The annual Pastors’ Conference of Christ Apostolic Church, Nigeria and Overseas holds between Monday 18th through Sunday 23rd September 2023.
But there are clear indications that the over 30 years feud between the two main factions, of the General Executive Forum and the Supreme Council is far from being solved. The two factions may remain where they are and stick to their different guns for a foreseeable future.
While the General Executive Council led by Pastor Samuel Olusegun Oladele holds theirs in Ikeji Arakeji, the spiritual headquarters of the Church where one of the founding fathers and the first General Evangelist of the Church, Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola, received his divine call, the other, the Pastor Henry Ojo led Supreme Council holds theirs at Ikire, the base of the late Prophet Gabriel Oyelami, CAC Ile Anu, in Ikire, both in Oyo State.
In recent past, the two factions have been having common theme and topics, but this year, the two would be having different themes and topics.
While the Ikeji Arakeji group has Proving Our Growth Through Sound Doctrine as its theme, the Ikire group tag their own with Ignite Fire of Revival, and Let the Fire Fall as the theme.
Clearing the positions of the two groups in a pre-conference media chat, Pastor Oladele disclosed that the two groups have decided to go their separate ways following long years of irreconcilable differences.
He said, “It is no more news that CAC has been going through a crisis for the past 33 years. Crisis is bound to come, and this is not peculiar to CAC. I don’t think there is any Church here on earth that has not gone through one crisis or the other. We were fore warned by the Lord in 1985, five years before the crisis broke out in 1990 in Ilesa. It was prophesied that the church would go through a crisis that would result into breaking the church into two if we could not take care of certain things. And it happened exactly in 1090, I have a copy of that prophecy through one Pastor Dairo of CAC Isokun Ilesa. He gave us copies of this message way back to 1985, during a Pastors’ Conference, and said by 1990 and exactly in 1990 the crisis broke out. This is Church where we believe in the operation of the Holy Spirit ad one of it is the gift of prophecy.
“It is one thing for crisis to occur, it is another thing to manage it. By the grace of God when I came on board as the president about three years ago, when I read my inaugural speech, I enunciated what I regarded as one of my visions for the Church. One of the things I believe God has laid in my heart at the inception of my leadership was this peace and reconciliation, and unity of the CAC but we have tried all that is humanly possible to have this done, it’s like we have reached a kind of brick walls, and we have now come to a kind one conclusion temporarily, it is so sad, it is not desirable but we have met, this side and those on the other side of the divide, and the conclusion is that it is better to go our separate ways for now, just like the example of the Christ Apostolic Church and The Apostolic Church then, we used to be one until 1940, when we had to go our separate ways, and today we still meet as members of one body at the level of Christian Association of Nigeria and Christian Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, and other Christian fellowships like that.
“So we are one, and we thank God that the kind of crisis in CAC is not that of doctrinal difference. It is an administrative problem. The conclusion for now, it could be temporary, until God would rise and do what is beyond the human power, and comprehension, is that instead of going to court all the time, instead of press wars and litigations, why don’t we for now go our separate ways and await God’s own intervention.
“It’s like all we have been doing, with those who are ahead of us as leaders in the office had held meetings upon meetings in the likes of Baba Olusheye, not less than 32 meetings were held under him, towards reconciliation but it never happened. Baba Akinosun tried all he could as he did, but we have thought it was not going to be that long before we reconcile, when I came on board. But where we are now is to go our separate ways, no fight, no bitterness, one of them called me this morning now, we do interact, we are brethren, but if we cannot agree on certain administrative structure, it is better we leave it as it is until God will prove Himself to be the Almighty. Nobody can stop Him when it is time to put the church together if that is His will for us as a church.”
Speaking in the same vein, the President of the Supreme Council faction of CAC Pastor Henry Ojo told PTL News last year of the current state of the feud between the two major factions of leaders in one of the foremost indigenous Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria.
He explained, “During the last year Pastors’ Conference, I think we explained some details of how far we have gone. We have persuaded our other side to sit down and that we should hold a meeting together to settle our differences. I think we held more than 13 different meetings but what we discovered was that our other side is not ready for peace because in all the efforts we are making, they always give us a set-back.
“The last time we met together I cannot know the date now. We wrote our terms of settlement, we expected each one of us to exchange the terms of settlement so that we really need to scrutinize it and later come back for settlement. But to our greatest surprise we submitted our own they failed to submit their own. The next thing they are campaigning now is that they say we want to take over the seats completely. What they say is that we want to take over the power. That is far from the truth.
“Probably you would have read it in the papers last year, they published it that they were the only CAC and there was no other CAC any more and if there is any other one that tried to call themselves CAC, who are not under their authority they were ready to take them to court. They published them in the newspapers and television, but we didn’t reply them. But finally just about a month now they summoned us for another court case, after which we have decided in our past meetings that every matter of court must stop, that every publication that would affect the peace must stop, but what we discover is that they go ahead to go and do some other things.
“Our prayer and expectation is to see peace reign in CAC under one umbrella. But in spite of all the negative things they do against us we have never taken it against them. To us we know that no court will settle this matter. Except we sit down at a round table, and talk which they don’t want to materialise. So this one we are talking about now is yet to be known to the members of CAC.
“There is no way the people will not know because at the conference people will ask us some of these questions, and we must open up to the whole world so that people will know where we are. So that people will not see us as what we are not, because we have been hearing some things like we are the ones that don’t want peace to reign. How many of them know what I am telling you now? Thank God for the press that will blow things up and allow the world to know it. We are not happy about all these but what can we do?”
Also speaking on the past peace process, the leader of the Supreme faction explained some of the efforts made.
“What they keep on saying remains the same. When Pastor Olusheye was there, same under Pastor Akinosun, and now that Pastor Oladele is there, they are using the same method. But the different thing that is happening now is that the leaders at that time are not the set of the same leaders that are there now. Our fathers then, for many reasons might not be able to talk to the whole world, they might like to conceal a lot of things but we cannot conceal it. As we are in this office what is in our mind is that anytime that the church becomes one we are ready to vacate the office, if need be. So that is it.”
When reminded that would be a very great decision and sacrifice, the leader of the Supreme faction, Pastor Henry Ojo, answered, “We have said it many times before them. All what we are saying is that we are ready to vacate seats for peace to reign if we can reach an amicable conclusion.
“Let me give you a clue of what were our terms of reference for settlement. Before our father left, the agreement they had was that from the five principal officers they would give Supreme Council two, and they would take three, that was the agreement they had before they went on retirement. But later on they said they could not give us two. They would give us one, and the one they said they would give us is the General Secretary, and the General Secretary there they didn’t accept as a Principal Officer, but we are saying it is not a matter of saying ‘we give you two we take three,’ but we say let us sit down, let us select those who are going to be Constitution Drafting Committee and let us put there the position of everybody and the functions of every one.
“You cannot say, this is a property that belongs to our father, we all inherited, and you, on one side, want to sit at a corner, and say you are the one to go and share it. We need to sit down together in agreement to look at the sharing and ask, do you agree, and if we don’t agree, we sit down as a family and ensure that it is amicably and fairly resolved. We are supposed to discuss the issue as a family, that is what we are talking about. But they are not ready for that.”
When PTL News asked, “Let us look into the area of personal relationship between men of the two factions, I know that the past administrations and leaders share some common pasts and very strong personal relationships. Does your new set of leaders share this kind of relationship that would allow you to relate together as friends and brothers of the same father?,”
Pastor Henry Ojo also answered, “We know that even before now that some of us came to the office as new leaders, some of us were relating together. We know Pastor Oladele to be the most senior and we respect him for that. He is the most senior, but the rest cannot say they are the most senior because I know those I senior among them there. I know those of them that our General Superintendent is senior among them there. So despite that all these happen we still talk as friends. That is what really surprised us when they took us to court again. There are some issues that came up that make us more fearful to say what kind of friendship are we keeping?”
The Way Forward
On what to expect on the way forward, Pastor Henry Ojo was quick to answer this way, “Our way forward has been written in our terms of reference, and the term of reference does not state that we want to take all the seats. The term of reference has already spelt out what we regard as the way forward. What we are saying is that as we wrote our terms of reference they should write their own too. Then it is a matter of agreeing or not agreeing, which they don’t want. They don’t want to believe that the Supreme Council exists, that is what they want the world to believe. If they don’t believe that the Supreme Council exists, how can we have peace?
“We are the one calling for this oneness and coming together. We are the ones orchestrating it here. Though that is what led to the breaking away of Agbowo from us. Agbowo did not support what we were doing, they said those people were liars, that we should not make a peace with them. But I was the one God used to stir up that move. It caused a lot of uproar here but as God would have it, they accepted what God laid in my heart, and they made a move, towards peace.
“As we made that move truly every one of us was looking towards a lasting peace, and the end of the trouble until Pastor Akinosun began his own kind of craftiness, and we all had the hope that he would soon go for retirement and he did with his craftiness and we have Pastor Oladele there, because he is somebody we have known for a long time for his standard of Christianity that he would be able to do what is needful. Though when he came to power he came with a very good interest, he did a lot of things we were expecting him to do, but it came to a certain level that we don’t know what happened. They just changed the game. It is only him that can tell us what is really happening there.
“By the special grace of God we were not affected. Now after the deed was done, if you were at our last year’s Pastors’ Conference, it was so great, it was attended by a lot of our Pastors and the crowd that came we did not know where they came from, we were all pleasantly marvelled. It is the doing of the Lord. It is not by our efforts or of our power.”
So, with all indications the two factions are now comfortable to stay their different ways until God bring the ultimate peace and unity of the Church under ‘One Fold One Shepherd,’ which is the motto of the Church.
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