As soon as I learnt of the retirement of Bishop David Abioye, I patiently waited to see if he would show up in this year’s Shiloh. True to my expectations he didn’t.
I have read a lot of reactions from people on social media and offline concerning the retirement of Bishop David Abioye and his absence in Shiloh.
As a way of introduction, I joined the commission in 2003 and what endeared me to the commission was Bishop Oyedepo’s pure love for Jesus Christ. Though I may not agree with a lot of his teachings doctrinally but Bishop Oyedepo’s love for God is akin to the love a baby has towards his or her mother. I later became a full time pastor loosely referred to as resident pastor.
During my very short and eventful time as resident pastor I was privileged to pastor in Mbaise and Awomamna where I planted over 20 churches. I resigned from that position in 2011 for personal and revelational reasons. But still remained a member of living faith church where I served as pastoral assistant, a designation for ordained part time pastors.
Bishop Oyedepo suffered great persecution from resident pastors. It was so much that very trusted pastors showed the man ‘shege’. I recall in one of our one pastors’ meetings at covenant university auditorium, papa said during the period his wife was critically ill to the point of death, pastors were wishing her dead.
Most times what we see from outside does not reflect the reality in the inside. Papa from the actions of his pastor learnt the hard way not to trust anyone fully.
Now listen to me, you may wish to inquire from any resident pastor who had or is still pastoring in LFC especially those who were ordained at least 14 years ago. There two categories of pastors in Winners Chapel; Papa’s boys and Abioye’s boys.
Papa’s boys are those who have direct link to papa and are loyal to him whereas Abioye’s boys were those who are loyal to Abioye. I came into ministry as resident pastor ordained by papa himself in 2010. I came in with a pure zeal to serve God not knowing that there is internal political power play that goes on within the mix.
After the appraisal in 2010 ending, I was informed by a top official that I was among the top in my set, 2009-2010 set. I was told that by my appraisal I have been transferred to the Ihiagwa church, a church with over 1000 members and close to the Federal University of Technology Owerri meaning it’s a student area and as former SUG President of that School it was a perfect posting.
I waited for days, and weeks for my transfer letter to get to me, but it didn’t even when I had a verified knowledge of my transfer to Ihiagwa. Well to my surprise, the letter finally came and it read transferred to LFC Awomamna as Resident pastor 1 meaning the senior pastor. I felt bad but saw it as the will of God.
At Awommama, I planted 4 churches in less than 8 months. At a time, I pastored the entire 4. However, I struggled to adapt to the new reality which I saw in ministry. After struggling for some months, I decided to follow the trend and join the group that was holding sway which was the Abioye boys. Like magic, I started enjoying some privileges and love to the extent I was asked to pick where I would love to be transferred to.
Presiding Bishop
Living Faith Church
I think Papa was very much aware of the Abioye boys’ thing and the great influence they commanded especially within the Nigeria church mission. They were the richest and were posted to branches that were strong financially. They practically frustrated most of papa’s boys out of the commission. But trust the wisdom in operation in the life of Papa, the old man has patience and is very tactical.
One day in another pastors’ meeting, Bishop Oyedepo announced that he was going to pattern the church’s succession plan after that of Kenneth Hagin. This implied that one of his two sons who had just joined the ministry would be his successor. That gave rise to the mandate!
The mandate went through a lot of reviews because some of these pastors were taking advantage of the content of the mandate to carry out some self-serving actions, as such the mandate at a time was suspended and subjected to very critical review.
One may ask, was Bishop Abioye aware of the existence of a powerful clique code named the Abioye boys? I think he is very much aware because whenever it is time for his birthday we were usually tasked to bring monetary gifts that was usually collated and sent to him including the names of the pastors and the church branch they pastor.
Bishop Oyedepo practically left the running of the church in Nigeria to Bishop Abioye and did not bother to know what was going on except for Canaanland Ota the headquarters. So Bishop Abioye held sway. However, Bishop Oyedepo haven decided to handover the church to Pastor David Jnr concentrated on tutoring the young man by himself in Ota and creating an enabling environment for the young man to command influence and respect among pastors.
These will not be possible if some of the old war horses who were with Papa were not shown the exit door, from the greatest to the least hence the retirement age strategy.
Well, before now it was believed that LFC Goshen Abuja was built by papa as a parting gift for Bishop Abioye. So the plan was to make him life resident pastor of LFC Goshen Abuja, however, it was discovered that if Abioye is still in the system and David Jnr takes over, the young man would not enjoy the sovereignty to do as occasion serves him as the president of LFC Worldwide. Hence the difficult but only decisive decision to retire Bishop Abioye and Bishop Aremu though Aremu was just a co victim not the main target.
Whether you believe it or not, this decision came to bishop Abioye as a rude shock although his wife loved it because mummy has always been on the opinion that the husband should start his own ministry long ago time instead of doing a second fiddle to bishop Oyedepo. Little wonder it didn’t come to me as a surprise when Bishop Abioye floated a non-denominational outreach almost immediately after retirement. This outreach is likely to metamorphose into a full-time denomination in months or years to come.
But friends I think Papa didn’t do Abioye any wrong, papa transformed Bishop Abioye and gave him that brand that everyone refers to as loyal servant and lieutenant. Papa made Bishop Abioye one of the wealthiest pastors in Africa and I think Bishop Abioye is the wealthiest pastor or priest in history who does not own or run a private ministry worldwide.
In Winners Chapel, bishop Abioye was the defacto president of the commission and that retirement came to him like a coup masterly plotted and executed.
Let no Winners Chapel member expect to see bishop Abioye around LFC events except on some face-saving exceptions so that wrong impressions would not be sustained.
Never forget, organised religion is not the church!
