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Since the inception of the Dominion Harvest International Church, Lagos, the Church has trained over 2,000 people through its capacity building and empowerment programs. DAYO EMMANUEL, in this interview, talked with Pastor Abiodun Oso, the Senior Pastor of the Church, who explained that the power to get wealth is not about God giving one money but by developing one’s capacity to make wealth. Excerpts:
Can you tell us more about the Dominion Harvest International Church’s people empowerment?
As a responsible Church, we believe that the problem of mankind is not only solved by prayer, so there is a need for a capacity aspect of it and that is the reason, as a responsible Church, we put something like this in place to help the people because the Bible says that it is the Lord that gives us the power to get wealth. The power to get wealth is not about God giving you wealth but about God giving you an idea and capacity and that is why we believe to help someone, give him skill, give him capacity and when you do that, you have solved problem. See, today in South Africa, they have political power but they don’t have economic power. If you want people to be free, you must give them economic power. If the people are to be established, they need to pay house rent, they need food on their table, they need to be able to transport themselves, so they need money. As a ministry, apart from preaching to them we know we need to do a program like this free skill acquisition where they don’t need to pay. By the grace of God we have about seven skills here today. We have photography, media, radio and TV, public speaking, event management, digital marketing, make-up and gele. These are the skills that can give people money. These are things people pay out there to learn. People pay about N100,000 to learn digital marketing but if you come here, it is free by the grace of God and at the end of this event, we would give them certificate. They are not paying for it.
How long have you been doing this?
By the grace of God, this ministry started 29th of May 2016. It is a young church, we are still below two years. That is what we have been doing since inception. We have been doing this and by the grace of God, it has been a tremendous lift in people’s lives.
How many persons have passed through these trainings?
By the grace of God, we have about 2,000 people since this academy started in 2016. We should be having about 3,000 by now. We have organized various sessions. We were in University of Lagos and it was awesome.
How do you monitor those who have passed through this academy?
Yes, people come on their own to tell us what they are doing. One of the products came to me to tell me he passed through the public speaking. He was on a particular radio station in his state and people heard him and said this person should be the next governor of the state. This is a guy that went through our training and in the next election in his state, he would be contesting and that is amazing and he has brought a revolution to a lot of people that went through our public speaking and customer relations training. He has brought a revolution to them in their business and as employee, it has changed their lives. So we have trained a lot of people who have come and given testimonies. The Church office is keeping database of all of them.
2019 election is coming, have you been sensitizing your trainees who are of voter’s age?
We have not started, we would do it because it will be very good for the people to exercise their franchise. It is my civic responsibility to register and vote. Definitely, I am willing to sensitise everybody. I voted in the last election, so I believe everybody who is of age should vote. I will encourage my members to vote. In our ministry,politics and voting is not a sin so we are going to sensitive the people to register and vote when the time comes.
Have you also identified the other areas you need to extend this training to?
Yes, there are many areas we intend to cover. By the grace of God, another one is coming very soon. We have actually reduced the courses. We have trained people on web designing, cake making, hall decorations graphic design, soap making. The ones we are doing now are just seven but we are going to include others and there are many other trainings that people may request if we have not been doing such we would definitely make facilitators available since it would meet the need of the people.
It must have cost the Church a lot.
It is well. It is Jesus that is giving it out free, and we believe it is a price we must pay. One of the things that is encouraging us is that if you are good to people they tend to transfer the goodness. The reason some people are wicked is because they have seen wickedness and nobody has been good to them. So we believe as a church, when we help people, they would help others. It is a simple law of transfer.
What is your opinion about the Nigerian youths of today?
What the Nigerian youths of today need is capacity. It is that capacity gap that is lacking. People want to make money quickly, they want to make money without developing capacity and that is why children from rich homes are very wayward. They are more or less like disappointments to their parents because they have not learnt from those parents. That is why in this Church, we don’t believe it is only prayer and fasting that can give you the money, capacity and prayer will deliver the money to you. What the youths of today need is capacity. When the youths develop their capacity they would take over because the Bible says a heir as long as he is a child, what belongs to him will not be given to him until he grows up. If you own an aircraft, you cannot ask your baby to come and fly you just because he is your child, that person would be committing suicide, it is just a suicide attempt.
How do you advise other Churches on handling the youths?
By the grace of God, Dominion Harvest International Church has been a role model to other Churches and what we want to encourage is for people to know that Christianity is a practical thing. It is real. It is a life people should live. By the grace of God, I am a pastor and a business man, one of the things that have helped me is how I am succeeding in my business, it is just about life so you need to develop the people that is why I don’t joke with it. I believe you can move people out of welfare to prosperity. I keep telling the trainees they are not candidate of welfare and that is why I keep telling people who always complain about government because their hope and aspirations are on the government. If Government fails, they have failed. The government is saying we are out of recession but the people have not left recession, their salaries have not increased so the recession is just on paper. It has not translated to a better life for the people. If you rely on the government and government fails, then you have failed. That is why we are training people as a ministry so that their life can be in order. There is failure in government because the people in government don’t have capacity, they have not done anything they could fall back on. So, they always want to go for second term and third term, just because they don’t have anything to fall back on. If you ask these people we have trained to go and do politics, they will even be ready to spend their own money. Only that God has not led me to politics .If He leads me to politics, I don’t need salary, I don’t need allowance by the grace of God because God has blessed me.
What business do you do apart from pastoring a church?
I am into IT, I am into real estate, I am into media, by the grace of God. I have a radio station and I am also into insurance. I have so many companies in and outside of Nigeria.
What has been your challenges?
You can’t rule it out. Look at the people we trained last Sunday, some of them didn’t come today because they are not paying for the training. That is a big challenge to me when people don’t appreciate free things. If they have paid, they would have come. They don’t want to plant a seed and watch it grow. It is a big challenge that people came last week and today they are absent.
