“May the day not come, when you will fall out of favour with me”

I remember the story told by Pastor Bakare at a service whose date I cannot recollect now. He told us the story of an event that happened in Abeokuta, in his father’s house after it had been recently rebuilt. One of his ministers had done a wrong that was so great that Pastor B was absolutely angry with him. Hence Pastor B had asked the minister to leave his presence and return back to Lagos as he did not wish to see or speak to him at that moment. The minister left but stood at the gate of the house and wept continuously, but he would not depart. Every close associate of Pastor B had gone in to intercede on the minister’s behalf but Pastor B’s mind was made up on his decision. Until, one last associate, a most highly favored one interceded on behalf of the offending minister. As angry as he was at that instant, he had no choice but to listen to this one associate because of the great love they shared. It was like the Lamb of God stepping into the presence of the father, interceding for a sinner; or like Esther stepping into the presence of the King at the most undesirable season, yet receiving his favour. Pastor Bakare, out of love and respect for his highly favored associate backed down and forgave the offending minister. Then he looked at the associate who had accomplished this feat and said to him “May the day not come, when you will fall out of favour with me” and the whole matter was resolved. That associate is no other than Pastor Samuel Aiyedogbon! But now, considering recent developments, when I reminisce on that story, I smile and say to myself ‘The devil is a liar!’

I also remember meeting Pastor Sam Aiyedogbon. I had often wondered about the future of the voice that spoke truth fearlessly to power in Nigeria which encapsulates the whole Tunde Bakare brand. The entire hierarchy of the Latter Rain Assembly leadership seemed to consist of Pastors who had entirely different callings from Pastor B’s. Pastors Biola and Ike are clearly excellent teachers of the word but who do not carry the Nigerian burden in their hearts with the same passion as Pastor B, though they are as endowed in their own distinct callings and idiosyncrasies. Then I encountered Pastor Sam Aiyedogbon around 2007, he had come to preach for Pastor Bakare who had traveled on that particular Sunday. Then I realized how myopic I had been! I had thought everything started and ended in Latter Rain Assembly! So there were voices outside I thought! I remembered Elijah and the unknown seven thousand! Pastor Sam preached, moved and spoke like Pastor Bakare, a total and perfect alter ego of the fiery man of God. From then, I had loved him, Pastor Sam, like I have loved my Pastor, Bakare.

Sometime later, Pastor Sam noticed me on Facebook. He had been following the short video clips and articles on Pastor Bakare’s messages that I posted online. He sent me a message to commend me and I was greatly excited. He even sent me his phone number and asked me to call him. I was greatly humbled. I called him over the phone and he blessed and prayed for me. He then invited me to his church to make a presentation during their youth week but I could not make it as I was out of town that weekend. Much later during the Save Nigeria Group youth rally, Pastor Sam had asked our youth Pastor to point me out for him for all these while we had never met in person. He was led to where I was seated and he embraced me with all smiles! Praying for me and encouraging me to go on with what I was doing. Was I happy! Of course, my father’s friend is my father as well. During the SNG march in Lagos I saw him speaking vehemently on the stage. He carried the crowd along passionately as he delivered his rhetoric in pidgin “Dem promise us light, una don see the light?” The crowd responded “Noooo, we no see am o!” He continued “Dem promise us water, good roads…una don see am? “ The crowd warming up to him responded “Noooo! We no see am o” I was one of the guards who formed a gridlock chain forearm in forearm around the podium and as I watched him deliver on stage, sweating profusely under the sun. I thought within myself “Thank you Lord! The revolution is not built around any one man, this revolution has a future!”

The current situation between Pastor B and Pastor Sam, in which the latter has roundly criticized and condemned the former’s entry into partisan politics, in such severe, venomous and sometimes insulting terms, and the sharp division that has arisen in the body of Christ especially between followers of both men, as I perceive it, is nothing short of the work of the enemy. It has little to do with the men of God themselves. That is why I declared before and I here declare again. “Brothers will yet embrace each other again; Satan will be put to shame and Christ will be glorified.” I take my position from some lessons God has taught me long before now which is about an age long booby trap of the enemy in dealing deathly blows against any impending move of God.

In recent times, Christians in Nigeria have gradually awakened to a huge responsibility they have towards salvaging the dwindling fortunes of the nation. This gave birth to several movements under the ministry of ‘National Transformation’. Men like Professor Vincent Anigbogu resigned his job as a chemistry professor in a prestigious American University and came back to Nigeria to set up a college called Institute of National Transformation (INT) where Christians are educated and prepared for community impact and participation in politics for the glory of God. Along with other men of God like Pastor Onyemala, IgbiniJesu, and many others, he educates and unleashes change agents into the society with their spirit-inspired teachings. A group of young technocrats, mostly Christians had come together and started a political party called National Transformation Party (NTP) under the leadership of Mr. John Dara. Many others had sacrificed a lot and thrown themselves into the course of saving Nigeria and making her great. George Ashiru, a former National Taekwondo champion; Steve Enada, a former Pastor and grassroots community mobilizer are but a few of those I know and have interacted with who are neck deep involved in the newly evolving ministry. Pastor Bakare on his own had been a constant pain in the neck of oppressive governments in Nigeria. However, Pastor Bakare’s entry into partisan politics, aiming for the highest office in the land seems to be the masterstroke of this National Transformation movement. Many people know, and the enemy knows that under the leadership of a Vice President Bakare, Nigeria might just begin to make that much anticipated turn around towards righteousness and greatness. And if he, the enemy, cannot get at the movement, or the man of God from outside, a most easy way is to plant a misunderstanding and throw a spanner in the works of the budding breakthrough. I love the way the Yoruba language calls it, EDE A-I-YEDE!

The enemy himself learnt this method from God Himself. For when men decided to build a tower and make a name for themselves, the scripture records that God came down and saw what the sons of men were doing and reportedly said “These people are one, and are of one speech, and this they begin to do; and nothing shall be restrained (impossible) for them which they have imagined to do. Hence the Lord scattered their language and cast them abroad, and they left off building the tower they had thought to build.” This scattering of languages, or misunderstanding, simply put has been a most fatal weapon in truncating any movement on earth. Indeed that is why I believe that one of Jesus’ most earnest prayers to the father as he departed these shores was “...those that thou has given me, that they may be one as we are one.” Whilst God had used a misunderstanding of languages in the story of Babel, the enemy also uses it in stopping lofty and Godly movements when men are not watchful!

A worthy example is the historic parting of ways between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his initial alter ego, Stokely Carmichael. At the time MLK had become a national hero in the civil rights movement, Carmichael was yet a student in the University. At the creation of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Martin Luther King had been invited as a Patron of the movement. At this moment, Carmichael was a member of the student movement and they organized sit-ins in restaurants to add more pressure to the demands for racial equality for the American Negro. At this time, Carmichael was an active follower of King’s non-violent integrationist demands. He was a brilliant speaker too and soon gained popularity among the youth. However, as soon as Carmichael became the leader of SNCC, he departed from the teachings of King and leaned more towards a more violent approach to solving the racial problem. Evolving his own movement which he called Black Power, he opposed King’s integrationist principle, rather he leaned farther to the left; he called for separation and a violent defense of the rights of the black people. But thank God for the Holy Spirit in the great Martin Luther King, the cardinal principle of his life was forgiveness anyway and he simply looked away, allowing the young man to continue in his own strides. Once Carmichael craftily had King on camera and asked him to join issues with him in a debate, but the revered man of God simply replied “I have been used before, one more time won’t hurt!” Somewhere within those manipulations, the enemy was hiding, waiting to plant in jealousy, hatred and rivalry and then deal the civil rights movement an early and fatal blow from within, but he failed, the spirit of God was in the heart of Dr. King.

However, another example which did not end that well was that of Malcolm X and his initial alter ego Louis Farrakhan. At the time Malcolm X was the eloquent, fiery and super brilliant face of the Nation of Islam (NOI) in New York, whose original founder was the quieter, more spiritual and diminutive Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan was only a young, black violinist in Boston who lighted up night clubs with his charming music. However Farrakhan stumbled upon the teachings of Malcolm X, in his own words, Farrakhan never even knew Malcolm X was not the original leader of the Nation of Islam, but Malcolm X’s teachings pointed always at Elijah Muhammad and Farrakhan soon became a follower of Muhammad, learning fast in the steps of Malcolm X. Soon Farrakhan himself became a talented speaker in the mould of his mentor Malcolm X and soon became the Minister of the NOI in Boston. However, trouble reared its head in the movement as usual. Malcolm X had felt betrayed by Elijah Muhammad when he discovered that his Master was found wanting even in his own teachings. Muhammad had impregnated about three of his personal secretaries in a row. Malcolm X was outraged, disappointed and soon quit the Nation of Islam to create his own organization, the Organization of Afro American Unity (OAAU). In the events that followed, Louis Farrakhan parted ways with his mentor Malcolm X and soon became a scathing critic of X. In one of his writings, Farrakhan described Malcolm X as “worthy of death” and in a short while afterwards, three members of the Nation shot and killed Malcolm X. The American Negro had lost their shining Prince! Till today, Louis Farrakhan is widely blamed for the death of X even though he has refuted it many times. The story is an example of events gone wrong between two friends who fell apart and the whole situation getting mishandled; a kind of fight in which there is never a victor, but only the vanquished. The only victor in the whole episode was the enemy!

We must not be ignorant of the devices of the enemy. That is why I know that this whole scenario is the handiwork of Satan, hoping to plant total disunity in the body of Christ over Pastor B’s foray into partisan politics. But I know the enemy has failed. Both men are seasoned Christians, sooner than later, brothers will embrace each other, Satan will be put to shame and Christ will be glorified.

If not, Pastor Sam marched with us in the Save Nigeria Group march. If the spiritual was to be our unilateral way of thinking and seeing things, then from a spiritual angle, what is the basic difference between marching in protest against a government policy or deed, and participating in righting the wrongs of the government itself? The SNG march was pure political activism; the presidential candidacy is pure political partisanship. From the spiritual perspective, how can political activism be right and political partisanship wrong? Both of them are aimed at the same objective, which is to glorify God by ensuring righteousness and justice is done in the land. I say again, Iro l’esu n pa, Satan is a liar!

Then again, according to scripture, the vision that Agabus saw, that he interpreted as pain, suffering, destruction and death for Paul, Paul himself had seen it before and called it glory and a path he must follow! Yet that did not interpret that Paul was “arrogant” or “mad” or “deluded”. The Apostles prevailed on him not to go but when he insisted, they let him be. Isn’t that enough example for the exalted man of God? Where in the world would such venomous attacks come from based on a doctrinal difference between one and one’s spiritual father? Iro l’esu n pa, Satan is a liar! Perhaps what Pastor Sam sees and calls arrogant ambition, Pastor Bakare sees as a lifelong vision which the spirit of God in him permits!

On more than one occasion in the Bible Paul says “…I speak, not the Lord, yet I believe I have the spirit of the Lord”. However when Pastor Bakare says, “I have not said ‘God said’ yet I know I have the spirit of God”. What is the difference? Is it not the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, that was at work in Paul and is at work in both Pastor Bakare and Pastor Sam? Should a doctrinal difference become personal? All the enemy seeks to achieve is to prevent the master stroke of the National Transformation movement in Nigeria which is the likelihood of a Bakare Vice-Presidency! Every movement has its crescendo and masterstroke, the dreams of Martin Luther King and the fights of Malcolm X achieved many strokes e.g. the Passing of the Civil Right Bill, the integration of the Schooling systems, Bus systems and all. But the master stroke of the black man’s struggles in America was delivered when Obama became President! The National Transformation movement in Nigeria has achieved many strokes, including marches, prayer meetings, conferences and Institutes. But a Bakare Vice-Presidency, would be a master stroke for this movement. Many politics-shy children of God would have a Joseph and Daniel of their time to latch onto. And the much awaited time will arrive for the manifestation of the sons of God in positions of governance!

I urge all followers of Pastor Bakare and Pastor Aiyedogbon to stop the unnecessary exchange of words and mudslinging. This is not about who is right or who is wrong. We must not allow the enemy to laugh at us in the current scenario. You may not agree that Pastor Bakare should contest, but at least you will agree that Nigeria should be saved, Nigeria should be changed and Nigeria should be made great. Then vote in line with what gives your conscience peace. If you are fully persuaded that the man of God has made a mistake in his foray, rather than spit out uncouth words that may lead the weak and ignorant astray, then refrain from speaking and simply pray for the man of God. God is able to save him; God is able to guide and correct him; and even if he falls, God is able to raise him up. Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, we must bear the cross of Christ and glorify him everywhere we find ourselves, pray with me that we all shall laugh the last. Brothers shall embrace brothers again; Satan will be put to shame and the name of Christ will be glorified in Nigeria and in the body of Christ. Amen.