Pastor Jide Akiode is the Pastor in charge of FCT Region 10 of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Abuja. In an exclusive interview with The BeautifulDay Testimonial, he shares his mind on the steps being taken to move the church forward and having a better Nigeria. Excerpts.
Can we meet you, Sir?
My name is Jide Akiode. I am the Pastor in charge of FCT Region 10 in Abuja. I was transferred there in year 2022. Prior to that, I was in Region 9 from 2018 to 2022; that was 4 years, and got transferred to Abuja in September, 2022. So, I’ve been here barely 2 years now. And within one year, we had regions creation.
What actually prompted the creation of these Regions 45 and 46?
One of the things that inspire our growth is, when you grow to a level, you should have a division which is an integral part of growth. We break; we shift some parts of the original to a new one. So, Region 10 since its creation, had not had to create another one at the regional level and we grew to be 18 provinces which were quite large. So, I think that’s one of the basic growth formulas of RCCG; it wasn’t unexpected.
Another thing I’ll say to it is that our Continental Overseer, Daddy E. A. Odeyemi, had it in view before when he was the Pastor in charge of Region and A.G.O in charge of training. In fact, it had been separated before I got there. But, he had it in view that at a stage, we need to create regions. So, when he noted the idea that it has been in view before I came, we just worked together on it.
Since you got to Abuja, what are the factors you think are responsible for the exponential growth that has led to the creation of two regions at a time?
Like I said, they had not created Region in a long time, they have been creating provinces. And you know that when we do such things, we give room for other people to move up.
But the secret behind the growth of Abuja family is, we have always been one united family. I think one of the secrets of our exponential growth is unity and that is why we are dedicated and hardworking. And we have a good foundation.
What are the negative impacts that the creation of regions has had on the existing Region 10?
Nothing basically. When you are controlling 18 provinces, definitely you will have more finances. But the finance has been split into 3. That is just the challenge and that is natural. We have been split into 3, and the overall too is split into 3 because all the 3 regions have the same cost that we were bearing alone before. Apart from the fact that we don’t have the numbers we used to have, I don’t think it’s gotten any negative impact. And financially, because the responsibilities have reduced too. We don’t have to spend on 18 provinces; we now have to spend on 6 provinces. The finance reduced, what we have to do in terms of coverage reduced too.
By September, those Regions will be one year, how can you assess their development?
Everybody is making impact and at the same time, adjusting. This one year was a majestic period because whether you like it or not, they share the same duties with me; they have to plant churches, they have to support parishes, and they have to create provinces. So, everybody is in an adjusting mode to see how to manage the little we have.
They shouldn’t have issues because they don’t have the privilege of having 18; they just have the privilege of 6 to start with. So, they don’t need to bother themselves about what I used to control.
Everybody has done well: coping to redoing your budget to something you can live within, what is available while you’re trusting God, believing God for more because you still have the same Abuja that you are working through. So, cost of building, cost of land is not going down. Whether you have 18 or you have 6, you still have to buy land. We are trusting God for increase. At least, we do not owe anybody and one or two developmental stuffs are taking place.
As a Pastor in charge of Region, what are your challenges and how have you been able to overcome these, and what are your success stories?
People want to serve God. If you have been to Abuja before, sometimes people live very far from where their churches are located. So, the cost of commuting; either you are fuelling the car, or you are paying transport fare, could be a lot. But, I thank God people are coping. The fact that you still see people turn up on Sundays is encouraging. So, the number one challenge is about being able to gather people from different locations where they come from; majority of the people live in the outskirts because of cost of accommodation in this city. For churches that are in the city, sometimes you might need to get buses to go and bring people and that is another cost. So, in order to mitigate attendance dropping, we need to mobilize resources, get buses to bring people. Then, these days, we have to do a lot of CSR to get them to come to church and that’s what I think everybody is doing not only in Abuja.
How have you been able to meet the needs of the less privileged members?
One of it is getting buses to bring them to church and when they come, we give them something to go back home with, assist in paying school fees once in a while. We just do whatever we can do CSR-wise. We have to spend more money on CSR and all the parishes. So, that’s a huge cost.
Assuming the provinces in the two regions are still under you, what advice do you have to offer them to ensure that they maintain the growth?
The tag ‘Abuja’ puts anybody in Abuja in a tight corner because they believe that is where all the money in Nigeria is shared. So, they believe we have more. As a person, you need to be realistic. The regulation in Abuja is different. You can’t just put your church anywhere; they’ll pull it down. We have incidence of churches being pulled down. So, everybody, like I said, is coping pretty well.
Yes, you might not be able to assist some provinces as much as you will love to. But, I believe the 3 regions are pulling their weight to make sure that what we inherited did not die, its sustained while at the same time, you’re planting new churches which is what we are doing.
We were informed that in Abuja, we have people in high places as Parish Pastors and Area Pastors with ego issues; how do you manage such situation when you have somebody as your subordinate probably in a high place. Has there been any experience of ego and how have you been able to navigate that?
I have never had one. Reason is, as a child of God, the word of God is your enabler. So, if you are a child of God, it doesn’t matter how high you are, the word of God says: ‘You should condescend to men of low estate.’ So, in this case, your Pastor is a man of low estate. If you know yourself, you wouldn’t have issues with people. So, you need to know yourself and behave as a child of God. What does the Bible require of you as a child of God or as a Pastor? Behave well, respect yourself; if you respect yourself, people will respect you.
Abuja is the city of the Federal Government of Nigeria, which means you are very close to people in authority; in view of the country’s economic situation, if you meet one on one with the president, what would you advise him to do?
I would advise the president to be a man of integrity. You know one thing with leadership? Followership finds it difficult to follow when as a leader you say this and do another one. No integrity. If the president lives as a man of integrity, he will be transparent and love Nigeria.
Integrity is basic; then, the love for the nation. He should love the nation and love the people. If you see yourself first as a father before you see yourself as the president, you will know there should be food on the table of your citizens, you will know there should be free transportation, you will know there should be jobs.
As peculiar as the task of the president is, what he inherited was already a mess. The only reason why I would not exonerate him is because he has been part of them for over 30 years, so you can’t exonerate him. It is his party that has been in power. So, we have a little sympathy for the fact that what he met was a mess.
So, can you say he’s a man of integrity?
All I can say is he should be a man of integrity, he should leave a legacy. Let’s say this is the only choice we have in life, to be in this position, what legacy do you want to leave?
Clean the table of Nigerians that is messed up. Integrity; and it takes one man to do this thing, it takes a man standing out to say I won’t do certain things and the moment people realize you are keeping to your words, you will discover that they will follow you. There is a power of one. If one man is doing the right thing; check at the traffic light. When one man stops, there could be one or two people that will drive pass you and go. But, another man will stop behind you, before you know it, it becomes a crowd effect. It’s just because one man decided to stop for the red light. So, we are just at a state where one man has to stop for the red light and show us the green light.
So, let me be very honest, I see the president as a marketplace person when it comes to the economy. From the way he led back then in Lagos State. Economically, I think he knows what to do; it could be challenging doing it. So, integrity is key to leading this nation.
On the occasion of Regions 45 & 46 one year anniversary, what word of encouragement do you have for them?
We are Christian soldiers, I know it has been tough for the past one year, maybe what they expected is not what they saw; and that is how it goes. I learnt something early in the ministry: when they put you in a hole, create your routes.
I have been sent to a place before where there was no office; there was nothing. Of course, I was the one that searched for an office; there was no building to the name of the church in that place. But, with time, I got support from people who God used to contribute to the growth of the church; we were able to start up something and see how far God has brought us today. I did not give up, we did not give up.
So, I will just encourage them not to be scared. They will grow, the future is bright. All we need to do is mobilize our people, do the right things together. God helping us, we’ll get there.
Finally, Sir, on the issue of vision 2032, what step is your Region in Abuja family taking to ensure that the vision becomes a reality?
I will speak for myself; one of the things I discovered is that vision 2032 is realizable even before 2032, by God’s grace; it is possible. But we need to invest in the parishes that are at the base; that is where our strength lies. So, one of the things we are doing is try to shore up those parishes because, the clusters of vision 2032 didn’t tell you how to get the money to do that. It is just that you need to grow a parish from 20 to 100, but it’s a lot of money. Some of the places where we have our churches, if some of us are not pastors, we won’t enter that place to worship. So, we need money to do this and we are working on that. Some provinces are doing massive CSR.
Then, the second thing we are doing is, we made up our mind in Region 10, we are not planting churches anyhow. I have told them we can’t be planting churches that they will pull down tomorrow. So, if we are not going to plant such churches, what do we do? We need to get more money, we have to buy land in the right places, and then we are starting parishes in a big way.
In that regard, we said instead of always involving in ‘let’s-go-a-fishing’, planting several churches, we will like to put all our resources into one place and plant one parish that will not rapture before Jesus comes.
So, that’s what we are doing to push vision 2032 because, the result is always huge when you start it well with good environment, good facilities; within one year, it is possible the parish that you started with 20 people will multiply to 200 with the right personnel there. Because, what Daddy G.O wants is an established church.
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