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General Overseer of the Foursquare Gospel Church, Dr Samuel Aboyeji, has shed light on what the political leadership of the country, starting from President Bola Tinubu and governors need to do to surmount the challenges before the nation. In November 2019, he became the 5th General Overseer of Foursquare Gospel Church. And during the church’s special convention, he was elected for a second tenure. From the inception of his tenure as GO, he set a vision on the theme, “Decade of SOARING, which he has been pursuing with able support of the Foursquare Gospel Church leadership and his wife, Reverend (Mrs.) Olabisi Aboyeji.
The campaigns for the 2027 general election have started. What are your expectations in terms of the campaign messages?
My basic expectation is that the politicians and candidates will have the fear of God and do right things and it will be well with this nation. The Bible says righteousness exalts a nation. I want to hear them declare that they are prepared to enforce righteousness, doing the right thing, supporting the right thing, and committed to using the resources of this nation to better the lives of our people.
They should not allow violence. No position is worth taking the life of any man. Look at what happened in Osun before the governorship election, where several were killed. I believe when the political stakeholders saw the way it was going, moves were made to let go, otherwise there would have been catastrophe.
If you were to meet the President today, what advice would you give him, on how to govern or rule the country?
I will tell him to rely more on the fear and wisdom of God. This nation is huge and there are so many competing interests, but I know with the wisdom of God there is a way that somebody can still lead successfully.
Leadership sometimes is easier when you lead by good example. That is the easiest way to lead. There was this story my wife told of a little girl that used to follow her mother to church. Anytime they went to church, they would normally go early. When they enter the church, the woman would go to the front and kneel before the altar to pray. So, one day they came late. Since everybody was already in church, she could not kneel before the altar and pray. She just went to a chair and sat down. The girl did not follow her to sit down, but went to the front and when she got there she did not see the mother. Right before the congregation, the girl was calling her mother ‘come now, come now.’ A child does not know anything, but just follows what the adult is doing. I think that is the most important thing that the President needs to give us: an example in righteousness, in fear and wisdom of God, and it will be so easy. When you do that, it will be easy to know whoever is trying to do funny things.
I like to use the former Registrar of JAMB, Prof Ishaq Oloyede as an example. He was my archrival when we were in the University of Ilorin. I pray that there will be more of such people, who President Tinubu can pick out and use in the various sectors.
In the past when our refineries worked well, they used to get allocation of crude oil at below OPEC price to refine for local consumption. This made petroleum products affordable. Now, will it be wrong to give Dangote crude oil below OPEC prices to refine for controlled local consumption like Saudi Arabia and other major producers do for their domestic markets?
This is about economics, where you have to choose between selling everything at the international market and keeping a portion at a lower price, refining and using at home, but the truth is that there are many leakages. That is why it appears that we are not getting the benefit of our crude oil sales.
Dangote Refinery has been asking that crude oil be allocated to it at a reasonable price to refine for domestic consumption, to make petroleum products much cheaper for Nigerians. But in economics you have to weigh the opportunity cost of giving it to him and selling it abroad.
Recently, I was happy when I heard that there is an investigation going on, on how the price of cement got to where it is. It is not fair that countries that do not have the raw material for making cement still get cement at a cheaper price than us. The government is trying to investigate that. That should be a lesson for us regarding the issue of fuel. We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket.
I am also happy that in the South-South, a number of investors are in the process of building modular refineries. Anybody in business wants to take the maximum opportunity, you can’t blame him. He borrowed money to set up the refinery, he did not do it for Nigeria but for his own profit. So, out of patriotism, he wants to satisfy Nigerians, but he can’t so to his own detriment and end up in bankruptcy. So one has to be fair; it is a very delicate balance.
The slogan of the Tinubu administration is renewed hope. The country continues to lose its well-trained healthcare professionals to foreign countries. Even our president goes to France and London for treatment and check-up. What can be done to salvage the healthcare system?
Somehow, God has helped us. Some states are integrating the Health Management Organisations into the system. I wish all the states will adopt the concept. It will help us a lot. Many of our people are not even aware of it. In Lagos State, if you pay for example N15,000 for the whole year, you can walk into any hospital whether private or public and you will be treated. I am saying so, as somebody who has benefited from it. In Foursquare, we used to have health insurance for all our ministers. The policy was held with one of the major health insurance firms at very high cost, but when we saw that the HMO in Lagos State was working very well, we shifted over. Some of our doctors working for AXA-Mansard then are also working for HMO. There is no difference; it is just the basic payment that is the difference.
The problem is that there is not enough enlightenment about the health insurance system. It is a superb thing. Till today, there are people that have billions of funds they have not touched. The superb thing is that if you bring 100 million, we’ll merge it and we will use it to build schools for you. The money is still there.
Again, our healthcare system is challenged because the manpower is not very inadequate. The way we treat our trained healthcare professionals does not encourage them. I tell our leaders to have sympathy for the doctors. When you all went to school, you saw a seven years course, you didn’t choose it but quickly did a four-year course so that you will run out of the university and start looking for work.
The fellow studying medicine still has three years ahead. When he finishes you start treating him anyhow. Of course, he will leave the country, go abroad. As General Overseer of Foursquare Gospel Church, I have suffered this. We lost doctors in some of our hospitals. They travelled abroad. We, as a nation, need to set our priorities right. I pray that God will give our leaders wisdom to prioritise what is right, so that our people will not be suffering unnecessarily.
What are your thoughts regarding the forthcoming 2027 election?
First I want to say categorically that the church owes something to the moral, social, economic and developmental health of the society in which God has placed us. We must let people know they must have their voter’s card. We are doing this because we want to undo what has been done in the past. In the past, we have taught the people that politics is a dirty game and many people who would have been useful to the system are not there. Now we need to undo what we did in the past. Today we are encouraging Christians to participate in politics and vote for candidates of their choice.
When you are wise and feel too clever to participate in politics, then idiots will rule us. If we Christian refuse to vote, then idiots will be in charge.
The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria directed all Pentecostal churches on what we call Directorate of Good Governance. That directorate is led by Pastor Femi Emmanuel who was a former Deputy Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly.
In my church, we held a session with students, to teach them that Christians can participate in politics. Secondly, we had to convince them that it was their civic right to participate in politics and vote for candidates of their choice. We don’t go into the area of telling people who to vote for, but as an individual you have who you want to vote for.
The directorate held a breakfast meeting and invited the Deputy Governor of Lagos State and the former Deputy Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly. So, this is part of our preparation as a church towards the 2027 General Election. In 2023, we also prepared by telling the people to make sure they were registered, even though we did not force the people to raise their card (by showing their card as they entered the church), no we did not do such but some churches did.
Do you have any last words?
As a church, we are committed to praying for Nigeria, because the nation has enormous potential. However, we are not blind to the challenges that confront us as a nation. I therefore call on all Christians, and indeed every Nigerian to keep praying for wisdom on our leaders at every level; for peace among our people, and for a future where every Nigerian can live with dignity and hope. We encourage our citizens, especially our young ones, to reject violence, intolerance, and religious hatred, corruption and anything else that holds our collective progress back.
