Pastor Kingsley Innocent, fiery, renowned preacher, in this encounter with SAM OBINNA IBE, in Aba, Abia state, speaks on issues on the nation’s front burner, the recent Supreme Court judgement that affirmed Okezie Ikpeazu as governor of Abia state, among others. Excerpts:
The Nigerian polity is heated up, with people from the different political zones calling for restructuring of this country. Do you subscribe to this school of thought?
I may not be the right person to answer this question because I am not going to mince words because as a Prophet, those who hate the truth will not like what I am going to say. But those who like the truth will like what I am going to say. I am not saying this because I am an Igbo man but because it is the truth and truth is universal. Nigeria as a nation, we have not enjoyed equality.
Rail project
We have not enjoyed justice, equity and good governance. Recently, something played out in the Senate that supposed to be an eye opener to every Igbo man that we don’t have a sense of belonging in Nigeria, that in the 2017 Budget submitted by the Presidency to the national assembly, the Rail line project seeking for the Senate’s approval to collect loan from China to with a repayment plan to be borne by all states of the federation, but sadly, a whole South East was excluded from the project. You don’t need a soothsayer; you don’t need me as a prophet to tell you that this is an indication that there is no equity in Nigeria.
Nigeria of today is led by people who have hatred for some political zones and I make bold to say that it is ungodly. It is unacceptable and it is dehumanizing, such a thing should not happen in a country if they say we are one. It is quite unfortunate and I am not rejoicing over it and no body should rejoice that the President Buhari is sick. But the truth of the matter is that he has not been fair to us, the Igbo. So I will not stand here to tell you I want the nation to be divided, I won’t say that, are we dividing to divide or to get better?
Selfish interest
Are we dividing because somebody somewhere is having a selfish interest and wants the nation to divide in order to bring him to limelight? Do we have a nation that loves one another? We don’t have that.
So my advice to Nigerians is that I speak like Abraham, I am looking for a time when true lover of our nation will be at the helm of affairs. I am looking for a time when we have leaders and not rulers, I am looking for a time when we have leaders who have the mind of God and love for people. Except you love Nigeria you cannot lead Nigeria.
I love Nigeria I believe we can do better as a nation. If we divide now without putting our acts together, we will still have the same problem. Most of the problems we have today is that our brothers who are representing us are not representing us well, they are selfish.
I will always say the truth, I will not support the nation to break now I do not enjoy the present way we are being governed, we need to go back to the round table, we need to discuss how we will live in this country with fairness to all people.
Few days ago, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment in favour of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu. Some Abians were excited while the masses were reportedly disappointed over the judgment. How do you react to this?
With every sincerity of heart, I will not condemn a man whose best I have not seen, I will not conclude on a man whose action I have not seen, I am one person who will stand to tell you that the judgment of the Supreme Court in my opinion is not wrong and bad and I will tell you my reasons. It is not wrong and bad judgment, so Supreme Court gave the right judgment in Ikpeazu’s favour. Talking about the feelings of Abians I will say this: that the majority who feel they are not comfortable with the judgment are looking for a way of escape for something they do not know. Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has no problem with the people of Abia state as a man and as a person yet.
From the time he came in into that office, it has been one court litigation or the other. We will not judge him over what that has happened before now. The truth of the matter is that it is unfortunate that he inherited a government that is not treating the people well. And I am one man who said it and that is the reason most of them do not like me is because I am bold to say from the government under T.A Orji was not fair to Abians.
But the hatred they had for T.A Orji is being transferred to Ikpeazu, and that played out in their cold reaction to the Supreme Court judgment.
In fairness to Governor Ikpeazu, Abians don’t hold hatred against him but because of where he is coming from. The government that brought him on board treated Abians so badly. It is unfortunate but I also want to encourage Governor Ikpeazu, he can correct the wrongs and make people feel happy with his government.
I discovered that he is a humble man who can listen and take wise counsels from right people if he will not have sycophants around, right men of God who will look him in the face and tell him the truth at all time when he is doing the wrong thing and right thing, I believe if he has these crops of persons I believe he will do well as a governor.
On the current economic recession, how do you think we can get out of this?
The recession is man-made, it is not God made, it is not natural these are not natural recession but man made. Nigerians are suffering recession when money is being looted packed here and there. We have heard over the news EFCC said they have recovered billions of naira and billions of dollars a huge sum was dropped at the airport and we were not been able to see people who dropped it, yet we have CCTV all over the airport. These monies are somewhere, there are people hiding them. A way out of this recession is to tell ourselves the truth. Anytime we decide to tell ourselves the truth, this recession will end.
Why is it that Talk na do rings a bell in the state instead of the name of your church itself?
Like I said, that is what people know because right from the time of old, even in the Bible era, every prophet had a name for God. The name that God has given me from his prophetic mandate that I carry is that he is the God that talks and he does what he says. So I call Him God of “Talk na do,” known in Nigeria over and even outside this nation, a lot of people don’t know the name of our church, so they call us “Talk na do”.
Some of these new generation ministers have been accused of performing fake miracles as such they are called fake pastors, what is your take on this?
The truth of the matter is that from the time of Jesus Christ up-till, now anywhere there is an original, there will be a fake somewhere. In the time of Christ, the Bible talks about fake teachers, fake prophets, fake preachers, they are all written in the Bible. So it did not start today up-till today, they are still there.
All the things we see in today’s churches are found even up to the time of the dead and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. The Bible told us that people were given money to go and carry propaganda that Jesus did not rise from dead, that it was his disciples that came to carry his body. The Bible says by their fruits, you shall know them, to know fake from the original, when you see original something born of God that is of God, you will know it the bible says: my spirit beareth witness because I am a child of God.
Pastor, how do you react to the allegation that you collect the sum of N5,000 as consultation fee anytime people want to see you on Thursdays?
My dear, I am happy you asked this question, this is a lie from the pit of hell. I have also heard about that and I don’t know where this is coming from every member of this church or visitor that will tell that on my counseling day on Tuesdays Bible study will have what we call picking of tallies, because the number of people that want to see me each week, it is not possible to see all of them.
We have over 1,000 people that want to see me every week and it is not possible as a human being for only one person to see 1,000 persons in a day of every week. What we have done, on Tuesdays morning, people will gather and pick the tally free of charge.
We don’t charge fees. If anybody tells you we charge N5,000, it is a lie, we don’t charge money.
I am sure when you people walked in here on appointment, nobody ask you to pay a kobo.
Nigeria as a nation we have not enjoyed equality. We have not enjoyed justice, equity and good governance
