Reverend Yinka Yusuf and Apostle Wole Oladiyun are the two eminently qualified recipients of the 2025 Benefits Awards for Missionary Excellence (BAME Award) for Christian Missions in recognition of the outstanding impacts of their crusades. Yinka Yusuf; raised in a very strong Islamic family of Ilorin Emirate, Kwara state and a self-confessed disrupter of Christian crusades until Christ arrested him, started holding the same crusades for Christ right from his undergraduate days at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria since 1986; barely two years after he renounced Islam and accepted Christ in 1984. Yussuf, now totally sold out for Christ as a crusader; holding crusades across Nigeria to other nations, shares with Christian Benefits magazine his conversion story as a former Christian crusades disorganizer to now a fiery organizer of the same Christian crusades globally on the platform Yinka Yusuf Power Crusade. A rugged evangelist and sound teacher, Yussuf, who is also the Senior pastor of Household of Love Church, in this interview tackles Dr. Abel Damina’s re-interpretations of the scriptures, condemnation of some Christian practices and attacks on some elderly ministers. He sternly warns the controversial Uyo-based preacher of the consequences of using the Church to create contents for the social media. Excerpts below.
How would you love to be introduced sir?
My name is Pastor Olayinka Yussuf. I am an evangelist and pastor. I pastor the Household of Love Church. I am the President Yinka Yusuf Power crusade.
Can we have a look at your background, including your salvation encounter?
I was born into a strong Muslim family from Ilorin in Kwara State. We grew up in Lokoja. My father was the imam of Lokoja and an assistant to the Emir. I studied and graduated in sociology from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. I accepted Christ while seeking admission into the university.
Tell us more about how you accepted Christ from a strong Islamic family
Before accepting Christ I used to have a relationship with the Church in a negative way. I belonged to the palm wine drinkers club; going to churches for Christian songs to be corrupted to palm wine drinker songs. I also used to disrupt Christian crusades until Christ arrested me and made me a crusader of the same gospel that I always disrupted like how Saul, later Apostle Paul persecuted the Christians before he became a Christian too. The Ilorin Islamic Institute is very hostile to Christians and more fanatical than that of the north. There had never been a nominal Christian in my family until I became the first to be a Christian. Before then, I was the most antagonistic person in my family against Christianity. Like the story of Paul, I used to disrupt crusades. That was what I hated most about Christianity until I accepted Christ on one particular night in Zaria. I was going for a party in a Zaria hotel and went to the ABU female hostel to pick a lady to follow me. And I saw this lady who would later become my wife. I had actually called her to talk her into following me to the party. Ironically, at the end I told her I wanted to be born again. She was surprised! Prior to that time, God had told her at the fellowship that there was someone He wanted her to get saved. She was coming from the fellowship when I accosted her to follow me to the party. Instead, she led me to Christ that night in 1984 at the basketball court.
Briefly, share with us your lifestyle generally before you accepted Christ
I was a very social person with negative friends that influenced me into drinking. My life was a beer parlor life. All my friends were drunkards. We lived a riotous life. I was also not given to education. My younger siblings had all gone to school and graduated before I sought admission into the university. I was the black sheep in the family. My parents never believed I could amount to anything in life because of the life I lived. It was after I accepted Christ that I realized there is more to life.
How would you describe your walk with the Lord these past 38 years?
My walk with the Lord has been consistent. I accepted Christ in 1984 and started ministry in 1986. I became a pastor almost immediately. When I accepted Christ, I was disowned by my parents. I lived in an uncompleted church building in Zaria. I was thirsty of knowing God, so I was always reading the Bible. I had no friends. The Muslims couldn’t accept me neither could the Christians. The Christians thought I was a spy and looked at me with suspicion. This aided my steady growth in the Christian faith such that I was able to spend more time with the word. I was trained by the Holy Spirit. I never attended any Bible school. Nobody taught me how to start a church. One day a message came in the church that I am a pastor.
As a young believer, who were those you looked up as your mentors?
I wasn’t accepted. The church didn’t accept me. It was even difficult for me to work as an usher in the church because they believed I was sponsored by the Muslims to spy the church. So, I didn’t have any mentor or role model. I relied on the word of God and the Holy Spirit. I was also not a student at the time. So, I had enough time to wait upon the Lord and depend on the Holy Spirit. It was after I accepted Christ that I miraculously secured admission into Ahmadu Bello University (ABU).
Tell us how you received the call to ministry and the mandate of your calling
The night I accepted Christ was the very night I was filled with the Holy Spirit. It was the same night I began hearing the voice of God. After my conversion that night, I had a very dramatic experience. I could hear the voice of God very clearly. When I got back to the room, my friends were waiting for me to bring home a girl. They were surprised to see me back home alone. I began preaching to them. We used to buy cigarettes collectively. After I accepted Christ, God told me to throw the cigarettes away and I did instantly. They questioned me why I threw them away but couldn’t do anything. They were surprised that something had happened to me. After a while they withdrew from me. That was where my loneliness began.
How does your coming from a zealous Islamic background impact on both your walk and work with Christ today?
My Islamic background helped me to understand the differences in religions, and why some Christians don’t actually understand the person of God. Most Christians understand Christianity as a religion but don’t understand the person of God. God is a person. His personality talks about relationship. God is a relational being unlike the gods of other religions. A lot of Christians don’t understand God to be a relational God, so they don’t involve him. I separate myself from lots of brethren so that I can know God and follow him on the basis of one-on-one relationship with him. This helps me greatly. This is what has been keeping me in the faith till now.
What is the specific mandate of your call to ministry?
When I accepted Christ I had no call. God just told me he was going to use me, but didn’t tell me what exactly he was going to use me for. However, I started by serving my pastor; the vice chancellor (VC) of Ahmadu Bello University then. When I accepted Christ I joined a fellowship. The VC owned Savannah Clinic opposite the university. One day we went to preach to his wife because we wanted to use the hospital hall for our campus fellowship. When we were done, she accepted Christ and gave us permission to use the hall. When the VC started a church, I joined the church. He became my pastor and I submitted to him. I served and pastored there. I was usually called to pray for the sick. God took over from there. He helped me to understand His person. While serving in that ministry my ambition was to be a businessman to make money for God’s work. Four of my friends and I floated a petrochemical company and we were doing very well. I served the ministry for about four years even during my NYSC. After my NYSC, the Lord told me I wasn’t going back to that ministry. He instructed me to move to Kaduna. When I moved to Kaduna I started a fellowship and began preaching the love of God to the people. This is how we arrived at our church name, Household of Love Church. While I was in Kaduna, on a particular day on the way to Namibia the Lord appeared to me in the plane and specifically gave me the mandate to be organizing crusades. He instructed me clearly to carry the cross across the nations of the world. This is where we got our slogan: Taking the cross across the nations.
What informed Household of Love relocation from Kaduna to Lagos?
The odyssey of our church actually goes this way. Initially, we started the church in my house before moving to Sabo in Kaduna where we became the biggest church in that area. I began organizing crusades. We also had a revival meeting that was attended by many people. The church grew so much that we moved to a stadium. One day, the Lord told me I had done enough, and instructed us to move to Abuja. We moved the church to Abuja and started all over. My wife and I had to squat with someone starting the church in Abuja. We left all that we had in Kaduna; including houses and cars, when we moved to Abuja. With time, the church grew massively and we began organizing big crusades. We brought about a revival of evangelism in Abuja. I became the face of evangelism in the churches in Abuja. Later the government closed down the first and the second structures of our church in Abuja. We then moved the church to a hall at Sheraton Hotel. From Sheraton Hotel we moved to Hilton Hotel where the church grew more massively. The Lord told me again that I had done enough and instructed me to move to Lagos. We had built about six branches in Abuja. When we moved the church to Lagos we started squatting again until we settled down. It has all been by the direction of God.
What has been sustaining you over these years organizing power crusades?
When I was in the university I desired to see people healed. I used to go from hospital to hospital praying for the sick. As a student I used to go to villages on their market days gathering people for crusade in the market places. We had lots of encounters and experiences. That was how the crusades started from ABU.
How many states in Nigeria have you spread the gospel to, and in how many countries of the world?
We have lost counts of the numbers of places in Nigeria and some other nations of the world that we have organized crusades. We have been to several places.
How do you fund the crusades?
I don’t know how the meetings are funded. Crusades are expensive but I do them because it is God’s project. The Lord provides me with what I need even before I ask. Aside that, crusades attract a lot of attack because it is the warfront of Christianity. In as much as it is expensive, it is also emotionally draining which is why many people run away from it. I may not survive if I stop doing crusades.
How do you balance organizing crusades and running a very vibrant church?
I am an evangelistic pastor. I have a church that is purpose-driven. The passion for God and the things of God has been planted in the members. The word of God makes the people. Jesus was a teacher but was also an evangelist. When Jesus raised his disciples, he also raised them to send them out.
Why do you run an academy instead Sunday school at Household of Love?
Sunday school is religious. The academy was established for people to be trained and enlisted for the purpose of the kingdom. Everybody in the church is one.
What is the vision behind your next move to raise crusaders across Nigeria?
I clocked 62 years old February thua year 2025. So, I won’t have enough strength any more to do most of the things I used to do the way I used to do them. Now, I am trying to raise and give a platform to young ministers to minister during our crusades. Some people understand the roles and the offices of a pastor but they don’t understand the character that keeps him there. As a result of naivety they don’t have access to the blessings of the office. The gospel is a blessing. Everyone that preaches the gospel is blessed. The gospel is a mystery. It is not about succeeding. It is rather about fulfilling the scriptures.
What is your take on the state of the Nigerian church today?
The power of the church is what has become the problem of the church. When we accepted Christ we didn’t have the access to the powerful truth which is the power of the doctrine of grace. The greatest truth in the Bible is grace. Grace was not in the initial plan of God; grace is correctional. Grace came because sin came. Christ was not in the initial plan. The coming of Christ was to repair what Adam destroyed. Jesus Christ is the second Adam. Christianity is an expression of grace. There is a kind of life that is above sin. The state of the Nigerian churches such that teaches the people what to do when they fall, and not how to live so they don’t fall. Jesus didn’t enjoy grace because there was no need for it. God didn’t plan for grace but he factored in man’s fall which is why the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world. I’m not called to preach to church. I’m called to preach to pastors. Christianity is watery; the scripture is the power. As a Muslim, the first thing they would teach is that the Quran is the finality of all knowledge. So, no matter what anybody says if it is contrary to the Quran it is not true. Before Jesus was crucified, the people had tried to arrest him many times. When Peter brought out the sword he told him to keep it where it was supposed to be because all that was happening was meant to fulfill the scriptures. Jesus Christ who was God himself in man form had to quote man’s words to authenticate his sayings. If Jesus quotes scriptures who is man to say the scripture is not the word of God.
How are you making a reference to Dr. Abel Damina’s controversial posture on the Bible in recent times?
The Bible was written by holy men inspired. What makes the Bible the Bible is the inspiration. There are five other people that wrote the archeology of what happened in the Bible but the Bible did not include their accounts because they weren’t inspired. That is why the scripture says “the words that I speak to you are spirit and life.” Our conscience can only tell us good and evil but it cannot reveal scriptures; even Jesus had to read the scroll. Christianity did not come to give us water but came to make us water. Jesus didn’t come to restore. There is a move that will happen next year. It is going to shake this country. It is going to be like a spiritual revolution. It is going to bring down a lot of things but it is going to build a lot of things. If there is no blessing, I will leave Christianity. Christianity without blessing is not of God.
Some people feel you sound like Dr. Abel Damina coming hard and forthright when you preach against perceived wrong practices in the church; and also that you attack Damina despite both of you speaking on issues in similar manners.
I am not like Dr. Abel Damina. What I am preaching is different from what he is preaching. Abel used to listen to me a lot. That is why some people think I sound like him. But on the contrary, he sounds like me. I don’t attack him. I attack what he does; his wrong preaching, teaching and reinterpretation of the scriptures. Abel will never attack me because he knows me very well. Most of the people that are talking to him have points but they don’t have the scriptural backup. Abel said it is out of Jesus that water will flow. Jesus is not a channel. It is in form of that message that he also said Jesus is not God but in a subtle way. Abel’s controversial posture on the scriptures re-interpretation is a clear case of heresy to create contents for the social media. He should be careful and desist from using the Church of Jesus to create contents for the social media. Everyone that dabbles into heresy doesn’t live long. God takes them out. Lies cannot authenticate the truth. Pastor Sunday Adelaja stopped all that because I attacked him. He reported me to some people. He has been removed from the board of his church. A lot of people have turned away from him. He now insults Abel Damina because he has discovered the truth. But it is already so bad that nobody invites him again. Same goes with Damina. You will notice that he is no longer talking like he used to.
