Brethren, lets take a closer look on what has triggered up this crisis in AGN. Remember, this didnt start today. Lets take you back to an interview with the GS - Prof. Paul Emeka AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT OF ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH; REV. PROF. PAUL EMEKA :By Uche Sunday Aja and Onuoha Emeaba -7/17/2014 4:40:35 ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CRISIS: MY STORY - Rev. Prof. Paul Emeka Let’s start with your full introduction sir? I am Reverend Professor Paul Emeka, the General Superintendent of Assemblies of God Nigeria. And there is crisis in Assemblies of God Nigeria which led to your suspension? Yah, there is, unfortunately. There is this crisis going on which led to what they did, pronouncing a purported suspension on me. Purportedly because I don’t accept it. Do you need to accept it or observe it, if it is properly done? Yah, if it is properly done, if I am guilty of what they are alleging, I will accept it. And even if you are alleging something against me and I didn’t do it, but circumstantially everything seems to be leading that you did it without evidence and you know that the people who are making the allegation or clamping the suspension on you have no way of knowing whatever transpired, you can leave it to the hands of God and take the suspension believing that by and by God will let the truth to be known. But when the people suspending you know that you are not guilty of the allegations they mete out against you and when they come up with trumped up charges and conspire just to remove you, and in order to justify what they are doing, they now begin to look for charges and allegations from valleys and mountains, I have to say no. Can you tell us the proper way of suspending the person at the head in Assemblies of God Nigeria? Okay, the proper way of suspending somebody in Assemblies of God is that you don’t go to General Committee to suspend anybody, that is not the purpose. The General Superintendent should not be treated differently from the rest of the people. If the General Superintendent is guilty of anything, you judge him in the E.C, the Executive Committee. If you feel that that is not properly done or you are not investigated or the allegations are not true, that is a different thing. But in this case they went to General Committee and that is not what the General Committee should do, it is the Executive Committee that should do the investigation because if you feel that your General Superintendent has done something wrong, you don’t call for General Committee, treating him as if he is a different man, and calling on all the world, because the General Committee is a body of not fewer than 300 persons, minimum is 200 persons. Why bring him to stand in the duck before this mass of the people to answer questions? Have you tried him in the E.C, have you made investigations and found that he is guilty or not? Why bring him to become a public ridicule? So that is why it is not properly done and because if it is properly done, it will be discovered that I am not guilty of those things. But because they want to force that guilt upon me and make the world believe that it was true they now gathered all together to judge me publicly. Why do you think they are doing this gang up against you? Well, the motive of a man is very deep and nobody is able to know it but I would say that somebody wants to take power, somebody wants to rule and that is just the reason. The Assemblies of God has a way of operating. Every four years, we gather together in what we call the general council and conduct election, whoever wins becomes the General Superintendent for a tenure of four years. When that four years expires, we come again and do it. If the election favours him, he continues, if it doesn’t favour him, whoever is favoured becomes the General Superintendent. We had election in November 2010 where my assistant scored 784 votes and I scored 4075 votes in the election of the General Superintendent. The gap is wide. That was why the people said, “for this tenure we want you to be the General Superintendent”. If you feel that I am not getting it right, be quiet until we come again in November 2014 when this tenure will run its round. Then when we come in November 2014, if they feel that I am not leading them aright, the votes will decide. But to do it before that time and you don’t have any evidence, like all the things they said I did, I didn’t do, and not just that it is not known, they themselves know that I didn’t do them, in the presence of evidence, they still went ahead and do it. For example, they said that I went and bought a house for the church in Germany and they said initially that I embezzled the money or that I bought the house in my name. Later on now they have changed their story, with the availability of evidence, they now changed their story that they are not saying that I took the money but that I did those things without the knowledge of the church. But the evidence and minutes are there where decisions were taken by the E.C, the decisions where Reverend Osueke was the man who visited Germany and came back and told us that there was this land he promised Germany he will buy for them. That time I was the Assistant General Superintendent. And under Rev. Osueke, N20 million was paid to the people. Now one of the questions this people are asking is, what did the N20 million do, couldn’t it have gone to AGMBS, or who appropriated it? Now if you want to know that, that question should not be directed to me. It should be directed to Nnanyiukwu Osueke under whose administration the money was paid. I cannot answer for him. When he paid that, it remained N200 million and he went out on retirement in November 2010 when his tenure expired and I took over and continued from where he stooped. The Executive Committee didn’t have the money, the General Council didn’t have the money, but they were bent on buying the land, so they took a loan of N200 million from the GTB bank. I didn’t carry the money and go to Germany to pay, no. It was the General Treasurer who when we took the loan, did the paper work and by the decision of the Executive Committee the General Treasurer went ahead and paid the money. The General Treasurer was transferring the money, with the accountant under him, to Germany, to the company we bought the land from, until the transaction was completed and the land was purchased. Then the Executive Committee said, “General Superintendent, go and sign the papers and take possessions”. I went there and did the signing of the papers which I submitted to the legal unit which is responsible for that. The EC now turned around, because of crisis, they didn’t know that this thing will come to the public knowledge, and said that I bought it in my name or that I bought it without their knowledge. And all the evidences came out. The lawyer in charge of the documents came and said, “no, these things are clear.” And I said to the General Treasurer, “why are you doing this, are you not the one who transferred the money, why do you keep quiet to make it look like I appropriated the money.?” The second thing they said was about the Assemblies of God Ministers Benefits Scheme, AGMBS. Every Pastor contributes every month to it. We set up a board under Nnanyiukwu Osueke, that manages it. When a minster retires, all that he contributed are computed and given to him with interest. It began around 16 or more years ago. But we discovered that the board was not really very accountable. I am not saying they embezzled the money but I am saying there should be a measure of accountability. They should have the hierarchy they report to. They were not reporting to the E.C, they were the sole administrators of the funds. Even if you are buying properties, you should let us know. We discovered that between the time the scheme started and the time we took over, all that had been paid to the Ministers of the Assemblies of God was only N123 million. We also looked at other expenses, like office equipment and operations, they gulped up to three hundred and something million naira. And we questioned why the Ministers for whom this funds are contributed benefitted only N123 million and office equipment gulping this amount of money. We are not accusing anybody but we must do it fine. When they were to hand over to the new board, they said they had up to N1.4 billion. We said, “right, that is good, bring the money.” They didn’t have the money cash. Rather the AG Homes who was doing the banking for the AGMBS requested that we should leave N500 million out of that money to serve as equity or to use it in buying shares and remaining the money, let it be as deposit with them and they will be paying us interest on it. Because it was our bank, not because we needed it, we said, “okay negotiate with the new board about it.” Because Assemblies of God has already bought shares of 300 million and since that AG Homes began, no dividend has been declared. The Pastors want their money paid and all the shareholders too. And if you carry this N500 million and we become another shareholder we would have bought shares of N800 million and yet no dividend. And you know that it is by the interest that we pay the pastors. What was to be handed over to the new board was about N300 million or N400 million. Then we called them and said, “look, ministers that are retired are suffering, the pension they are paid is small, very negligible, I hear a lot of money is being used for office equipment and all that, now take this money and do business to attract more interest, but out of that money given to you, the General Council would want to take N200 million”, because General Council pays pension of the Ministers. That was the decision of the E.C. After that decision, the EC directed the General Secretary to write to the then chairman of the board to release that money, he himself being an EC member. The General Secretary wrote and then the money was appropriated. But when they talk about it they talk as if when the money was released it went into my personal account. The money was credited to the account of the General Council and received by the general treasurer and used for the purpose it was appropriated. Now in their allegations, they wrote that I appropriated it, they did not let the public know that it didn’t go to my personal account. If you want to know anything about that money you go to the General Treasurer and ask him, “was the money used for the purpose for which it was brought or did Paul Emeka come at any point in time and ask you to give him that money?” Why all these allegations? The letter, the decision of the E.C in the minutes and also the letter the general secretary wrote by the directive of the E.C are still there. But they never knew these will get to the public. Another thing is N10 million. They send that I gave PFN (Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria) N10 million without the approval of the E.C. There was this time of Boko Haram, we have this NAC (National Advisory Council) of the PFN, it is made up of heads of churches, so when we went to a meeting, this issue of Boko Haram was raised and a spontaneous fund raising was done. Some pledged N50 million, some N100 million, some N20 million on behalf of their individual churches. On behalf of the Assemblies of God, I pledged N10 million. That was not to say that I paid it. I didn’t pay it. I returned and in the subsequent E.C meeting, I told the E.C what happened and they discussed it. I still remember the joke they threw that day, they said to me, “why is it that other churches were pledging N50 million, N100, million, and a whole Assemblies of God pledged only N10 million.?” I also put the joke back and said, “well, Assemblies of God is like a mother with many children, we have many pastors to pay, that N10 million is okay. But will you pay or not?” They said, “why not?” They told the General Treasurer, “go and pay it immediately.” The General Treasurer paid it, he didn’t give me the money to go and pay. He paid it into the account of the national PFN by two installments of N5 million each. I didn’t pay the money myself. It was paid after their approval. But they now wrote that I didn’t obtain their approval before paying the money. I did not know that fund was going to be raised. The same thing happened to other church leaders. But after the pledge was made, I didn’t go ahead to pay, I returned and told them. If they did not want, they should have said, “no, we don’t want to pay.” But they unanimously said the treasurer should pay. I also know of the very fact that they were the first to go to the press. But before then I must let you know, the General Committee they had on March 6, did not follow the constitutional procedure. The constitution is very express, the constitution is very clear on this matter, that the General Superintendent is the only person authorized by the constitution to call for General Committee, both regular and emergency and also special. If under special general committee meeting, if there is any matter where the EC does not have a unanimous agreement and the matter is referred to the General Committee, if some people, for example want to call it, the constitution is clear that they will go and obtain 33% signatures of the members and when they obtain it they will table it before the General Superintendent with a request that he should call. Nobody is authorized to call except the GS. They didn’t follow this constitutional procedure. They went ahead and called the General Committee meeting. Now, this is their argument, that the G.S. cannot be a judge over his own case. The Constitution is not written for ceremony and formality. If you know that you won’t follow the process, you should look for alternative means. You could call the leaders of Assemblies of God to come and look into the matter. First of all the retired Ministers will come to the E.C to mediate. But to go ahead, call for General Committee and Rev. Osueke to chair it, that was not good enough because he is retired and he shouldn’t do anything that way. I said I will not attend a General Committee that does not follow the constitutional provision I was elected to defend. You are more in number but you are wrong. Number does not confer authenticity and legality to an illegal action. The presence of Rev. Osueke, he is a retired man, he is a respected man, but age too does not confer legality on illegality. There is a constitution and the constitution should tell us what to do. This they did not do. But do you know the worst thing? When I perceived that the illegal committee was going to do something ugly, and text messages were flying here and there stating that it will be violent, I feel that as a responsible leader I should do something to stop it. I approached the police and other security agencies but they told me that they didn’t have any right to stop church meetings, that what I needed to do was to go to court and obtain an injunction to stop that meeting. I called my lawyer and told him to prepare a suit so that we will stop this people, but I was very careful not to sue the Assemblies of God. I sued the persons I perceived were trying to breach the constitution as persons and not the trustees, not the General Council, not the Assemblies of God. And he kept preparing it. Along the line I said that I might not be understood. I called the lawyer back again and said, “stop it, I am no longer interested, whatever will happen let it happen.” And the lawyer stopped it, and removed it. But on the day of the General Committee, what happened was that, non of the allegations for which the committee was called was raised, rather what they did was that one of them went to court and bribed one clerk who now brought the abandoned suit and gave it to the one of them who now brought it and showed it to them and said, “Paul Emeka has sued the church and the constitution says that nobody should take the church to court and now that he has taken the church to court he should be suspended.” So they pronounced suspension on me purportedly, that day. Now, that suit has been abandoned. That suit was not assigned to any judge, no affidavit was sworn to it, no judge to hold it, and then they did it that way. The argument that came up was that an Aba based lawyer, Barrister Onuoha, stood up and boldly and intelligently and said, “look at the suit, the suit is not against the church, he did not sue the church so you cannot suspend him on that very suit. That is one aspect. Another aspect is that the suit was abandoned”. But they went ahead and pronounced me suspended, because that served their purpose. The court wrote an apology to me and said that that very suit for which they clamped a purported suspension on me was abandoned and was no longer in existence, that they would query who brought it out and even the person who went and took it. Yet they would not like to listen. I went to Nnanyiukwu Osueke and told him, “Nnanyiukwu, may be you didn’t understand because you are not a lawyer as well as I am not, I didn’t sue the church, see what happened.” And ironically, on that day they set up a panel to go and investigate me. You don’t give punishment before investigation. Suspension is the maximum punishment you can give anybody in the Assemblies of God. You should have waited to carry on your investigation and findings, but because they were in a hurry to get Paul Emeka suspended, they pronounced it and after pronouncing it, they set up a panel to go and investigate me. I want to let you know that I have tried all I could to make sure there is peace but they wouldn’t listen. Two persons now went and sued in representative capacity for all Assemblies of God members that did not like what happened that day in the General Committee and the court directed that all of us should return to status quo and it is that status quo that makes me remain as the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God church now. Rev. Chidi Okoroafor, my assistant general superintendent, my own assistant, was that day appointed to become the acting general superintendent. But the court said, “No, we do not have two general superintendents in Assemblies of God, we have only one and that person is Rev. Paul Emeka, until this case is determined.” But ever since then, Rev. Chidi Okoroafor has not kept quiet. He has been going around and I said, “take it easy my brother, you are an assistant, don’t even come out and give the impression that you are interested in taking over my position from me, rather you should be the one speaking and telling the people let’s take it easy, let us follow the constitution.” But he is the one going around doing all these things. The PFN Enugu, bishops came to mediate, they told them no. The PFN national came to mediate, they said no. Rather what they did was to go ahead and write a letter to PFN telling them that they have suspended Paul Emeka and that they should get me stripped off the position, but the PFN said, “no, we asked you to allow us to intervene, that would have given us the opportunity to know whether Paul Emeka is actually guilty, but you refused, and now you are trying to give us directive on what to do. We don’t see Paul Emeka as suspended especially when a court has said “return to status quo.” The managing director of Peace Mass came to mediate, Uma Ukpai came twice to mediate, even though Uma Ukpai made his initial mistake by participating in that very meeting and preaching without asking me whether these things happened. Yet at last may be he wanted to correct the mistake, because he volunteered to go and take the matter out of court, but they told him no, and he held his peace. They preferred going around and doing this thing they are doing. There is no place Rev. Chidi Okoroafor and his people have not gone. They go here and tell lies, lies and lies. They go another place and tell lies, lies and lies. But I say, “no, let us have a round table talk, you present your facts, I present my facts.” But they wouldn’t want that because they know that if we present the facts together, it will be discovered that Paul Emeka is not guilty of any of the allegations they meted out. How about this issue of your claiming to be a professor when you are not one? I wonder why they say that. I am a professor. You don’t award professor like you award honorary degrees. You have to lecture, you have to write papers, you have to merit it. But they have been alleging it, but I keep quiet because I know I am a professor and I merit it. You have refused to show them any paper to prove that you are a professor? Why should they demand my papers when they are not the university?. Which university? I say they are not the university to demand my papers. Until they have gone to court or to the police, that is where and when we will prove it that I am a professor. But they want to stay in the Assemblies of God and be shouting it that I am not a professor. What interest do they have in my professorship? They also accuse you of wearing four rings on your four different fingers although I am seeing only two now? I am wearing two rings. This is for wedding, this one is the academic paper I presented and I was honoured with this second ring. It is something I am proud of. I shouldn’t throw it away. I presented a paper on church interest, it was a moving one, and I was given this ring and I am wearing it. They knew about it, because I told them. They can’t pretend they do not know about it. I told them all these things but when this matter came they closed their mouths and everybody pretended he never knew my history. Some times they say I am an occultic person, some times they say that I went home and took a title in the village. With this crisis in the body of Christ, what do you think is the implication on the church? Well, the implication on the church is actually negative because the Assemblies of God has not shown any good example. You can’t have coup in the church, you can’t conspire, we should put ourselves in the position that should help us to advice others, because the Assemblies of God is a church with structure, it is a conservative church, it is not a church where somebody will wake up one day and hold a coup and overthrow the system and change it. What is happening today has never happened before and the implication of what is happening today is that we have now established a culture of overthrow. No sooner this was done than it happened in Abuja. Our constitution has no place even for acting anything. Now it was done here in Enugu and it was done in Abuja. Even they went and did it in Sapele if not that the Sapele people objected to it. They did it all over. Then people say, “well, what do we do to allow peace to reign?” I say it is very simple. Let them come for a round table talk and we will talk. I do believe that in November 2010 when the election was conducted and I won, the election was done through human instrumentality, quite well, but it was God who moved them to cast the votes for me. God doesn’t do something like children. That day God said, “for the next four years, Paul Emeka I am giving this church into your hands to lead, hold it”. And I am holding it. But for somebody to wake up and overthrow me, if I say, “okay, for peace sake, take it over,” God will ask me questions. He will say, “you are giving the system to Judas Iscariot”, because somebody who did this coup is capable of doing all other things. Like now fire is being ignited all over the general council. So to me it is naive, if we say, “ alright, to allow the church rest let us leave,” no, when God will settle this matter, he will settle it in His own way. The person who should leave his ambition is Rev. Chidi Okoroafor and his cohorts because they are doing the wrong thing. I also discovered that what God requires in this church is for some bold people to rise up and say to somebody, “ you are wrong.” Two persons cannot be wrong at the same time. It is either Paul Emeka is wrong or Chidi Okoroafor is wrong. You cannot just say, “you are the leader, you are not showing good example.” I know some leaders who are not showing good example but somebody must be wrong and somebody must be told, “this is not the practice in the Assemblies of God, we don’t have coup, leave that place, go and be satisfied with your position”. And he will go and take it. But this thing is a well planned something, organized conspiracy. But I thank God the church is realizing it because initially there was no way of telling the people what really happened. In September and October 2013, they went and published it in Daily Mirror, they went to Thisday and published it, they went back to Daily Mirror and published it. I was quiet. Then we crossed to 2014, they went to Daily Mirror and published it again, they went to Newswatch and published it also. Is this madness? They kept publishing it and going about talking it and I reasoned and said if I keep quiet it will look like I was admitting what they were saying. So I granted interview to the Sun where I stated the points one by one. I also wrote some other papers that were distributed in the Assemblies of God and people got to know the truth gradually and people are reacting now. Churches are saying, “well, we won’t follow you, we are going back to Paul Emeka.” That is what is happening right now. You mentioned crisis in Abuja a while ago. The allegation against you is that the Minister in Abuja was suspended for certificate forgery but you wrote to the church cancelling the suspension of somebody who forged a certificate? There was a crisis in Abuja when this national crisis had not occurred and I went to look into the matter. When I got there they said that the constitution of Assemblies of God states that every district superintendent must posses a first degree, that Anyanwu Nicholas does not have a first degree and he is a district superintendent. I called Anyanwu and asked him why and he said that he has finished his degree course and has graduated but that he had not got the certificate yet. I asked, “why haven’t you got it?” He said he would go and get it. I now called the President of the School and asked him, “is it true that Anyanwu has finished his degree programme?” He said yes, that Anyanwu has finished and has graduated. I now told the people to leave Anyanwu, and told him, “it is not enough that you have finished your course, go and bring the certificate to present to the church. And if for any reason they are saying that you have not concluded it, quickly do whatever is required, one or two things, and obtain your certificate.” That was what was done and I left. The national crisis occurred then Rev. Chidi Okoroafor took advantage of it, as well as Ngene, took advantage of it, because Ngene is bent on taking that position from Anyanwu, then the illegal E.C wrote to Abuja and told them that they were coming to look into the matter. I wrote to Rev. Chidi and said, “don’t go into that matter again because if you do you will cause some problems.” But they went ahead, set up a panel and pronounced suspension. Anyanwu said, “well, the GS has come and looked into this matter, why come again?” In the first place, they did what they should not do. Even if Anyanwu was wrong, two wrongs cannot make a right. What would happen is to refer the matter back to me. But Rev.Chidi Okoroafor went ahead, claiming to be the Acting GS, what the court said he shouldn’t claim, and pronounced suspension on Anyanwu. So it is not a matter of supporting Anyanwu, it is a matter of the fact that Rev. Chidi Okoroafor is doing what he is not supposed to do. He has no right to pronounce anybody suspended. He has not become the General Superintendent. He is not the E.C. How about the allegation that you use your brother in-law to hire public address system at N3 million each time you have a programme at Okpoto and this mount is said to be outrageous. Your wife also now runs the Evangel University restaurant which the E.C had already contracted out to some one else? Yah, number one is that of my brother in-law. Whoever suggested that just guessed, not that he was sure, because when we are having programmes at Okpoto, there is a central planning committee made up of the directors. We have committees, committee in charge of equipment, committee in charge music, committee in charge of everything. So when we have a programme, we would call each committee to come and tell us their budget and how they had planned. There was no way that thing concerned my brother in-law at all because there is a sub-committee responsible, he is not the one and he is not there. So what happens is that each time we are having a programme the sub-committee responsible for equipment would come and tell us their preparation and budget. There is this Okezie who runs this equipment business and he also supplies things to the state government. Each time we are having a programme, Okezie would be invited, he would stand in our midst and we would bargain, whatever we agreed upon we would pay Okezie, not even in cash, he would go to account office. If you go to account office now, they will show you at least the cheques stubs and the vouchers raised. Okezie would go to the accounts office and be paid. The General Treasurer knows about it, the accountant knows about it. So we don’t carry money and give to somebody to go and hire equipment. So that allegation is completely nonsensical, it doesn’t hold water. Regarding Evangel University, my wife has no business there at all. She doesn’t run any restaurant but they guess that the person running it is running it for my wife. She doesn’t know anything about it, they simply guess and try to make it strong and they brought in my wife. The people are still running it there. One other thing was that what actually happened was that when it occurred, many people came for interview to run it. It was about a brother, somebody bringing his own brother, somebody bringing his own sister to be given the place to run. But we said no, that we would want Evangel University to be independent, to provide some business that can make it stand. There was one woman and husband who are running catering business in Enugu. They were the people that I said, “go there and begin to cook, and as you are cooking bear it in mind that as soon as the University is able to continue this business, you will go.” I told the people, “don’t go and collect money from people you interviewed because it will not be good after collecting money and he begins to run business, later you tell the person to go away. You will pay him his money”. And we got this person and said, “cook there, don’t pay any money, but be willing to drop and go away whenever students are coming enough.” So whoever was doing that was even doing it out of sacrifice. But they concluded that that was my wife. It was not my wife. These people you call illegal E.C members alleged that you went and incited the Enugu State government against them by telling the government that they are fighting you because you are Wawa person and that they said that no Wawa person will rule the Assemblies of God? They assumed that but there is no place that was said, they have never heard me say that and that is not the truth. The police commissioner here in Enugu is not Enugu man. He is a northerner and a Muslim. He invited Rev. Chidi Okoroafor and his lawyers and myself to his office and presented the court order and said by this court order, that in this state that he is incharge of, that he wouldn’t want any problem, abide by it, but Chidi wouldn’t abide by it. Everyday he brings his people to hold E.C meetings which he chairs, which is the responsibility of the General Superintendent. Then the CP brought some policemen and positioned here to make sure that there is law and order. So when they try to hold the illegal meeting, the police will say, “no, don’t do this job, it is not your responsibility.” The Enugu State government is not involved in this matter. They have no evidence to support the allegation. They just assume because I am an Enugu man, that is why they are losing at all fronts. But the police is enforcing a valid court order. If they say that the police is taking sides with me, the police is taking sides with truth and the court, not with me as a person. Another thing happened recently, when we went to Abuja, on Monday, over an allegation they made against me to the force headquarters. We went there and Chidi presented his allegations and I presented my defence, after which they said, okay, while investigation continues, we should go. We left. I was going back to my hotel room when a phone call came, that one of the high ranking policemen they are always using, I wouldn’t want to call his name because I don’t want to tarnish anybody’s image, a DIG, wanted me to come and I went to his office at the force headquarters. When I got there Chidi and his people were all there and the DIG started speaking to us on the need for peace. I said yes that I agree to peace. But in the process he said that this secretariat should be locked and sealed. I said, “for what? You can’t seal the house of Assemblies of God, the symbol of Assemblies of God and more over the court order is in my favour to be here.” He said, “well, you must hold your own meetings and permit Chidi to hold his own meetings.” I said that is not the way to settle. We argued and argued and at the end of it the DIG said that this place was going to be sealed. I left and made my own connections because he said it was by the order of the IG. So a few days ago God helped me and I went to the IG. When I got to the IG, I told him that “I have come to plead that you don’t seal our church and our secretariat because the court order favours me and more over if you seal it you are sealing the symbol of the Assemblies of God.” Meanwhile Chidi and his men were happy, they were advocating that this place should be sealed. But when I presented this to the IG, the IG told me that he never gave such order and that he will never give an order that the secretariat of a church should be sealed. He said I should bring the court order and I gave it to him. He said that I should bear it in mind that he never gave such order and he is not going to give such order, that I should go and keep running my church. I returned. You know what happened? On Monday evening when the DIG told us that the IG had ordered that this place should be sealed, on hearing this, because that was what they went and lobbied the DIG for, Chidi and the GT, Alaje, called their workers and told them to take the computers and everything from their offices because the secretariat was going to be sealed. They wrote text and sent out. They even said that I was locked up in Abuja. Now early in the morning on Tuesday, their workers came here and were carting things out, computers and all. A message got to the CP and the CP sent his men who now came and arrested all those people and asked them, “what authority have you to go and cart away property of the church, and the church that is in crisis.?” They were put in cell and the following day being Wednesday they were charged to court. Now what will Chidi tell the world about it? The same thing happened on 26th June when we had General Committee. He hired men from Aba, three bus load. They came here and started fighting. They wanted to strangle a policeman. The police had to shoot up, kpoah, before they left him, and were surging again when the CP, SSS, Civil Defence sent their men who came and arrested up to 19 of them. They were also charged to the court. What explanation will Chidi make and tell the world is happening? So long as Chidi comes here, into his office as assistant general superintendent, nobody will stop him. Problem occurs when he comes here to take my functions, to begin to act as general superintendent, in disobedience to the court order, is where problem occurs. He went to Port Harcourt and some other places and said, “Emeka is from Enugu State and they are saying that they must defend their son.” There is nothing like that. Our governor is a man given to the law, procedure and due process to the core. If Chidi said he is losing in Enugu because I am from Enugu State, what of Abuja, am I from Abuja too? Where ever he goes they chase him. He went to Sapele and was chased, I mean literal chasing. He went to other places, they chased him. He went to Kaduna, the same thing. Is Paul Emeka a native of all these places? No, Chidi is on the wrong side of the law and people are knowing the truth. They are telling him, “come back, you are not getting it right, wait for your turn, when your time comes you become whatever God wants you to be.” So it is common knowledge that I taught Chidi in his degrees, he was my student and once a student, he’s always my student. I taught him his degree courses, he applauded me and regarded me as his master and as a good teacher; and the same student of mine is trying to overthrow me shamelessly. I could remember when Rev. Chidi Okorafor was a Pastor in Ossa in Umuahia; he invited me for a revival meeting, which I attended and one of the days he came to where I was resting and said, “Sir, I know you are going higher and higher looking at things. I will not be wrong if I tell you that you will one day become the General Superintendent of Assemblies of God Nigeria, but this is my request in advance, when you become the General Superintendent of Assemblies of God Nigeria, please, make me the Youth Director. I laughed over it and said, “well, let it happen first”. Eventually, I became the GS. But that man, who made a request that I should make him Youth Director”, now wants to overthrow me and become the General Superintendent. He’s a servant, or let me say, disciple that have forgotten his master and wants to overthrow me through the back door. I came to be a General Superintendent meritoriously; that is not to say it is not by grace. But I am saying I rose through the ranks. I didn’t play any trick in my process of rising; I went through the rank and so, it is a pity and painful that the man, who was your student, I actually taught, taught and taught again, I actually gave advice, con¬tributed to his academic rising and played the role of mentor too, will turn now and begin to speak like a sage of many years. Physically, I am his senior, in the ministry I am his senior, in academics, I am his senior, and he now wants to tell us the doctrine of Assemblies of God. I don’t like to boast but I must tell you that my degrees, both the degrees I got from Nigeria and overseas, are not honorary awards, I studied in good universities. My professorship was not given to me, it was very surprising when they wrote another petition and I went to Abuja and showed all my certificates and the lawyers are saying, “but why don’t you talk, we were thinking you never even attended a university, let alone get your professorship”. I said, “do you just go displaying your certificates because somebody has come to accuse you? You are a lawyer, if somebody tells you that you are not a lawyer, you go to your bag and get your certificate. Why I am bringing this up is because they have invited me to Force Headquarters. I bet this is the much I can go about telling people about my academic performance. Chidi and the rest of them knew about these”. But the EC said they invited you to a dialogue but that you reacted by calling them monsters and saying that you cannot dialogue with monsters? No, no, no, it is the other way round. I have told you earlier and I want to repeat, I have gone to Osueke’s house twice for peace but they rebuffed it. The PFN national wrote two of us and said come for peace, I accepted but they said no. The PFN Enugu wrote for peace, that they wanted to mediate. I said come but they said no. I am the one who went to Umah Ukpai and invited him, he accepted and came but they told him no. Now when have they invited me? Not even ones have they invited me. I am the one inviting them for peace and they are refusing. That is the issue. Now, with this crisis, do you think the spirit of God is still in this church? This is a practical issue, it is not something of thinking, it is not something of boasting, it is something that calls for humility by all of us before God. It doesn’t call for me to say, “yes the church is strong.” The church is not strong. Crisis doesn’t make a church to be strong. It is something all of us should repent, come together in humility, come for peace, because it is affecting the members of the church. It is also giving the name of the Assemblies of God a negative picture before the world. It is not something that anybody should be proud of. This crisis has led to the closure of the Evangel Television. It may also affect the Evangel University?. Okay, the Evangel Television went off between March 13 and March 17 and what led to it was that the High court under Justice Onovo ruled that we should return to status quo. When they learnt about the status quo, the GT, Chidi, and their cohorts sent people to go and make sure that my picture is not there again and they removed my picture in the night and destroyed it. It is unfortunate that they went and told the world that Paul Emeka went and destroyed the television station. I do not see the reason I should destroy what I preached on. They did it and from that moment Evangel Television has stopped functioning. I don’t have money to reactivate it. They have all the money. They waste lots of funds of Assemblies of God. They need to pay their lawyers they quarter in the hotel. What do you need this population of lawyers for? So that made Evangel Television to go away. You talked about Evangel University. Well, Evangel University is flowing very well, because the changes the BOT made, not I, are positive. Here comes another fundamental thing. They said that the renovations and the changes made in Evangel University were made by me singlehandedly. And do you know that the BOT, the Board of trustees, is a body responsible for the administration of the university and the members include, automatically, statutorily me, the AGS, the general treasurer and the trustee members and these were at the board meeting where decisions were taken and they were there live and took the decisions with other members, professors from all over Nigeria who are members, on what started happening there?. But now when they wrote, they said that I singlehandedly did this and did that. At one time the BOT was annoyed and prepared comprehensively the decisions they took and how the GS, Chidi the AGS and all the rest of them were present. Do you know one of their accusations? They said that as a result of these changes, the university has less than 30 students, which is an open lie, because right now the university is having three hundred and something students. Very positive. Not only that, in the Nation’s newspaper of May 29, 2014, the university came fourth in performance among private universities, including the vice chancellor who was equally rated as the fourth most performing vice chancellor and also stated clearly that a university that took off a few years ago is now registering three hundred and something students. But the ambassadors and the illegal E.C members went and started telling lies about the university. One of the things that make them illegal is that they tell a lot of lies and when they tell you lies about me you hate me. I even wonder why you had courage to come to me, regarding me still as a believer. Because if you listen to their lies, they paint me bad and black. With the way you say the ambassadors and the E.C members tell lies, what is the hope of the church and what should be done? Well, I must tell you that nobody is bigger than the Bible. We regard our founders, our leaders highly but not so highly that even if they sin we follow them. Jesus is our ultimate example. That is not to say that a leader should lead a careless life or say, “do as I say and not as I do.” I must tell you that something bad is happening in the church and that is why all of us are saying that “may Jesus not come this time until we repent.” Some people are lying, open lies. I have just given you a few examples. When they started, they said that Paul Emeka embezzled N450 million. Small time they increased it to N700 million. As if that was not enough they went to EFCC, pleaded with EFCC, “all we want is to come and put handcuff on him and let the public see that what we are saying is true”. The EFCC has invited me and I have answered their questions. The EFCC asked what is responsible for this kind of allegations. I said I do not know. They did a good job and investigated the allegations and discovered that they are all false. When they saw that the EFCC was not arresting me, they went to Force C.I.D and reported and the Force C.I.D came and looked into it and referred it to the police commissioner Enugu state to handle. They refused to go there because they are not interested. What they are interested in is that I am detained or put in cell. They left that one and went to the monitoring unit in force headquarters and they came again for the same thing. That was the one that led us to Abuja on Monday, June 30, 2014. They now said that I took another N350 million. If you add N350 million to N700 million, you will have one billion and 50 million naira. That is what they say I ate. When did they get that kind of money and how possible could I have taken that kind of money without the knowledge of the four officers particularly the general treasurer? Do ministers come and render account to me or did I go to tell him, “please give me some money, without paying it?” How did I have access to that kind of money? Because when they are lying they never knew the implications of their lies, that there is no way the chief executive should have access to such funds and appropriate it without the knowledge of the General Treasurer. You remember that this fund included the one used in buying the Germany property and the one appropriated from the AGMBS and all that. And tomorrow they will come up with another one and just like that. These are all lies. Now, Rev. Chidi Okoroafor went and told the police that on 26th June, the police shot one person here. But on that 26th June, when we were having a meeting here, a text message from them was already going around that the GS commanded the police officers to shoot and then blood is everywhere. When the text was read to the audience, everybody laughed and said, “where is the blood?” They will be talking and be weeping. Sometimes they talk and talk and talk, they will weep for Assemblies of God and you will say, “kai, this Paul Emeka must be a devil,” (laughter). Their lies are horrible. But we believe that God will repair His church, but that should not make us to continue sinning. It is alleged that God has departed from you and that is why you now use armed thugs as your physical security. Do you still enjoy God’s protection or do you now depend on thugs for your security as they alleged? It is rather Rev. Chidi that is using thugs, not me. For example when they had the illegal committee, they brought about 50 to 70 police men here and they brought SSS, they brought civil defence in their numbers. Now, on 26th June, they brought thugs from Aba, quartered them in hotels here in Enugu. The only thing that helped us was that they came too early, because the three buses came here and they started landing, jumping from the buses, to executive their plan. But I wonder what made them know that we don’t hold meetings in the morning. So they had this physical confrontation with the police. They were the thugs. I don’t use thugs. It is not in my vocabulary, it is not in my plan. But they are using it and we are seeing them. But after using it they will raise a text and say, “Paul Emeka is using thugs, he has killed somebody”, (laughter). Another lie. Why did they go and meet this D.I.G and requested him to tell me that the IG has given order that this place must be locked and IG told me, “no, I didn’t give such order”. See lies. So it is too bad and the world is watching. Based on this crisis, do you see the possibility of the Assemblies of God splitting? If you are talking of possibility, it is possible but it is not likely. The Assemblies of God is strongly structured and one of the advantages that the Assemblies of God has is that from membership, we have trained our people, even if the person is not spiritual, the things we thought him in the Sunday school remain in him. So if you come to bring anything that will divide Assemblies of God, he will not support you. It is just like when this thing began in March, you know the meaning of suspension, nobody comes near you, nobody shakes hands with you. I was standing alone in the whole world, except God who was with me. But what happened? The Assemblies of God gradually began to discover the truth. Now the whole of Midwest say, “we are for you”. Yesterday (4/7/2014), Bayelsa declared they are for me. Using ‘me’ doesn’t mean opening my own church. We now have about 40 areas and districts who have now come out and say, “we cant follow Chidi, we have discovered the truth”. And more are coming and more are talking. So it is a matter of time the people will know the truth. As soon as the Assemblies of God knows the truth, that is it. Anybody who tells you that this thing is ethnically based, tell him it is a lie, there is nothing like ethnicity or tribalism in this whole thing. You know why? The reason is that the Assemblies of God members are spiritual. Even if you are brother to this man and he is not getting it right, your conscience will worry you. You will not say, “well, he is my brother so even if he is doing wrong let me join myself to him”. No. Do you know that in Abia and Imo states, that many of them are followers of the truth?. They don’t care to know where you are coming from. But Chidi went and shouted and said they are supporting Emeka because he is from Enugu state and I said no, Enugu has no business with this. What of Umuahia for example? Umuahia is solidly for the truth. When you talk of Abia you always call Umuahia because that is the capital. They are for the truth, they are not for them. The same thing happens to a part of Imo. More people are coming. The place that is very strong, that is because of Emeaba and Chukwu, is Aba, Aba doesn’t want to care whether you are saying the truth or not, all they care is, “oh, Paul Emeka is wrong”. If you ask him, “why is he wrong?” They will say, “don’t even ask questions, he is just wrong”. Chukwu is not helping matters and Emeaba is not also helping matters. I am not able to find out their reasons for doing what they are doing. I have tried but I can’t find any. But there must be a reason why they don’t want people to know the truth, because they feel that if people know the truth, they will act alright. So the best way is to block any information. What specifically are you doing to let people know this truth you are talking about? In the Assemblies of God when they pronounce you suspended, people run away from you, nobody comes near you. The conspirators planned it well, to make sure I don’t go out to tell anybody the truth. And after doing that they continued with the internet, facebook and with the press. At one time they even went to radio. Now God is helping us, people are knowing the truth and I am now going out here and there and the doors are open, I have assumed my work, preaching in churches, performing all the duties customary to this office and as much as I can I let people know the truth. And again, they have the money to do things and I don’t have the money because they have seized the money, since February I have not been paid. How about the belief that in the Assemblies of God once you are pronounced suspended that you must accept it and apologize before you are restored? Provided somebody does not take advantage of that to clamp suspension on somebody he hates. Now, suspension and justice are two different things. Suspension is a tradition, justice is a doctrine. Which is more important? Justice is more important. Chidi has told people when he was interviewed, that whether you were wrongly or rightly suspended that you must accept it and you must come and apologize. I said look at Chidi, a servant trying to be greater than his master. I taught Chidi. He called me his mentor. I used past tense because I don’t know if he still calls me his mentor. He cannot now position himself or pretend to know the doctrine and tradition of the Assemblies of God more than his master who taught him. That is not to say that it is a principle thing that the master is always right even when he is going wrong, no, but this is a reality. We have suspended them when we never had the information, but when the information came, we said we are sorry, we cancelled it. We don’t reinstate. We cancelled it, we regard all the things we pronounced on you cancelled. But that is if we did not know. But this one is that they know what they did. There is sin you commit and say they don’t know what they are doing but there is sin the people committing the sin know what they are doing. This suspension is part of plot to take power from me and give the power to somebody else. I know that Nnanyiukwu Osueke, from the beginning has got this interest in Chidi. I don’t begrudge Chidi for that. But you don’t use it to destroy the constitution of the Assemblies of God. So in the presence of massive information and evidence, which they had access to even before the event of March 6 transpired, they shouldn’t pronounce that suspension and now that they have pronounced it, they should come, because afterall I am their GS, I am their Oga kpata kpata. Osueke retired at the age of 68, he ruled Assemblies of God for 22 years. Subtract 22 years from 68 years, he was about 46 years when he began to rule the Asemblies of God and I was more than 46 years when I began to rule the Assemblies of God. We all must not start ruling when we are old. We must start somewhere. You can’t condemn all beginners. So to lend his old age to what happened on March 6, with a view to authenticating it and legalizing it was very wrong. Every one of us has a man he loves. Sometimes in election the person you want emerge a victor does not emerge, but you must take it and support the person who emerged. So the suspension is completely wrong, totally wrong and they knew it before, and they should not be rewarded for telling lies, by having me come and say, “ I am wrong”. I am not wrong. I can’t tell you I am wrong when I am not wrong. I can’t apologize for the sin I didn’t commit. These are administrative issues and we must face facts to liberate this very church. I am their father but they suddenly turned around and made themselves fathers to whom I should go and apologize. For what? They should come to their father and apologize and say, “we are wrong for what we did to you”.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 07:46:46 +0000
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