- Church Can’t Be Quiet Ahead 2019 Polls, Says Rev. Oladipupo
By ‘Dotun Akintomide
Consequent upon Christ’s mandate to reach out to the world, Omega Chapel International Churches has opened a new branch in Canada to advance the course of the gospel and attend to the spiritual needs of its global audience.
At an inauguration service held at the church’s headquarters in Lagos, General Overseer of the ministry, Reverend Pius Oladipupo announced Pastor Oriretan Abayomi and wife Ebun as ministers that will oversee the newly established Canadian branch of the church.
Founded in 1997, the church which had earlier expanded to the United Kingdom has soul winning as its core mandate.
In a chat with The New Diplomat, Rev. Oladipupo who was excited at the new feat attained by the church, said since the gospel is not a localized language, “it’s a privilege and I feel so elated and grateful to God for allowing us to spread the church to such a strong country like Canada.
“We have a pastor that has moved to Canada with his family, they will start the work and then we keep moving from there. This isn’t the first country we’ll be in; we’re in England and we do a whole lot online.
“We are a Christian Organization and by the virtue of his calling we spread according to the commandment of our Lord to preach the gospel to all nations. So the gospel is not a localized message; it’s for all nations and God being the God of increase will always move from Jerusalem to Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth.”
Speaking on what’s in the pipeline for the church, the minister said the church will continue to embark on sundry evangelism projects targeted at populating God’s kingdom and helping members to grow in the nurture and admonition of Christ in their daily life.
“Today it’s Canada, tomorrow it could be somewhere else. Wherever there’s opening, that’s where we go. We don’t discriminate, we’re in Ilogbo, a suburb of Ogun State. Anywhere opportunity comes for us to win souls, we just move in and do the job. The job is to bring the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the people, the best way we can as the Lord will enable us and that’s what we do. So evangelism is in the pipeline, any moment we have any opening we move in there and then begin our evangelism to win souls for Christ.” He stated.
Oladipupo who left his illustrious law career in 1998 to concentrate fully on ministerial calling, dropped his two cents on how the church can launch a paradigm shift from the pulpit to correct the various ills in the nation as 2019 general elections beckon.
“I would wish we’re living all our lives in the realm of the spirit so that we didn’t have to deal with physical issues. But as we concentrate on praying and preaching the word of God, asking people to behave very uprightly in the society, we discover that we’re multiplying and there are strange people doing strange things which is affecting us and our children are beginning to feel the impact of bad governance. We discover that if we fold our hands things will not change. Perhaps, if they’re are not affecting us we won’t ask people to be involved. If they have been doing what’s right nobody will want to know who’s the President or who’s the Governor. But as it’s now there’s no good governance. I cannot get good road, water, electricity etc except I provide them by myself. I grew to know less about generator, but when I grew up generator became an important household commodity and my children grew up to know what generator is all about and we cannot have light, save we make noise and buy fuel.
“The health sector is nothing to write home about; the education sector is deteriorating. It’s an unimaginable wroth that’s going on around us. Nigeria is sitting on a whole lot of wealth, yet the people are poor. And now we’re saying we must not allow the blind, because Nigeria is the only country where the blind is leading those who can see and we have come to a dispensation whereby the youth who know the road should take the lead. This old people don’t have the wherewithal, they keep talking about experience, but old experience is no longer sustainable here. As a society we need dynamism, we need people who know about governance, international relations, putting your agenda into the international scene and creating opportunities for our teeming youths.
“So many works to be done and they say there’s no job. The streets are not tared, water is not running, there are bridges to be built, drainages to make, yet you say there’s no job. So we need the leadership that will galvanize the efforts of the people together and put resources together. We have to put our destiny into our own hands and vote for the right people and do the right thing.”
He added that the era where believers stay aloof of state and governance issues was gone, challenging the church to lead the rest of nation out of the doldrums to a lasting peace and abundant prosperity.
“The time has come and the church cannot keep quiet because the church is also badly affected. Nigeria is plagued with poverty and illiteracy and politicians will always ride on those things. Election is about to take place, people don’t know they’re mortgaging there destiny by collecting a bag of rice to vote for the wrong candidates. Why are they thriving, it’s because people are poor and they want their immediate need to be met, even though they know the candidate is bad but because he has given them some N500, a bag rice and they sell their vote that cheap in what some people have tagged ‘stomach infrastructure.’ The people are hungry and so the politicians are riding on that.”
Speaking further, Oladipupo lamented that judging through ongoing developments within the polity, the current administration has failed to live up to the expectations of many, averring that nation building can only be fast-paced through an aggregation of citizens’ intellectual capacity.
“There are people who are not learned enough to know that nation building depends on the intellectual capacity of the citizens. We have never had it this bad, I voted for this government thinking who was sold to us will live up to what he said. The party sold itself to us and we have become tired of PDP due to corruption and the fact that they couldn’t secure the country, so we were looking for a change. Now the worst had come in the form of APC.
“I voted for Buhari against every advice because I wanted change, I just dived in. I was even campaigning for him because I wanted change, not knowing that the capacity I thought was there, wasn’t there at all. I envisaged that the likes of Fashola and all those people surrounding him will do justice to my vote, but I discover now it was a mistake and we are not ready to make the same mistake in 2019. Today Nigeria is less secured, people are being killed, majorly Christians. We are hearing all kinds of things daily. Things I can’t fathom. Never in the history of Nigeria have we seen some thugs breaking into the Senate while the Senate was in session and took the maze. Things have really deteriorated under this administration. I’m just praying that 2019 will come quicker than we ever expected so that these things will not go on and I’m praying that the youths will take their destiny into their hands and vote this oppressive government out of office to show one more time that the people have the power.” He said.
