Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00which ought to have french legionaire and these are
00:00:03territories that ought to be directed from Paris.
00:00:07that is how french people think, that is how
00:00:10french
00:00:12of administrators think it is sad thing. the beauty
00:00:15is:
00:00:40of
00:00:40of
00:00:51of
00:00:56in
00:01:05of
00:01:17of
00:01:37of
00:01:48of
00:02:53her graduation everything is just you looking beautiful but i will see
00:02:57use the same voice to beg lagos states and to park
00:03:00dos me on the marina okay, there is dosm everywhere,
00:03:04but
00:03:05you see that one on the marina, on the island, the
00:03:08centers of CBD that I used to be proud of as young girl
00:03:12growing up and writing my exams there, it's breaking my
00:03:15of heart, i still saw them piled in front of just before you get to FCMB,
00:03:19that top building is there, does be yeah, you go
00:03:22forward is there, all of those corporate entities, they two they
00:03:27not help theirself, they
00:05:14Welcome back and thank you for staying with us. The debate
00:05:17over the role of religious leaders in politics has resurfaced
00:05:21following the recent cutsea visit by members the Catholic Bishop's
00:05:25conference of Nigeria to President Bolatinu at
00:05:29the State House. While the meeting was aimed at discussing issues
00:05:33affecting the nation, comments made by cardinal John
00:05:36Onekon to the media afterwards reportedly sparked
00:05:39criticism from the presidency. It igniting
00:05:43conversations about the extent to which clerics should engage in
00:05:46political matters, should religious leaders speak publicly
00:05:50on governance and hold those in power accountable, or should they remain
00:05:54above the political fray to preserve their neutrality and moral
00:05:57authority? can faith leaders engage political office
00:06:01holders without being perceived as partisan, and where should the
00:06:05line be drawn between offering moral guidance and participating
00:06:09in political discourse? to help us unpack these important. Questions
00:06:13were joined by Bishop Steven Adebite, his
00:06:16executive secretary the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission.
00:06:20He shares his perspective on the relationship between faith,
00:06:24leadership, governance, and the responsibility of clerics in
00:06:27shaping the national discourse. Of course, would, as
00:06:31always, would like our viewers to join the conversation by calling us on
00:06:35090-241-6340. And
00:06:39you can join us live on DSTV on channel 164, Twitter. at tvc
00:06:43connects using the hashtag #yourviewtvc and we're
00:06:46streaming live on
00:06:57right into it. uh, what would you make the controversies
00:07:01that have trilled the um catholic bishops conference of
00:07:05Nigeria's visit to the president and also the reactions that have
00:07:08followed afterwards? thank you very much.
00:07:12really
00:07:13it is unfortunate that such should happen, religious leader
00:07:17have the right to visit the presidency and mr president
00:07:21in particular and that will not be the first time, but i
00:07:25think the catholic bishops needs to exercise
00:07:28some restrain, because in the last 12
00:07:32months or there about that will be the second time the be visiting
00:07:36mr president and in christian association of nigeria we have
00:07:40five blocks and the
00:07:43Catholic blog, he just one, you
00:07:46have after the kali, you have the
00:07:50CCN, Christian Council of Nigeria, okay, Christian Council
00:07:54of Nigeria comprises the Methodist, the Anglican, the Baptist, the presbiterian,
00:07:58the lutheran, the first African church mission, the African
00:08:01Church, about 13 denominations, then you now have the th
00:08:05group that is called the CPFM,
00:08:08PFM, and these are the pentecostal, you can imagine the number.
00:08:13then you now have the OAIC, organization of
00:08:16instituted African churches, all the aladura churches you can think
00:08:20of, then finally you now have the Tecan
00:08:23equa, those are predominantly in the north, but you have equa
00:08:27also in the south, yeah, so when you have five blocks and
00:08:30one block always is seeking attention
00:08:34and want to be with Mr. President, and because the closeness of Mr.
00:08:38President to the catholic church, you know, Mr.
00:08:41President remain the only. presidents that attended the
00:08:45investiture the new pole, the current poll,
00:08:48and president was there and the pop appreciated him
00:08:52after was about three months ago I was in Rome and I
00:08:56delivered the message of Mr. President to the Pope and the Pope
00:09:00appreciated my coming and my visit and he gave
00:09:02audience, so and also where you look at the
00:09:06relationship between Mr. President and the retired bishop of
00:09:10Lagos Baba. who was
00:09:1490 years old recently, I attended the service, represented the
00:09:18first lady, represented Mr. President, and also another minister represented
00:09:22Mr. President at that service, that Baba can walk into
00:09:25ashiwaju's house anyt, and that is the relationship
00:09:29develop over the years, because Mr. President is not religious bgot,
00:09:33though a Muslim, but very open to all
00:09:36faith, and he gave encouragement and support to all
00:09:40them from Chimy Memorial. so their visit is very
00:09:44good, but for anybody to now take the visit of
00:09:47mr. to mr president outside the
00:09:50villa and be making comment it after retirement at
00:09:5382, it is unacceptable, because if
00:09:57body have visited mr president, that should be in confidence. okay
00:10:00sir, so the cardinal john anayekan's comments
00:10:04after the meeting repositly has started criticism, made
00:10:08headlines this morning from the presidency as well as reactions from.
00:10:12from
00:10:13you know northern groups and even the FCT minister, what in
00:10:16your view could have been handled differently to thank you very much, when
00:10:20you visit Mr. President, which is not the first time, you should
00:10:24keep... whatever you have discussed with him with him, and Mr.
00:10:28President responded to every point, one after the
00:10:31other, and that should have ended the visit, so for anybody to now
00:10:35take extract from that and be making comments about it, the following the
00:10:39less than 24 hours, it is not acceptable, and whatever
00:10:42comments baba uh has made
00:10:46is for his own alone, not for the church in Nigeria, no for Christian
00:10:50association of Nigeria, and even kindly faithful have started
00:10:54reacting. and saying it's unfair to say that
00:10:58ine chairman, members, commissioners are appointed by
00:11:01Mr. President, what does that mean? is that not the constitutional right
00:11:05the president to appoint such officers? does that make
00:11:08them not to do
00:11:11what is expected to do? if people have done it before and Mr.
00:11:14President his duty as the president of Nigeria, nobody
00:11:18should make such comment and to the extend of saying if
00:11:22people knows that the APC will win election people will not vote,
00:11:26how who are the people you are referring to,
00:11:29no sir, that that is unacceptable, okay sir, not even indically church, you
00:11:33cannot say that, because Mr. President have friends in the
00:11:37Romangelic church throughout the country, okay sir,
00:11:41next question, yeah, so with all these that has happened now, do you think is appropriate for religious
00:11:45leaders to maintain close relationship with those in power? oh, when
00:11:49you look at the scripture, the states and the
00:11:52church are being intertry. interconnected,
00:11:55interrelated and inseparable, and that is the reason
00:11:59when prophet Nathan went to the palace the king
00:12:03David, and he said to the king, somebody had
00:12:0699 uh, rams, or
00:12:10sheep, and another one has one, and the one with 99 has a
00:12:14visitor, and he now collected the one that has one and slaughter for
00:12:18his visitor, and the king responded, whoever has done that,
00:12:22deserve death, and the man of God. was bord enough to
00:12:25tell him you are the one, that shows to you, if you don't have
00:12:29access to the king, how can you be in the palace? so the church and the
00:12:33state are together for a long time from the scripture, and that is
00:12:37what has been happening in, it was president obasanjo
00:12:41that started christian association of nigeria 50 years ago, luckily
00:12:45where
00:12:47in 2026, he started in 1976 and that brought
00:12:51the body of Christ together to have a voice, but over the years...
00:12:55"it has been politicized, even before now,
00:12:59in electing president for Christian association of Nigeria has turned
00:13:03to another thing, and let me say to you, the politics you have in
00:13:07the church is worse than the one in APC and PDP, because if you are
00:13:11in APC, everybody know you are a card carry member of
00:13:14APC, and you are PDP, they know you are in PDP, not the one
00:13:18they do after primary or before primary cross carpetting, we are not
00:13:22talking of those ones, but people belong to..." political party everybody
00:13:26knows, but in the church where you say praise the Lord, everybody
00:13:30respond, hallelujah, after the hallelujah, you better watch your
00:13:33back, another thing can happen any time, and that is the
00:13:37reason why we need to really know what we
00:13:41are doing, so the church has role in the society and
00:13:44also in the nation building, but the role
00:13:48must be critically examined, and we must
00:13:51not any time run the government of... the day
00:13:55down, the duty of any minister of
00:13:59God is to pray for the country, is to pray for the
00:14:02leaders, can you imagine what you have as national
00:14:06term in England, may God bless you, the queen,
00:14:10but presently is the king, and every religious
00:14:14leader, every bishop in cantarby, they know they have a
00:14:17duty to pray for King Charls, so why should religious
00:14:21leader now be the one causing trouble among people in?
00:14:25Nigeria, the one giving inflammatory statements and also f
00:14:28prophets begin to emerge now. All right
00:14:31sir, so I have a question sir, so um,
00:14:35over time we've seen some clerics come out to
00:14:39prophesize or declare or
00:14:41you know attributes some sudden person as winner
00:14:45for election and everything like that, do you think this is part their spiritual
00:14:48mandate or is this just unnecessarily you creating issues
00:14:52for the church? They only want attention. they want to attract
00:14:56crowd and traffic in their social media handles and
00:15:00they are failing in 2023, how many prophecy do you
00:15:04receive
00:15:06that that is not possible ashua you cannot win, this is the one that will win, this
00:15:10is the one that will win by the end the day, what you have
00:15:14to measure the call of a prophet is that whatever the
00:15:18prophesy must come to pass, but in this all these
00:15:21prophets you have in Nigeria today, who have gone to the... of
00:15:25professing between the winner of Manchester United and
00:15:28Arsenal, how can you take those ones serious? they've started a
00:15:31game, but by the time election is over in January, results are
00:15:35announced, there will be no true perfect. Nigeria, so the work
00:15:39of Mr. President will speak for him, and that is what people
00:15:43want, nobody says you should be in this one, be that one,
00:15:47but market your own candidates, don't discredit
00:15:50any other, so prophet see the are giving,
00:15:54we have 99% false prophets in Nigeria,
00:15:58only one or point f are real prophets
00:16:02and when you see prophet of God, you will know, because by their
00:16:05fruits we shall know there. is lot that you have said today,
00:16:09um, but I would like to given what, most of your
00:16:13responses, are you there for saying that um, clerics
00:16:16should not speak on governance or national issues, even if
00:16:20it puts them at odds with government? oh, why not? if
00:16:24you know me, if you look at my track record, you will know
00:16:28that i'm one the people that will say the truth and nothing but the truth.
00:16:32okay, two days ago, i was a meeting with mr. governor of lagos state
00:16:36and i said to him, "there are things we must do,
00:16:39and I gave example, I said, if you go to CMS today, the
00:16:43CMS that we are used to, it's messed up, and you
00:16:47have alcada coming against
00:16:50traffic at CMS, you must clear it,
00:16:54whether they are military or not, they have no rights to be riding
00:16:58ocada in those places, there are places you have mapped out that no
00:17:01alka should write here, and if they are doing it, it's a
00:17:05contravention to the law of Legocy." and that should be corrected and
00:17:09mr. mr. governor appreciated that and he said something to the people, do you
00:17:12know one thing i love about bishop, he will tell you the truth whether you
00:17:16like it or not, but in saying the truth we must
00:17:20not now cyc the truth because of our own
00:17:24selfish interests, people know where we
00:17:27stand, and you now be saying that so that people can be convinced you are
00:17:31delivering the message of God or you are being critical and not so
00:17:34given uh criticism,
00:17:36you know there are two... side of criticism, you have constructive criticism
00:17:40which will help government to perform, and you have destructive
00:17:43criticism that nobody will accept if you are not saying the obvious
00:17:47and that is what we will go against before
00:17:50now, during election and after election, and we have said
00:17:54it, we should not allow the church of God to be divided, but if
00:17:58people think they can come out and be saying reckless statements about
00:18:01mr. president, mr. governor, whatever, anybody that
00:18:05is in government, we will also... big, they are religious leaders, we are
00:18:09also religious leaders, sir, you seem to be, because I think criticism
00:18:13is a balance thing, that's right, depends on how it comes out, but you
00:18:17seem to have been speaking on the side the president lot more, are you a supporter
00:18:21the president, oh, I don't think
00:18:24anybody does not know that, Mr. President appointed me
00:18:28to be in charge of programmage, and I've done that the last three
00:18:31years, and why do I believe in Mr. President,
00:18:34Mr. President started that is... religious bigger from lagos
00:18:38states 20 7 26 years
00:18:42ago and he happened to be the first
00:18:46person to establish pilgrimage and
00:18:49pilgrimage board where i served many years and
00:18:53after that the relationship he created in lagos
00:18:56state between the two faith mr president
00:19:00returned 13 schools to lagos states
00:19:03to religious leaders in lagos states the methodit
00:19:07high school, the methodist girls high school, the bobe college, baptist
00:19:11academy, the African grammar school, uh, St.
00:19:14Fimbers, and many other schools like that, and today,
00:19:18and I was one the people that received those schools, today I said to
00:19:22you, those school remain best schools in legos state, and that
00:19:26is what we believe in him, what he has done, and the plan he has for Legos
00:19:30State for 20 years, which is now extending more than 20 years,
00:19:33we said if somebody can do that in Lagos, he will do better at the nation.
00:19:37level and he has been president for three and some months
00:19:41years now, it's only a blind who does not know that is
00:19:45reformation, transformation in Nigeria, if you talk of
00:19:48education, telefone is there, people who do not have
00:19:52money can now go to university with loan, so
00:19:56but it would seem like you you can no longer speak truth
00:19:59to to power because there's no perfect person and therely no perfect
00:20:02president, are there nothing that you can criticize or is
00:20:05this, it's just
00:20:07that your... so loyalty to the president is it preventing you from you speaking truth
00:20:11to oh
00:20:11that is not correct okay and that is why you will see me if you hacks
00:20:15other government appointees
00:20:16what i said today is that number one mr president cannot
00:20:20be in all the places if he has appointed you
00:20:24you should do your work diligently and you must deliver and if there are
00:20:27things you are doing that is not correct you must be able to correct
00:20:31it and for instance in my own office i discovered
00:20:35the civil service the way they operate is not the way i believe they show
00:20:39operates, number one, lot of people, lot of civil
00:20:42servic, but when i resume
00:20:45work, there are times i travel from lagos, for instance let me shock you that
00:20:49i came to
00:20:50to lagos this morning from ebado and i was there before 9 o'clock
00:20:53because i know my duty, everyone in Nigeria
00:20:57must do theirs, mr. president cannot be all over the
00:21:01place, so if Mr. President have increased allocation going
00:21:05to states times three, who is now saying is the duty
00:21:09of his president to provide this in the state, to provide this in
00:21:13the state, so any state that is not doing the right thing, we normally tell
00:21:17them, and i use my own state as an... example for
00:21:20you in state things are not done properly and i said to
00:21:24mr governor say i'm from this state but don't living
00:21:28illegal for the past 30 years you must do the right thing here let
00:21:31people know what you supposed to do so i criticize anything
00:21:35that is all right so sir you know many people will be
00:21:39listening to you today and thinking you have spoken
00:21:43um quite forcefully on how you tell the
00:21:47truth always you willing to critic. size,
00:21:51but it may seem that you're not giving the
00:21:54another party the same right that you have to criticize
00:21:58others, that's one. secondly,
00:22:00you know, in Christiandom were taught that when we have
00:22:04issues or differences, we go back home or into the
00:22:07community and discuss this, instead of
00:22:11like back and forth, especially in the media, you're coming
00:22:15out today, does this seem like uh, doesn't it come
00:22:18across for some people? the see that it comes across as if you
00:22:21are um going against your brothers
00:22:25in you know in
00:22:27the in the fold instead of sitting down in a
00:22:31private place discuss this issue and then come out with one
00:22:34voice if the avenue is provided
00:22:38if you have a brother that does not believe in what you
00:22:41do and
00:22:42it's unfortunate that you know for if
00:22:46you don't know i am the chairman of christian association of nigerian lagos.
00:22:50and I'm also a member the national executive body
00:22:54of can, but if people you expect to be at meeting don't come to
00:22:58meetings even your decisions are not respected by
00:23:02them, but they believe they are the only one that knows
00:23:05everything and whatever they want, they are the one that will pursue
00:23:08it, there is no way the place the Holy Spirit in all of this,
00:23:12exactly, there is no way you will now keep quiet when they are saying what
00:23:16is not correct, because I don't belong to that school of thoughts.
00:23:20"I give everybody opportunity to hear their view, but we must
00:23:23agree, but if we don't agree, you cannot go mr. to mr president and
00:23:27present your own view as a view the church, that is the point
00:23:31here, but if they come to a meeting, I am free, I am open
00:23:35to attend meeting with anybody, any group, that is why people have
00:23:39access to the presidency, if because some of us are serving
00:23:42there and we say no, don't accept these people, don't accept these people, how can they be there,
00:23:46but because we believe everybody..." has mr
00:23:50president here and you can visit him and he's accommodating
00:23:54everybody, but that must be done with decorum, that must be done with
00:23:57respect. okay, and we must agree, if it is Christian association of
00:24:01Nigeria that visited Mr. president, and the president the
00:24:05Christian association of Nigeria presented our case, you
00:24:09will never see me go against it, because it's a collective
00:24:13decision, but a block, that's what I'm saying, in
00:24:17can, when we have five,
00:24:19you cannot. go there and tell his president this is the position the
00:24:23church? no, we will not accept that. so you're insisting that he's representing just
00:24:26himself and the block that he belongs to. okay, okay, so that's
00:24:30why some nigerians believe that um, some of you
00:24:34um that you people should stay out of politics. um, but a country
00:24:38where we know that religion plays a very significant role, what do you
00:24:42think? we cannot stay out of politics unless we are deceiving ourselves.
00:24:45augustin says every human being is a political animal, like
00:24:49i said to you, I said the politics we have in church is more than
00:24:53the one you have outside, for instance, I give you another example, I told you I
00:24:57came from ebador, we are having the conference of this church Nigeria and as
00:25:01I'm speaking and I got permission from the president the
00:25:04church to be here, we are going to elect
00:25:08bishops this week or Sunday morning,
00:25:12in zener politics, we are going to vote and the one
00:25:16that has the highest vote will match and there is no way.
00:25:20when you have human beings, people will lobby, people will say this, people will
00:25:24converse for vote, but we will tell everybody allow holy spirit
00:25:27to direct, but immediately we enter where we are going to
00:25:31vote, people will tell you holy spirit will leave us, so let's do our
00:25:35own, and they now begin to vote, they now begin to speak
00:25:39for this, and when you now have period like this, you
00:25:43begin to hear story about ministers, those that are true,
00:25:47those that are unreal, everybody will be presenting their own, but at the end
00:25:50the day there will still be election and people
00:25:54will match winner which is also politics all right so
00:25:58do you think that um cleric should speak out more forcefully on good?
00:26:02governance and them because we know that there are even the
00:26:06presidency, we know that all um policy goes through the
00:26:09presidency, so if there are some policies that are unjust, can you
00:26:13speak forcefully against it, even though it to put out odds
00:26:17against the presidency, definitely, that's that is the reason we
00:26:21believe in what is right, if you do anything that is
00:26:24not right, i will not be part of it, even as you have a political
00:26:28position with my position and mr president knows
00:26:31me? everybody knows me that I will say the truth and I
00:26:35will make suggestion that anything that would not be people
00:26:39oriented, things that will not benefit the majority the
00:26:43people, we don't take such decision, because we cannot defend
00:26:46it, if there are things that we need to
00:26:49mention that we can look at this from this way, Mr. President, let us
00:26:53check this way, and that will be considered, and that was what
00:26:57Mr. President said, if you read what he responded
00:27:00to, he said, "anything you think is not right,
00:27:04bring it on table, let us look at it together, and from time to
00:27:08time we will discuss them and ensure that the proper things
00:27:12are done for the people, and the reason is because one day
00:27:16we're going to leave the office, yeah, and people will
00:27:19now see what we have done, posterity will
00:27:22vindicate, yes, or speak against us, all right sir, thank you for
00:27:26that, but let's go a short break, when we come back, we'll conclude this conversation,
00:27:30stay with us, we'll be right back."
00:27:38Stay tuned, your view will be right
00:27:41back.
00:28:16Yeah, I wanted to ask you know um, because when you were talking earlier, you mentioned,
00:28:20you know that some these comments were made for their social media following, so
00:28:24how would you say social media and public opinion have made
00:28:28it more difficult for clerics to interact with political leaders without?
00:28:32been misunderstood, you know now everybody is
00:28:36newscaster, everybody is a broadcaster, everybody
00:28:40now operates their own studio in their own homes
00:28:43and their convenience, because the social
00:28:47media, the phone that you have once you can type,
00:28:51now it do even give you the correct spelling, because when you read some comment you
00:28:55will shake your head, but there are application that will
00:28:59give you the correct spelling and you begin to type just anything, hm. and you put
00:29:03it out there, that is why it is very, very
00:29:06important for religious leaders to be conscious of whatever they
00:29:10say, because before you say it is already in
00:29:14the uh marketplace and people begin to comment on
00:29:17them, and the social media have done more evil than
00:29:21good to our society, he has made us more
00:29:25lazy than before, because there is nothing you want on your
00:29:29head i will not give you a thousand results and moment you
00:29:33speak, they will put it there i help you to spread
00:29:36it on all angles, so that is why we are saying to
00:29:40ourselves, yes, it's true, social media can help us to spread
00:29:44the gospel, can help us to propagate the gospel, but at the same
00:29:47time it must be handled with caution so
00:29:51that we don't deray and we don't mislead the
00:29:55people, because we are opinion builders
00:29:58and we can tell people what to do, but once we say
00:30:02Hm, it will be difficult to retrieve. Yeah, okay, so we need to be
00:30:06careful, especially with social media. We have call,
00:30:10um, Shagu is calling us from Ikorodu, good morning shegun. Hello,
00:30:14good morning, my sisters, good morning,
00:30:18yeah, good morning, yeah, I want to greet all of you in the
00:30:22studio there, you know, yeah, I want
00:30:24to, yeah, I'm listening to
00:30:27everything that the bishop of say, okay, I want to ask
00:30:31one question. is um what the cat
00:30:35priest, the catholic bishops, what they said to Mr.
00:30:38President, is he, is he right or wrong, and at the same
00:30:42time,
00:30:43are they speaking the mind of at least average Nigerian, is
00:30:47there insecurity in the land, is there poverty in the
00:30:50land, is there aship in the land, I want the
00:30:54bishop to respond, and at the same time, see, when we are
00:30:58talking national TV,