Finally: Oyedepo opens up at 60, tells the story of his life, wife, church, universities + controversies

Oyedepo and wife

The founder of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, Bishop David Oyedepo, is 60 years old today (Saturday). In a recent media chat with journalists in commemoration of his birthday and attended by Gbenro Adeoye, Oyedepo says he heartily welcomes being called Africa’s wealthiest pastor.

You were rated by Forbes as the richest pastor in Africa, how do you feel about this considering that people often say that wealth and righteousness are not the best of friends?

May I say here that God owns the silver and the gold and he’s the most Holy God. If wealth and righteousness are not best of friends, there is no way God will be the wealthiest of all because of his fullness we have all received. I think there is no father who wishes his children poverty. I have children, is it okay to now say two of you should be poor, two of you should be fair, and one of you should be a beggar? If God is truly a father, he will not wish his children to be poor. The wealth of every parent is reflective in their children, so it’s not an issue. I believe wealth and righteousness are the best of friends. Abraham, the friend of God, was the wealthiest in his time. Job, the wealthiest, was God’s pride. There is none like him on the earth. How do you feel when they say you’re the richest? If you make first class in school, how do you feel? You feel good. You’re not the greatest thief. You’re the wealthiest, so I feel good about it. It’s better to be a wealthy pastor than to be a beggar.

You’re now 60 years old. What were some of the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?

Life is essentially about challenges; those challenges make champions. You can’t emerge a heavyweight boxing champion except you receive punches. You can’t change classes in school except you write exams. So to me, life is an adventure in challenges. It is normal to be challenged but it’s unscriptural to be defeated. It is normal to write exams and you have attended classes where you can (learn to) pass your exams, so not passing your exams is a disappointment. So to me, challenges are the stepping stones for the making of champions. For instance, our church was not growing at a rate that I considered normal; it was poor and dragging. And then we went through prayer and fasting and then suddenly life came. We knew what to do and we did it and the church is growing. Somebody is not comfortable with your position and he goes all out against you, well, he’s only expressing his opinion, so that should not be a distraction or be considered a challenge. There is no man in power today that will not have opposition including those of you who are journalists. If you become the president, they will be writing against you. It is because every strong position attracts opposition. Even if an angel occupies the seat of the president of Nigeria today, he will have opposition. To me, I don’t see those things as challenges.

Despite the proliferation of churches, corruption and other social vices are on the increase. Do you think that the church is doing enough to arrest some of these problems in the society?

Now let me say this, as long as you keep saying that nothing is changing, it’s because of where you are looking at. We are all here, respected men, how many of us here are thieves? So for someone to stand here and say all Nigerians are thieves won’t be fair. There are those who no matter what you drop on their bodies, if it is not their money, they won’t pick it. And most of us who do this job are in that class, so to generalise is not the best thing. For instance, somebody in our place bought some items and they overpaid him. He realised it when he got to the airport and went back to where he bought those things from and said they had given him more money than they should have given him. He returned the money. I got a letter from that company saying ‘thank you for contributing to raising a brand new set of Nigerians.’ So there are people like that. And the only foolproof of new birth is change of life. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, all things are passed away and all things shall become new. So I believe things are changing and they will keep changing and someday, we will come out of this. I want to say that all the nations that seem to be up there still have challenges.

You have often said that you’re a product of books, can you tell us which books have made the most impact on your life?

I’ve heard this question asked by somebody else ‘how many books have you read?’ I can’t count. I can tell you the following: I’ve read all of Kenneth Higin’s books; all of Kenneth Copeland’s books; most of T. L. Osborn’s books; most of Yongi Cho’s books; most of Oswald J. Smith’s books; most of Smith Wigglesworth’s books; most of Normal Vincent Peale’s books; I’ve read some of Oral Robert’s books and some of A. W. Tozer’s books. The impact of the men that came my way is inestimable. The first person was Higin, 1976; the second great impact was Osborn, 1976; the third one was Copeland, 1977; the fifth one that turned my life at a point was Smith, 1976. In 1983, I came across the General Overseer, Redeemed Christian Church (Pastor Enoch Adeboye). In 1986, I had my first contact with Archbishop Benson Idahosa. They are the army of generals that have influenced my life massively and positively. They taught me faith and impacted in me the spirit of faith. Everyone of them at one point or another made a massive impact on my life.

How did you meet your wife?

Interestingly, I met my wife by divine selection. I’ve never had a cause to regret. I met my wife when I was 22; the spirit of the Lord pointed her to me (and said) ‘that’s your wife’ because of our spiritual alignment. We had six years of courtship before we got married. And after these 32 years, it’s been heaven on earth. Her pieces of advice are numerous and they are profitable and I thank God for that.

There have been many reports against you, particularly on the social media, but you have never replied once. Why?

My understanding of opposition, persecution is simply someone’s opinion harshly expressed. Everybody has a right to his opinion. Now today, millions follow Christ but you will be surprised to get to Israel and discover that some people don’t believe that Christ has come. Yet he is changing lives all over. So, people have rights to their opinions. I read a book many years ago in my growing up days, the story of Pastor J. Smith. He said the Lord spoke to him- no attack, no defence. I have a mentor in Higin, he said for 61 years, he had never spoken against any man, any ministry on the altar. I naturally don’t feel it’s necessary, the energy I need to react, I can use it to make moves. I have no spies anywhere, maybe you need to know that our organisation has over 18,500 employees in Nigeria today. I have enough to think about than to start running after somebody who says you are a fool. If he says you are a fool and you’re behaving so, then he’s right. If you leave your job and start running after somebody who said you are a fool, he’s already said it. So your going around doesn’t change anything, so why go around, why don’t you face your job and make moves? I’ve also come to an understanding that those who make news hardly watch them, they are so busy making news while others are busy watching. In a football field, you have thousands of people watching and staring while 22 people are playing. There are two linesmen (assistant referees) and one referee. Only 22 people are entitled to prizes in that field. 199,000 people staring. That is what is happening in the world. Have you ever met a star referee? It’s just a career, the players are the stars. They earn in millions of dollars. The people playing on the field have a name but the referee, the linesmen (assistant referees) have no names. So, I chose to be a player, not to be referee, linesman (assistant referee) or a spectator. There are quite a number of things on the social media, that my father was a herbalist, that he was an Islamic healer. I was born inside a church, I was never in any other religion in my life other than knowing Jesus. I started my primary school in an Anglican church. My school life started inside a church building- St. Paul’s school. I grew up under my grandmother, a devout Anglican. I learnt plenty of things from her; she’s my role model. I speak about her with passion. You yourself know that there are papers that you don’t trust what they write but there are also standard ones. There are many professional newspapers in Nigeria that you can count on what they write and there are those who just print anything from anywhere. Like somebody said the other time that I borrowed money to buy aircraft. I said ‘ah’. By the grace of God, I flew my first jet in the ministry at 42. We didn’t borrow. I chose to disregard social media because most of the things there are not as reliable as going from here to the gate. Before you get there, you find out that there is nothing there.

What is your view about Christians’ participation in politics. We have Christians who shy away from politics, saying Jesus said he was not part of this world?

The church or the believer is said to be the light of the world. Those who claim that they are in the world and not of the world are not sincere. You are not of the world but you are working; you are not of the world, you have businesses. And in this business, you are relating with people in the world. You have a career in academic, you are teaching the world. So I believe that the church is supposed to impact the world positively including in politics. Joseph, a man that feared God was in politics. Daniel, an embodiment of signs and wonders was in politics. So I strongly believe that the church has the scriptural right to be involved in how the affairs of their nations, local governments and communities are being run. And you will find out that most churches today announce that everybody should go and register. Our church announces that every Sunday, ‘make sure you have your voter’s registration card in place.’ Why? Because who knows, any of you can emerge the President of Nigeria tomorrow but you need votes. It’s not just prayers, you need votes. That is why I believe that we are not the salt of the church, we are the salt of the earth. We are not the light of the church, we are the light of the world. So believers have the scriptural right to be involved in politics and many other endeavours that have positive influence on the human life.

In the course of your ministry, have you ever abandoned any project?

I will say yes, there is no error proof man in life. Two instances, we had a building project in Kaduna and we had spent quite some money trying to build that sanctuary. Then, we had a quit order from where we were staying, so we had to move from that place. So it was just for us to finish the deck (at the new site) and move in there and then the Spirit of the Lord said to me should this church move to that site, that will be the end of this ministry. I have never been there since 1989, even though, we have about 100 acres there because I heard God speak to me. Secondly, we had a mission to set up in a particular place outside the country. And after about seven years, I couldn’t see anything working. To buy land, we couldn’t get to buy. To buy building, we couldn’t get to buy. So, I said ‘Lord, what is going on?’ And he said ‘I am not there.’ So after six years, 1987 to 1993, we abandoned that mission and when the time to move to that mission came, it opened like fire. Now that mission today has over 100 churches. So anything about vision has to follow divine timing. When it is not the right time, it becomes a struggle. So we have those two abandoned projects and they were specific and it is proof today that they were actually not the right steps to take.

You are 60 years old, people would think everything has been rosy. Was there any time you wished you had done something differently in your formative years?

One of the things we do to go forward is to stop looking back to things that are negative. You can’t be driving forward and be looking backward at the same time, you will have an accident. I’ve escaped death too many times. I can’t come here and be talking about that. And there have been quite a few challenges that we have come out of, making you not to think about those challenges again. For example, at a time, there was a media assault on our ministry, almost everything we taught was said to be wrong. Now, there was not one word from me, not one mention of those things in the council meeting and not one mention in the pastors’ meeting. When I met the man behind that (the attack) in a plane, my wife who had seen him before I came in had been wondering what I would do with the man. But when I got in without any premonition, the man stood up and came to me. I held him to myself and patted him on the back. I couldn’t feel those seven years of assault because I needed to go somewhere. If somebody is insulting you and you’re writing an exam tomorrow, won’t you go and face your book? If somebody steps on your toes on your way to work, will you now go back home? That’s to tell you how those things don’t have a hold on me. Otherwise, somebody kept assaulting you and you saw him for the first time after about seven years and you embraced him and held him to yourself and were discussing in that plane for almost 1 hour 30mins- positive things. So we don’t know what we are losing when we overreact to things and keep bitterness in us. There are challenges, there is no doubt about that but we keep counting testimonies, we keep counting victories and we keep counting God’s favour.

People have criticised private universities owned by churches for being too expensive for the average Nigerian. What do you say to this?

I’m sure we all agree that education is expensive. Education has cost; nothing of value is free. Our mission for years long before we started university or secondary school was a bursary awarding church and we have not stopped doing that till tomorrow. Last year, the church gave out N174m on bursary. Landmark University got over N893m on scholarship. So the mission has been tirelessly involved in promoting quality education. Interestingly, some of our faculties here enjoyed church scholarship while we are concerned about the wellbeing of the nation. Our problem sometimes is priority, an average Nigerian can spend N1m on burial but to spend N200,000 on education is a problem because of wrong priority. I think it’s not much about money and please let me say this, the un-factored fees in public schools when put together, you will be surprised that it’s more than what these private universities cost. There is money for this, money for that. There is this one, it’s N20,000, there is that one, it’s N50,000. You put all of that together and of course the number of years you have to spend, which is not regulated. It depends on the climate and the authorities. You put all of that together and you find out that you are not paying anything extraordinary. You talk about private universities, talk about private secondary schools in Lagos. There are at least four private secondary schools in Lagos that charge fees more than Covenant University. And I can tell you that most of the universities that are run by missions are run through the thick and thin of the organisations. I don’t have to tell you how much we pay for power here in a month. On a yearly basis, we have N1.5trn that Nigerians spend to go to overseas universities. Nigerians spend N463bn a month on recharge cards. How much are they paying for school fees? So it’s all about priority. This is the largest market in the world. Some people are not working, they have three mobile phones. Now, to pay N500,000 (is a problem). Some have only one son, they have huge business and houses all over the places, they can’t pay it, they will rather go to a school where it (their programme) will not end in five or ten years and be paying all manner of nonsense fees. So I think that Nigeria is about experiencing a change. In more developed countries, it is the private universities that really drive research endeavours.

Some people say the number of first class graduates being churned out by Covenant University is too high

The taste of the pudding is in the eating. When you see them, you know whether they are first class (graduates) or not. The good news is that it is proved by all standard. Ten out of 101 first class graduates awarded scholarships by the government to go to Ivy League universities were from Covenant University. It is clear that our first class is not dashed out, it is merited by the individuals.

How do you feel attaining the age of 60 years?

I’m simply grateful to God. I’ve always seen life as a gift from God. Life is a privilege, not a right. No one brought himself or herself to life and no one can sustain his or her life on their own. I’m just grateful to God for all His goodness and mercy till date.

What was growing up like for you?

It was more of a school (period), growing under my grandmother’s guidance was an experience I will be eternally grateful to God for. She made a man out of me as a child. I was exposed to highly profitable lessons such as character, hard work, focus and financial integrity. Under my grandmother, you were not permitted to do what you liked but what was right. Such upbringing gave me respect among my peers and audience with my superiors. It is this man-child concept that informed the founding philosophy of our university system.

Do you think churches should be taxed as being advocated in some quarters?

My view is that such will amount to double taxation. This is because members that give money in churches must have paid their taxes on their income before giving in church, or in any religious or social organisation for that matter. Therefore, taxing the church amounts to double taxation. Besides, churches are legally recognised as non-profit organisations, so on what basis should they be taxed? My question has always been: why single out the churches? Are they the only religious or not-for-profit organisations? But should this be ever passed into law, then all other religious bodies and non-profit-organisations, such as mosques, town unions, social clubs, and all forms of associations including political parties, must also pay taxes.

Punch