Secretary, and the General Secretary there they didn’t accept as a Principal Officer, but we are saying it is not a matter of saying ‘we give you two we take three,’ but we say let us sit down, let us select those who are going to be constitution drafting committee and let us put there the position of everybody and the functions of every one. You cannot say, this is a property that belongs to our fathers, we all inherited, and you on one side want to sit at a corner, and say you are the one to go and share it. We need to sit down together in agreement to look at the sharing and ask, ‘do you agree?’, and we don’t agree, and we sit down as a family and ensure that it is amicably and fairly resolved. And we discuss the issue as a family, that is what we are talking about. But they are not ready for that.

Let us look into the area of personal relationship between men of the two factions, I know that the past administrations and leaders share some common lines and very strong personal relationships. Do you new set of leaders share this kind of relationship that would allow you to relate together as friends and brothers of the same father?

We know that even before now that some of us came to the office as new leaders, some us were relating together. We know Pastor Oladele to be the most senior and we respect him for that. He is the most senior, but the rest cannot say they are the most senior because I know those I senior among them there. I know those of them that our General Superintendent is senior among them there. So despite that all these happen we still talk as friends. That is what really surprised us when they took us to court again. There are some issues that came up that make us more fearful to say what kind of friendship are we keeping.

Probably some of you read in the newspapers recently that they published it in the papers that I prophesied that Wike and Osinbajo would become the next president of Nigeria, in their notice they said a lot of blasphemy against me. Then I begin to question, if we are true brothers, where there is love, have you called me to ask if I was the one that said it before they went to media house. They published it in the newspaper to be known to the whole world, that I said it, that they should not take me serious that I am not this, I am not that.

Then I wonder that if a person like Pastor Oladele saw something like this, what would it take them to ask me and I would come out to explain myself, they went out to say that was the second time I would say that and other things …they go all out to castigate us that we are not part of CAC, and all these we didn’t reply. We now discovered it is a kind of friendship between wolf and sheep. What kind of friendship is that? What can we gain from such a friendship, and this is what makes us to be fearful. Such an attitude gives us a lot of concerns.

We are expecting the way forward.

Our way forward has been written in our terms of reference, and the term of reference does not state that we want to take all the seats. The term of reference has already spelt out what we regard as the way forward. What we are saying is that as we wrote our terms of reference they should write their own too. Then it is a matter of agreeing or not agreeing which they don’t want. They don’t want to believe that the supreme council exists, that is what they want the world to believe. If they don’t believe that the Supreme Council exists, how can we have peace?

People are highly interested in you becoming one. One fold with one shepherd as you are used to know.

Yes, we are the one calling for this oneness and coming together. We are the ones orchestrating it here. Though that is what led to the breaking away of Agbowo from us. Agbowo did not support what we were doing, they said those people were liars, that we should not make peace with them. But I that sit here was the one God used to stir up that move. It caused a lot of uproar here but as God would have it, they accepted what God laid in my heart, and they made a move, towards peace. As we made that move truly every one of us were looking towards a lasting peace, and the end of the trouble until Pastor Akinosun began his own kind of craftiness, and we all had the hope that he would soon go for retirement and he did with his craftiness and we have Pastor Oladele there, because he is somebody we have known for a long time for his standard of Christianity that he would be able to do what is needful.

Though when he came to power he came with a very good interest, he did a lot of things we were expecting him to do, but it came to certain level that we don’t know what happened. They just changed the game. It is only him that can tell us what is really happening there.

We understand that groups of churches in Lagos, came, agreed and submitted themselves to the authority of the General Executive Council, how did you feel, were you affected?

By the grace of God 90% of those who did it that time have come back to us. This is part of the power game which those people play against us to cause a kind of division. I think they are doing it to feel that would weaken us. But through the grace of God by no efforts these people came on their own and Pastor Ogundare came to submit everything to us here and we have a unity service, in this church, newspapers and television widely carried it. If you see anyone that does not come back it is the ring leader they used that time, which is Pastor Kayode Omoniyi, he was the one they used to break the caucus. Glory be to God they could not succeed in breaking us. So it’s only him and perhaps few of the pastors that followed him that fell to the plot, and who remain with them till now.

Were you affected?
By the special grace of God we were not affected. Now after the deed was done, if you were at our last year’s Pastors’ Conference, it was so great, it was attended by a lot of our Pastors and the crowd that came we did not know where they came from, we were all marvelled. It is the doing of the Lord. It is not by our efforts or of our power.

On the State of the Nation

If you look at Nigeria today and the world at large, Nigeria is not only the country and the people that are passing through this kind of turmoil, and crises. Every major nation of the world has its own issues. Concerning Nigeria also, because we are part of the world, we must pass through it but we trust the Lord that what God has for Nigeria as a people must surely come to pass. Let me put this in, recalling the prophecy of the man called Pa Elton. He was a British man who came all the way from Britain, and God told him to come and settle in a nation called Nigeria. He settled in Ilesa. God used him to mentor many of the people we see as fathers of our faith today, including our own Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola. This man called Pa Elton mentored him. We also heard that people like Baba Adeboye, Pastor Kumuyi and Gbile Akanni were mentored by this great man of God.

Let me go to the prophecy he said about Nigeria. He said there would be a time when people will accuse Nigeria as a corrupt and rejected country. He said but a time shall come when all the nations shall seek after Nigeria. We believe that before light comes darkness will surely come before it. So we have passed through the stage of darkness, what will be the next thing we are expecting is the light of God, and the fulfilment of the prophecy.

Yes, Nigeria is passing through problems but the job of every Christian and every church is to pray for the peace of Nigeria and all nations at large. So that is our position as a church in CAC the Supreme Council. We have never relented in our efforts in praying. We are praying every time, and we send our prayer list to all our churches to pray for the peace and progress of Nigeria and of all the nations.

Physically what is your advice for all manners of leaders we have in this country – be it political, business and even religious leaders we have in Nigeria?

The only advice we have for all our political leaders is, number one, let everyone of us go back to God, particularly those who are children of God among them. All the churches in Nigeria, let us go back to the Holy Spirit, there is no amount of love or advice that can change this nation until the Holy Spirit itself do what we call Spiritual Operation, Heart Circumcision, so when you see a country like America, a country like Britain or other civilised counties of the world, we want to be like them today but they have had their own experience of challenges of growth and development that the basis of their greatness came through revivals God had organised within them in their growing years, more than two hundred years ago. Revivals in the hands of men like that of Charles Finnih, John Wesley, and many other men of God which God used in Europe, the effects is what we are seeing today, it is the prayers of these revivalists that turned things around for their nations. It is the seed of that time that they are reaping today.

We believe God can do the same in our midst if we turn back to Him in repentance, but whether we like it or not when the Holy Spirit carries out its operation, no one will have an option but to come back to God and kneel at the altar of the Lord.

The Church and Persecution

It’s like the Church is grossly embattled. All eyes are on the church. When anything happens around the church people easily pick on the church to blame. Sometimes when an ordinary member or worker of a church is caught in evil doing people are easy to identify him or her as a pastor. How can the church cleanse itself of this satanic toga?

The accusation against the church is not of today. It has started from the beginning of the church. The era of our fathers in faith, there was a time the Roman Empire accused the Christians and people in the faith as people who were causing problems for their nation, and that was why many of them were slaughtered like a goat, many Christians were taken to wild animals to be killed because they accused them of causing the predicaments affecting their nations. Emperor Nero accused the Church after which he himself was the one who set their auditorium on fire. But he laid the blame upon the church accusing that the church did it. So we are coming to that era when the same history is repeating itself.

But I believe God is using it for the church itself to be careful. I am not saying that some of the allegations are not true. But all of them are not true, but people are now using the church as a kind of a scape goat of the problems that are facing the nation. God will use this situation to make the church to re-adjust itself and call upon the name of God as well, and each time God wants to send a revival, the first thing that comes is a revival of darkness. That is what we are facing in the nation today. It may help the church to pray more, search the scripture more, and to preach righteousness more. After that the light of the Lord will shine. That is it.

Nigeria and 2023 Elections

2023 is approaching fast. Nigerians are being divided along political, ethnic and religious lines. Nigerians still need to hear the views of religious leaders like you sir. What will you like to say to Nigerians as 2023 comes?

What I want to advise Nigerians, especially the Christian body as to the issue of the election that is coming …..It’s like the church is willing to participate in politics and that is why we are having the issue of who rules us, Why Muslim/Muslim Tickets, questions of why not Christian/Muslim tickets and all that. Whereby the church looks to some people who call themselves Christians that want to contest, someone we need to vote for and all that. To me if we are looking at that we may be moving away from the standard of God. I am not against a believer being in power, I believe that when they are in power, they are my brothers, and we share the same belief, we share the same faith but the Lord said to Samuel that man looks unto the outward appearance but God looks unto the heart.

I believe what should be the duty of the Church today is to pray, God give us a man after your own heart. Because what we don’t know, God knows it. Whatever party comes in, APC, PDP, Labour or anyone, God knows what He wants to use each individual for, and we should allow God to work and have control. I don’t want we believers to join issues with other religions for political purpose, because when you are doing that you are teaching them what they did not know before. We are praying that there should be no religious war in the country because any country that goes through religious wars don’t get better by it, imagine the countries like Sudan, like Afghanistan, and many other countries, who experienced religious wars did not come out of it.

Let all our brothers in the faith come together. We can fight on our knees. Have we forgotten that God gives us the right to bind and loosen on earth? There is no need for us to make noise. Then let all Nigerians gather themselves together to accept ourselves as brothers. What is killing this country today is that we are against ourselves. The issue of tribalism is eroding what we used to have in common.

If you travel round the country today you will discover that Nigerian masses love one another. Nigerians don’t hate one another. Go to the north they will accept you as themselves. It is these elites that are using politics to cause division in our country. That is how I think I have to advise Nigerians. I don’t need to tell anybody who they should vote for. Go to your knees and vote for the one the Lord leads you to vote for.

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