Unity at last! 29 years crisis in Christ Apostolic Church ends

 

 

The internal crisis that had plagued Christ Apostolic Church, Worldwide, the first Pentecostal Church in Nigeria for almost three decades, is over. The multitudes of members of the Church in Nigeria and overseas and their leaders at various levels, can now sing in unison and heave a sigh of relief: The Battle is over.

 

According to the President of Christ Apostolic Church, Worldwide, Pastor Abraham Olukunle Akinosun all stakeholders, who were once protagonists to themselves have just decided to bury the hatchet through divine intervention.

 

Pastor Samuel Olayiwola Ogundare,the Acting President of a faction of the Supreme Council agreed that the crisis was brought to an end through divine intervention.

 

Pastor Henry Ojo, who presides over the affairs of another faction of the Supreme Council also agreed that the crisis is over, although he says there is need to sit at the negotiation table.

 

“This is the hand of God” Exclaimed Pastor John Oluwafemi, a CAC District Superintendent in Ile Ife, who had been anxious for this moment and had devoted some time weekly to pray purposely for the unity of all factions of the Church. “It is the biggest news of the year”, he added. His enthusiasm was not without reason.

 

The crisis had defied all human efforts since it broke out in 1991.Several court cases, both criminal and civil had meandered through different courts, magistrate court, state and federal High Courts to Appeal Court where they sometimes, were returned to the High Court for adjudication anew. As soon as one case was decided another one would be opening.

 

Several times in the past,even amidst litigious hostilities, the Holy Spirit, in a still, small voice had ministered to the Church leaders from all sides to end the crisis. In deference to divine instruction, they reached out to themselves, ceased fire and set up Peace Committee consisting 34 wise men with same figure from both sides, which met for 34 times between 2002 and 2004. This peace effort had reached its dénouement and Peace Treaty had been signed, Peace communique had been issued but the effort failed woefully at the last minute over mundane issues.

 

The crisis that had cost the church inestimable damage was brought to an end by divine intervention. “It’s a proof that God answers prayers.” Said Elder Bankole, a GEC representative referring to series of unity prayers, God had directed all the factions to pray together in 2017at Irefin, Olugbode and Ikeji Arakeji.

 

The story of the Church’s crisis can read like this: “And Satan stood against the Christ Apostolic Church, Nigeria and it went into factions”. Reason: all the leaders of the church from all sides attributed the cause to Satan.

 

In an earlier interview by The Punch newspaper, Pastor Abraham Olukunle Akinosun, President, Christ Apostolic Church, Worldwide said the cause of the crisis was Satan.

 

Also as recent as August this year, Pastor Henry Ojo, president of what is now called Irefin group of Supreme Council also blamed Satan for the crisis that had balkanised the foremost Pentecostal Church in Nigeria.

 

CAUSE

Like it happens when there is major disruption in traffic flow which often results in traffic jam, when the jam is over, you hardly know the real cause. So is the case with the crisis in Christ Apostolic Church. Nobody knows the cause of the crisis. All the stakeholders attributed the cause to Satan.

 

If Satan is the cause, could it be because the church was idle since an adage says: “an idle hand is the devil’s workshop”. This is not true in the case of the CAC crisis because the Church was never idle. A church of prayer warriors can not be said to be idle, A Church where Holy Spirit is in operation could not be said to be idle, a church where the voices of Evangelists such as Prophet David Olulana Babajide, Prophet Timothy Obadare, Prophet Samson Akande, Prophet Dairo, Prophet Omotosho Prophet Oyelami and several others were leading evangelical efforts of the Church could not be said to be idle.

 

One fact that all stakeholders keep repeating was that the crack in the Church that led to division into factions in the Church began in 1991 after the Pastors Conference and Convention held at Ilesha.The event that led to this crisis began with an insignificant event. The matter festered until an injunction stopped a meeting of the Church leaders and from then, the Church leaders began to become regular customers of the court over Church matters.

 

This led to spiralling of events that further exacerbated the division breaking the Church into camps.

As a Church led by the Holy Spirit, the crisis did not happen without warnings. It had been foretold five years earlier. But unfortunately, the Church leadership paid scant attention to preventive measures that would have averted the impending implosion.

 

Thus, what started as a minor disagreement on matters of discipline festered into suspension of some prominent ministers of God and their supporters. This was how the camps began to be built gradually until parallel administrations were formed.

 

With factions came litigations upon litigations, which cost all the sides several tens of millions of Naira. But Pastor Henry Ojo, the president of the Supreme Council faction said the litigation costs were just some of the costs of the crisis. Other aspects of the costs, which he called losses, that all sides suffered, were bitter acrimonies, which made brothers to avoid fellowships with their brothers, the sprouting up of illegal branches of the Church that were not responsible to any central authorities and the havoc on image inflicted on the Church by the unregistered or unknown pastors who claimed to belong to the Church.

 

Pastor Ogundare also concurred. He said the loss the Church had incurred was colossal. Pastor Kayode Omoniyi also agreed, the crisis had drawn the Church back in evangelism and even physical developments. In the wake of the crisis, several thousands of our youths left the Church to join new and old ministries that were trailing the Christ Apostolic Church in the 1980’s. On finding that the members were formerly in the CAC, the new ministries quickly co-opted them into their ministerial cadre and took their minds off their beloved Church.

 

Even at the heat of the crisis, all the factions were conscious of the need for unity. But how to go about forging the unity so much desired by all and sundry was the major issue. Some one once said that all the cases filed in court over the crisis were done in order to get peace at the initiators’ terms. In other word, the peace they were seeking is the type that says “If you want peace, prepare for war”.It was a peace believed to be derivable through the “barrel of the gun” or to put it plainly, peace through human effort.

 

Even at some sober moments when the community of interest dawned on them to sit down together and agree on modality for peace and unity, the effort often ended up in “what is in it for my faction?”

 

Today, all those have been put behind. All stakeholders have now resolved, let us come together first, all other things will work themselves out later.

 

Some personalities that were instrumental to the ending of the crisis are Pastor Kayode Omoniyi, a medical doctor who used to be neutral to both sides until 2013. According to him, Pastor Ogunlade arrived from overseas and visited him in his Lagos home. Pastor Ogunlade now informed him of a meeting of the Supreme Council which was about to hold. He invited him to attend the meeting and he did. But right from that moment, the Holy Spirit told him that whoever would be used to end the crisis must not talk about position sharing.

 

Years later, he was one of those appointed from the Supreme Council faction to begin peace meeting with their GEC counterparts. In 2017, when a delegation of Supreme Council visited their GEC brethren at Ikeji Arakeji, during the year’s Pastors’ Conference, he was among the delegation led by Pastor Henry Ojo. In 2019 Pastor Omoniyi also led a delegation of his group to Ikeji Arakeji during the Pastors’ Conference, where he announced the determination of the group he was leading to ensure the crisis of division was ended in Christ Apostolic Church. Since then, he had worked assiduously with all the like minds to put an end to the crisis. He later joined forces with Pastor S. O. Ogundare, the Acting President of the Supreme Council faction that was also advocating for the end of the crisis without demanding for position.

 

In the word of Pastor Abraham Olukunle Akinosun, God alone should be accorded all humour and adoration for the end of the crisis. Equally Pastors Ogundare and Omoniyi deserve special commendation for their initiatives. He summarised the story in these words: “Sometime last year, a group of our churches in Lagos, led by Pastor Kayode Omoniyi visited us during Pastors’ Conference in Ikeji Arakeji. They told us that the Holy Spirit had commanded that the crisis in the Church must come to an end and they were resolved to end the crisis. But to ensure the crisis ends totally, they would reach out to the Oke Ife group, led by Pastor S. O. Ogundare, that group also held a meeting at which they resolved to bring the crisis to an end. They published their resolutions in a newspaper advertisement. Later on, they and the group led by Pastor Omoniyi visited me in the office at Anlugbua here. They told me that Holy Spirit had commanded them to bring the crisis to an end.

 

“The Lagos group took a step further, they practically joined their brethren in Akinyele Region and began the process of unification. They were praying together, they were holding meeting together. They have published the peace communique and mandated me to announce or proclaim that peace is now reigning in the Church. Since then, all the conferences we held virtually this year, they participated in them and they are taking part in the ministers’ wives’ fellowship conference now ongoing.

 

“When the group came visiting, we resolved that we must leave no one behind. They agreed with me that we should invite the WOSEM group led by Pastor (Dr.) Paul Obadare, the CAC Students Association led by Pastor Adeyemo and the Irefin Group led by Pastor Henry Ojo. We have invited them all and none of them is opposed to the unity move”

 

“One unique thing about the fresh peace move is that every group is saying there is no need to insist on having positions before we come together. We informed all the other groups invited of this position taken by our brethren. I remember that Pastor Henry Ojo too agreed to the resolution of the crisis. He even suggested that we have less work to do. All wed need to do is to look at the work already done in 2004 and add or substract from it and unify the Church.”

 

“By the grace of God, they have mandated me to announce the end of the crisis. The next move we want to make is to set up an Integration Committee that would look into how we would smoothen our integration and give us modalities for permanent unity. This committee will look into our structures and where necessary look into constitutional issues and other relevant matters and finetune our complete integration. We shall call our brethren to nominate people into this integration committee. That’s the next issue on our agenda.”