Posted by By Femi Babafemi on
For Pastor Julius Sajuyigbe, General Overseer of Truth Foundation Pentecostal Church, Lagos, working for God did not come easy. He lost virtually all he had in mysterious circumstances before he yielded to the Lord's calling.
For Pastor Julius Sajuyigbe, General Overseer of Truth Foundation Pentecostal Church, Lagos, working for God did not come easy. He lost virtually all he had in mysterious circumstances before he yielded to the Lord's calling.
In this interview with Daily Sun, Pastor Sajuyigbe explained that he eventually surrendered to God after all he had acquired early in life crashed like a pack of cards while he became a reproach not only to his neighbours but to himself.
"I must be sincere with you, I had a rough time because God had already told me, go and start my work, and who am I to refuse God's work? In fact, before I knew it everything went upside down. Even my vehicle that I drove to Ido Ajinore in Ekiti State, a two-year-old Passat car which I bought new, when I headed back to Lagos, the car would not go. When I reversed the car, it would go back. In fact, I virtually drove the car through reverse gear from Ekiti State to Lagos. Then I knew there was trouble coming."
The pastor who eventually yielded to serve God in July 1995 after years of running battle spoke further on all the troubles he had to go through, his latest calling to establish a university like Pastor Enoch Adeboye of The Redeemed Church of God and Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel.
My calling
Well, the Bible says, "Known to God from eternity are all His works." That is, everything God wants to do. He already knows it because even before we were born, He knew us. So, when God said I should leave my work, though God did not tell me everything then. So, when I left, I must be sincere with you, I had a rough time because God had already told me to go and start His work, and who am I to refuse God's work? In fact, before I knew it, everything went upside down. Even my vehicle that I drove to Ido Ajinore in Ekiti State, a two-year-old Passat car which I bought new, when I headed back to Lagos the car would not go. When I reversed the car, it would go back. In fact I virtually drove the car through reverse from Ekiti State to Lagos.
Then I knew there was trouble coming. I drove the car to Volkswagen of Nigeria, they didn't know what was wrong with it, the car was parked there for about two years. I had another Mercedes Benz car, that one had a minor problem, I took it to the mechanic and till today, the car did not resurrect. I ha to dash it out. Then the ministry had not started. I was still in business. Aside this, my children were aways falling sick, one child after the other. As one was being discharged from the hospital, another one will be placed on admission. In the night, there would be fire in the house and we would not know where the fire was coming from. I said I don't want to die, I have to heed this God's call.
In fact, I became a reproach to myself because I had nothing again. The products I was importing, at the ports, more than half of them would disappear, I knwe that something was wrong, if I didn't answer this call maybe I would die. So I had no choice than to say yes. On July 2, 1995 I just gathered some few people and told them God said I should start. In fact, I was ashamed because at that point in time, people around knew I had left my employment and they said look at him, he doesn't have a job again, he has opened a new shop, the shop of ministry. But I knew that God said I should do it and if I was not obedient, I would die. So, I had to start in the garage in my house. And to confirm it was God's calling, people started coming and were giving testimonies every week and were saying that when pastor spoke this and that happened, and I would look at myself and said pastor? They would say when we came to church last week, which church were they referring to, the garage where we were meeting. From then, lives were being saved and trnasformed and I knew this was a calling I have.
Before then, God spoke to me one night, in that revelation, I saw Bishop (Mrs) Odeleke who was my spiritual mother. That woman is a woman of God, whatever must have happened to her, it doesn't really matter, she is a woman of God.
She came in an angelic form, she wore a white attire, she came from heaven and landed in front of our hosue, and she said now let's launch the constitution of this ministry. I heard that clearly, so after that I saw an old man who appeared to me when I was fuelling my car tank and told me to go and be teaching. So, he gave me a teaching ministry. And also, now God says I should go and start a school and He gave me International Providential Training Centre (IPTC). It was a clear vision. And since then, God has been leading, telling me to do this and that. So, there have really been challenges but when God calls a man, He will back him up.
God wants me to establish a university
The major thing is you cannot do anything without direction from God. God showed it to me in January last year, when I was going to the US. God showed me as a confirmaton to what he had told me like Bishop Oyedepo because I know that he will never do a thing without hearing from God. And I'm sure the same thing applies to Papa Adeboye. You cannot divorce education from the ministry.
You cannot, but if you look at it, civilization actually came through Christianity. Everything you can think about today came through it: medical services, educational services, name it. So, I believe God really wants us to take our position in the world. He wants the ministry to take her position in the world. That means we have to be able to provide qualitative education that is not just about intelligence alone but also attitude, how to build total man, spirit, soul and body. It is not just going to school for the sake of going to school, but we want the total man to be saved.
What I mean is that the government needs assistance because it cannot carry the burden of education alone. Remember what happens in Lagos State. The Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu had to return some schools to mission because he believed that missionaries should be able to provide for that. And I have heard Prof. Okebukola asking people in the private sector to provide education at the tertiary level. It is not because the NUC has spoken but because god has spoken, and God is in charge of everything. He rules in the kingdom of men. He knows all things. And because God loves this nation, I believe that is why He has spoken to men of God to start establishing universities.
Well, if you look at what happens in the public educational system now, the universities are either on strike today, open tomorrow and so on. They are saying they don't have enough to run the schools, and the Federal Government is saying it cannot carry the burden alone. Now if the missionaris will handle the educational system, you can only grow short with the funds you have if you want to provide free education but if you want continuity, if you want something that will last, of course, you need funds from the students and their parents also. And then, if you look at it, if you want to provide quality education, you have to go outside of what happens right now.
For example, at IPTC, we are going to be running virtual lectures, that means we are going to have computer lab, and so on. You know that these things are not cheap. The lecturers have to be well paid.
We don't want to have a situation where one employs lecturers who are not qualified, who are not experienced to teach the students because we want students that will graduate from our institution to be able to take leadership positions in the society, to be able to represent the society in a good way. And for us to be able to do that, we must provide quality education and that is not cheap. If the church can do it, of course we will do it. But when we say it is expensive, that word is relative to the public schools. And the public schools are also crying that there is no funds. So, if we really want to run it, then we have to run it in such a way that the funds that come in will be sufficient to provide infrasturcture that are needed.
We are not coming with a full fledged university for now, we have affiliation with the University of London, which was the way University of Ibadan started. They started as University College, Ibadan, an affiliate of the University of London.
Already we have a contract to start giving lectures for students to obtain University of London degree, and of course, ultimately, we are going to become a full-fledged university accredited by NUC. That is what we are working towards and we will not get out of the relationship we have with the University of London because when you have University of London degree, you can work anywhere in the world. We have about 25 people who applied and what even made it to be at that level was because of the time it took us to advertise. We advertised for just two weeks. If we had two months to make enough publicity, I'm sure we will not have less than 150 to 200 students. But for now, we have 25 students who applied. The bible says we should not despise the days of little beginning. So, even, not all the 25 came in.
To go to any university in London, as an international student, you need to have between 800 to 10,000 pounds sterling. And 10,000 pounds, that is N2.5 million, just for tuition, apart from accommodation, feeding and all that.
Initially, when you look at all our costs, we did say that each students would pay about N300,000 but at the end of the day, we estimated it to be about N200,000 per session irrespective of the number of subjects. In fact we are even looking at giving them some discount because it is not easy. We are not into capitalist business, it is a calling, God said go and do it. So what we want to do is to touch as many Nigerians as possible, so it is not the money right now, but we need money to run it. For example, the location that we mentioned, we had to pay millions of naira for it just for two years. Lecturers are to be paid every month also.