All Pentecostal Stakeholders wade into the brewing crisis in Lagos PFN

The All Pentecostal Stakeholders have stepped into the disagreement in the Lagos state chapter of the the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) over the recent elections in the chapter where Rev. Toyin Kehinde was elected the new chairman of the Lagos PFN.

According to media reports Rev. Toyin Kehinde, Senior Pastor, Agape Christian International Church, Maryland, Lagos and an erstwhile state secretary of the Lagos PFN was elected the new chairman by the PFN members in the state but some of the members disagreed with the conducts of the elections that threw up Kehinde as the Lagos PFN new leader. The height of the disagreement was the purported annulment of the elections by the chairman of the Lagos state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Bishop Stephen Adegbite.

In a swift response to the annulment of the elections by Bishop Adegbite, the All Pentecostal Stakeholders at a recent press conference held in Lagos dismissed the annulment of the elections and advised Adegbite; the Lagos CAN chairman and a Methodist clergy, to stay clear of the affairs of the Lagos state PFN leadership.

Bishop Dr John Ighalo, the convener of the All Pentecostal Stakeholders, at the conference, dismissed the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)’s meddlesome in the affairs of the Lagos PFN as interloping. His words: What has the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) got to do with the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. The PFN is the most contributing financial contributor to the CAN? Why is the CAN interloping in the affairs of the PFN? What efforts has the CAN headed by Bishop Adegbite made to liase with the upper echelon of the PFN before he made the purported statement (the annulment of the recent Lagos PFN elections) attributed to him?

“My advice to Bishop Adegbite is he should stay on his own side of the line. The CAN is known to have played to the gallery over time. The fact that some of us have kept quiet over time is not that we are weaklings. We cannot allow destabilization to be the order in the kingdom business. We also cannot bring ethnicity to play in it. We cannot use the word ‘Lagos is for us.’ The kingdom is for us all. Inciting statements are not acceptable to the body of Christ. I will advise him not to condescend so low in attending to issues. If the CAN is an overriding body he shouldn’t do that on the pages of newspapers. He should be able to consult and discuss with other people. It is out of place for him to begin to create problems in the Lagos PFN,”Ighalo advised.

Bishop Ighalo states further, “I also read that the youth wing of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria planned to write to the embassies to stop the leaders from travelling out of the country. Enough is enough of attempts towards destabilization. We have suffered too much in the hands of the CAN leaders and the PFN leaders. We shouldn’t sit down and watch them destroy what the PFN founding fathers have built. They took time to build the PFN. Charlatans should not emerge as the PFN leaders. The CAN have no rights over the PFN leadership affairs. Bishop Adegbite is an interloper in the PFN leadership affairs, and this is unacceptable to us. All the people and their sponsors trying to destabilize the PFN should stop it. We know how to handle our leaders if they go wrong. Those who are not children of the covenant should not do what the children of the covenant are doing. So, Adegbite should leave the PFN alone to handle her problems. Annulment of elections is solely rested and vested in the PFN president. It is out of place to bring the world politics into church politics.

He continues: “The office of PFN president is more of a pontifical and papal position with so power vested in the president. If there is an election in the PFN, it would still rest on the table of the president to give the  final verdict. Elections were conducted and the president flew the kite sponsored by some individuals, and said the elections should be annulled because the awareness was not enough. The supervisors were not properly constituted. What are the constitutional provisions and the vested powers in the president? If he has the vested power to approve or disapprove; he should be given the rights to exercise his power,” Ighalo remarks

He linked the disagreement over the recent Lagos PFN elections to politics, and fared that if not curtained, it may snowball into crisis in the Lagos PFN. “We see the kite being flown by some elements in the annulment of the elections in the Lagos PFN. My position remains fatherly and unbiased. We see the hand of Esau but the voice of Jacob. We see elements that seem to want to fracture, dismember or disorganize the sanctity of the administration of the PFN in Lagos and Nigeria. The cause of the matters is politics. Both the CAN and the PFN have been infiltrated by the Nigerian factor and the Nigerian politics. This ought not to be within the corridors of the Kingdom. The Kingdom administration is different from political administration.

“The office of the PFN president is more of a pontifical and papal position with so much power vested in the president. If there is an election in the PFN, it will rest on table of the president to give the final verdict. Elections were conducted and the president flew the kite sponsored by some individuals, that the elections should be annulled because its awareness was not enough. Its supervisors were not properly constituted. He has his points but the question is what are the constitutional provisions or the vested powers in the president? If he has vested powers to approve or disapprove; he should be given the rights to exercise his powers.”Also speaking at the press meeting, Dr. Bolaji Akinyemi, Convener, Apostolic Round Table (ART), warned leaders to be very careful and guarded in their public utterances. He recalled how the great French revolution was ignited by an unguarded comment by the queen over scarcity of bread. “This is a very pressing time for Nigeria, so the people in power must be very careful in their comments to the public. The current situation of the country is not convenient. So, we have to tread with cautions. During the last election, Lagos state was divided along tribal lines. We shouldn’t allow these people (the leaders) to keep heading us to the path of destruction, particularly the people of the kingdom, where tribes do not exist at all. Jesus Christ shut down the partitioning of tribes,'” Akinyemi advised