Prophet Wale Olagunju, the Presiding Bishop of Divine Seed of God Chapel Ministries, Sasa, Ibadan, recently bared his mind on some of the issues affecting Nigeria.
In this interview with City People, the well-respected prophet also spoke on the emergence of new Obas in Ibadan as well as why he feels a curse might be behind the development. He also took time to speak on President Buhari’s health. Excerpts:
Sometime back, in your prophecy, you saw President Buhari being terminally sick. Now that
the President is back to Nigeria and has since resumed work what is your present position on his state of health?
First and foremost we thank God for His love towards the Nigerian people. Yes I predicted in 2015/2016 about the President sickness. The fact of the matter is that the President is not fully okay. The President is terminally sick. I can rightly say that President Buhari is suffering a terminal disease, he is not fully well.
What do you think will happen now as revealed to you by God?
Nigerians should continue to pray for him, we should continue to ask God to grant the President speedy recovery. That is all.
When the President returned from his medical trip to the United Kingdom, he made a nationwide broadcast. How do you want to read to the broadcast by the President?
You see, when the President returned, Nigerians were happy. They were so elated to receive the news of his return. On the third or fourth day the President made the said broadcast, I think for about five or six minutes. In fact, there was nothing of substance; no substance at all in the so called broadcast. I was expecting the President to say thank you my people for your love, patience, prayer and support for my government. Instead of that, the President was just threatening the nationalities; which to me is wrong. So to me the broadcast was too shallow and it was nothing to write about.
What is your opinion concerning the criticism of hate speech by the present government?
When I read in the news about the hate speech, I smiled. This was because the APC started it in 2015. You see, Jonathan is the most maligned President in the history of the Nigeria nation.
People talked to him anyhow; they criticized him for almost everything he did, but he did not say anything. I was wondering when the President said they want to enact a law that will deal with those that make such speech. Really, hate speech is a sin in the Bible; I am not supporting hate speech, but it is wrong for the government to say they want to enact a law that will deal with the offence; they will arrest offenders, that they will see them as terrorist. That is rubbish. How many people do they want to arrest? To me it is a way to silence the opposition. They don’t want opposition to criticize their government, and there is nothing they can do about it. Hate speech has been in existence for long, even during the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, people made all sorts of statements against the person of the Lord, Jesus and He did not say anything. So it is not new, there is nothing new about it.
Are you now saying they are paying President Buhari back in his own coin?
Yes. They are paying him back because the APC started it. Why should the government say they want to enact a law? It is out of it.
What do have to say about restructuring which many people and groups have been clamoring for?
Looking at my 2017 prophesies, the Lord says the likes of all these leaders will pass away before Nigeria could pick up. That is the sign. Talking about restructuring, it is a divine solution to Nigeria’s problem because looking at the Igbos, they want to leave; the South-South people, they want to leave; Afenifere are also talking about restructuring. The government should embrace restructuring. But the question is what are we going to restructure? Will the people of the North allow it? But yet it is a divine solution to the problem on ground, Many people don’t even understand what is meant by this restructuring. If we restructure Nigeria now, there will be no problem again. No section of the country will want to go out of the entity called Nigeria. It is a way of correcting some anomalies. There is marginalization in Nigeria, the people of the North know this.
Let’s take this for example, the Igbo for 42 years have never tasted governance, they have not been there. Whereas Jonathan spent six years the other time and the people of the North were crying. What about the Igbo who have stayed like that for 42 years without tasting that seat, will they agree? Restructuring is just to correct this entire imbalance. I believe that God is not partial in every notion. The issue of the North dominating the South will continue to breed problem.
Nobody is afraid of going to war, if the people of the North say they want to go to war, are they saying the Ibos will not like to go, what about South-South? So there is imbalance which must be corrected. The moment they do that, there will be no problem again. Look at America, America is there but the Nigerian nationalities are not free among themselves. The Ibos are not free in the North, the Hausas are not free in the South and on and on like that, so we don’t love each other.
These are some of the issues we must sit down to sort out. Like the President was saying the other time that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable. Who told him that?
The unity of Nigeria is very negotiable because in the 60s our leaders sat together, they negotiated, they discussed about the unity of Nigeria. So if the President is saying he discussed 12 with Ojukwu, what concerns Nigerians about that? You are talking of one person out of 180 million people. We have to sit down and discuss the way out. Let us sit down now and discuss how to leave in a peaceful manner. I expected the President to say alright, the Ibos say they want to go, the South-South are complaining, the Yorubas are talking about restructuring, he should have called the leaders to ask them what their problem is.
Referendum; bring out your problems and see how we can solve them. The President came and he was treating crisis, what about the cause? So we need to ask questions as to why this people wanted to go and then find solution to their problem. The problem is that Buhari has lost focus and there is no leadership trait in him, how for God’s sake can he be threatening the whole nationalities?
How do you react to a recent statement by the President in which he expressed his delight that the Nigerian economy is picking up?
Who told him that? The man is just deceiving himself. Which economy is picking up? Let him go out, there is hardship everywhere, there is hunger in the land, Nigerians are groaning. Which economy is picking up? To him it is picking up, but to Nigerians it is not. It is rather on a slope.
If we refuse to tell our leaders the truth about the situation in our country, the present rotting situation in Nigeria will surely tell on us and our: unborn generation. So we need to tell them the truth, the bitter truth.
What role then do you think the church could play or is playing in this direction?
We have been playing that role; we have been telling them the truth. But, during the time of Jonathan and Oritsejafor, the government tried to corrupt Nigerian Bishops; thereby silencing them, that was why everything scattered. But now we need to commend Nigerian Bishops, we have been talking, we have been telling the leaders the truth and the way out but they seem not to listen. During the time of Jonathan the reverse was the case.
You are in Ibadan the Oyo State capital, looking at the current Obaship tussle between the state government and the Olubadan, what do you have to say?
This is my own view; a Governor comes into office, spends 4 years or at the maximum, 8 years in office and gets out of the place. It is the tradition that enthrones the Oba. I think there is a mistake in the Constitution of Federal Republic-of Nigeria. It ought to separate the office of the Governor and that of the King, Emir, Sultan, or Obis. It would be so hard to convince me that our traditional rulers, be it Emir or king should be subordinate to a politician Governor. In those days, we so much regarded and honoured our traditional rulers. They will remain in their palace and governors, even military governors will visit their palace to pay them homage and the Oba will pray for them, today; the reverse is the case.
Today, our Obas have become Personal Assistants to their governors. If the President is visiting any state now, the Obas there will have to line up at the airport to meet the President, failure to do that will result to problem for such a king, they will see him as an enemy, they can banish or dethrone him.
I am not from Oyo State, I am from Ekiti, I am talking as a Yoruba man. Looking at the situation, how will the Governor just pick some people; about 21 of them and crown them. I know one thing, there is the need to perform traditional rites before a king is enthroned, that is part of Yoruba culture, and those rites emanated from the devil; you can’t rule that one out, the rites have satanic inputs; maybe that is what Ajimobi is trying to remove. You know they will take the Oba elect to Ipebi. He will be there for some time and they will perform the traditional rites on him before he is crowned.
Governor Ajimobi is not seeing that this thing, it may not be today; will really affect the system of electing an Oba in Ibadan. This thing has already created disunity. The current Olubadan will see this thing as an attempt to disgrace him, which is true. We must honour our Obas. Take for example the case of the Emir of Kano; look at how the government silenced him, which was not supposed to. be so. Look at Great Britain, they have the Prime Minister and they have the Queen. The Prime Minister will never insult the Queen; neither will he usurp her power. But Nigerian politicians can insult a king, slap him or even dethrone him, which is not supposed to be so. It is tradition that put our Oba there, it is not the governor and they will be there till death comes. Governor Ajimobi decided to elevate some people and they politicalised everything Look at the problem on ground now; You will discover at the end of the day that everything that is going on is an act of rebellion against the Olubadan, the paramount ruler of Ibadanland. You cannot change tradition like that;’ whoever tries to change that tradition will face the music because it has occultic inputs.
Compared to where I happen to come from in Ekiti, we praise the forefathers of Ibadan for the rancour free system of electing their king in Ibadanland. Where I come from in Ekiti, in those days, when you want to elect an Oba, you have to consult their Ifa and Ifa will pick a person, but during the time of politicians now if you don’t give money to Ifa, Ifa will not pick you.
Politicians will manipulate everything including Ifa, Ifa will now speak under the influence of money. It is very unfortunate that Nigerian politicians scattered everything during their own period. ‘My fear is this, I am afraid that Ajimobi may be operating under that curse of Ibadan people not serving a governor twice. The current problem which the government is facing from all fronts to my own mind is as a result of the curse and I suggest that the governor needs to think very well on this.
What we have been discussing for the past few minutes really showed that there is the problem on ground. What to your mind is the way out?
What we need to do is just to continue to pray for our nation, Nigeria, there is problem generally.
Let me say this, in 2015, I have the grace to say I voted for Buhari, I supported him with everything. We gave him a 14-point agenda, I mean our association, the Association of Concerned Prophets and Pastors of Nigeria, gave him these agenda to work on, if Buhari should work on just 50 percent of the suggestions Nigeria would be okay. But today reverse is the case; Nigerians have been talking of change, Nigeria needs change, a change which has never come.
The country is just moving from frying pan to fire. So we decided to be looking at him, let’s wait till 2019 and see. I don’t expect a government to rule like this, there is problem everywhere, there is. crisis, and there is hardship all over the place. I was expecting Buhari to conduct referendum, okay, how do we tackle Nigeria’s problem, everybody knows ‘there is problem in the land. Okay now, what will Buhari tell us now, they said PDP ruined the economy, agreed you are now dining and wining with them, you called a meeting of APC leaders as well as those of the PDP, those who looted the Nigerian treasury, you are laughing and joking with the alleged looters. So you discover that the so called war against corruption is out of the point. So all we need to do is just to be praying for Nigeria.
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