Presiding Bishop of Bishop Ajose Ministries International (BAM)/ Prophetic Prayer Ministries International (PPMI) and Lagos State Directorate of Politics and Governance of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Bishop Theophilus Ajose speaks with CHINYERE ABIAZIEM on the unfolding of the year’s prophecy, the aversion for disasters by divine mercy, why Nigerians should always hold leaders accountable instead of chasing shadows
In your vision for 2024, released on December 30, 2023, it was noted that in the first half of the New Year, there will be a leadership change in the United Kingdom which has been witnessed. What would you like to say about this?
Well, during my annual prophecy for the year preparation, which I do every year, the Lord showed me the United Kingdom and I saw a shift in the spiritual atmosphere of the United Kingdom. The Lord said there was going to be a change of government. It was at first surprising to me because, judging by the fact that the guy that was there, Sunak, was still relatively new, and looked or seemed to be doing well relatively. Nothing that could have warranted impeachment or so.
But then the Holy Spirit spoke and I had no choice but to release it. I was also conscious of the fact that if Labour had to take over, which they have not done for years, and the unprecedented number of votes and members of parliament they have now, we have not had these in a very long time. This made the prophecy to be more apt as I wanted to be sure that I heard from the Lord and the Lord said it was going to happen within the first half of the year.
It looks so short. In fact, at the time the prophecy was released, a lot of pastors were making fun of me, saying it could not happen and that I did not understand the political terrain. But this is not about political terrain because all nations belong to the Lord, I was not surprised when that prophecy was fulfilled, albeit suddenly.
Now we have a new government in place in the United Kingdom. But we believe that the prophecy is fulfilled and we thank God for that. There are still a lot of challenges before the government of the United Kingdom and they have to be careful. But one thing that we know is that since God spoke about it, there is going to be a renewed restoration of the divine agenda vis-à-vis Christianity, the Church and the government policy in the United Kingdom. This is because God does things for His purpose.
You did mention that when you released that prophecy, some pastors made fun of you. Do you mean Nigerian pastors?
Yes, Nigerian pastors, especially in PFN. The prophecy was posted, even on the PFN platform, on the church platform, on Facebook and other social media platforms.
Do you mean you experienced the scorn first hand or you were told the pastors did?
I experienced it firsthand! They were writing on the same platform to which we belonged. Some of these guys are the new generation; people believe that you need to speak Greek and Hebrew before things happen. But I thank God for honouring His word.
What can you say about the prophecy relating to Nigeria and its fulfilment?
Yes, part of the prophecy relating to Nigeria has been fulfilled. If you read the prophecy for 2024 well, you will know that civil/social unrest was mentioned and that happened. The Labour protest where the National Grid was shut down, you know. I wrote about that, and the government has to be very careful about civil unrest. I believe some (prophecy fulfilment) are still in the pipeline. You know, Nigeria is such that the way things are going to happen will surprise many. You know, it will surprise a lot of them. But then, God is in control, because what happened during the National Grid lockdown if not for divine intervention could have been worse than that. I believe that we are praying, and trusting God and God intervened.
Also, I spoke concerning natural disasters like flooding, all over the world, and in Nigeria. I specifically mentioned western Nigeria, and we can see what is happening now, as it is a serious matter. But we are not prophesying for bad things to happen, you know, even when we see, we still pray to God to ameliorate all those things so that it can be easy on the people.
Prophecy does not mean there are some prophetic revelations on things to happen by God, but we can also seek divine mercy, you know, not that we must say ‘by fire, by force’, that thing we saw must happen. But there are some cases, in which God is not just seeking advice, but saying, this is what I have decided that will happen. An example is the change of leadership in the UK.
You mentioned making things easy for the people, which aptly captures the yearning of many Nigerians at this point in the nation…
You see, what most of us do not understand is that God spoke about even great financial blessings coming. God spoke about that, but there is a route to getting things done. Most of the things happening are things that may eventually lead to the Nigeria we want. I believe that Nigeria is entering into a new level of prosperity. For example, the word of God says if the people that are called by my name will humble themselves, fast, pray and change their ways, then I will hear from heaven. What Nigerian Churches are doing mostly is that we are praying and fasting, but we are not changing our ways.
I have told people that the prophetic release of God is also based on changing our ways. God Has to look at the narratives surrounding the blessings we are asking for and what we are doing against our blessings. If God Has to enforce His prophecy, He will make things happen to make us change our ways, even if He Has to give us a leader, or whatever, to make us change our ways, so that His word can be fulfilled. God gives us free will and performs miracles, not magic. For instance, it took Jesus to be born; Jesus Christ did not come as a fully grown human being. He was born, he crawled, he walked, you understand? He did everything before he even ascended to heaven. God is a God of principles; we cannot say God should violate His own principles.
For Nigeria to enter its economic prosperity, the people working against the progress of the economy must be first dealt with. Some active players are working against the economy of Nigeria. Those people are even like a government unto themselves. The only way the masses can benefit is for those people to be dealt with and I make bold to say that the number one challenge we have concerning the Nigerian economy is the bank and the financial sectors. They are the ones frustrating us. They are the ones making things difficult for Nigeria. They are the ones not making the money available for the productive sector. You know, money comes to the country through them; they have the hard currency and hold back the money to trade. If money is not released to the productive part of the economy, of course, people will suffer.
You can see what happened in the past regime, where the Central Bank printed money without authorization from the president, and the amount of money the head of the Central Bank held in different banks. That money is enough to cripple any economy; no country in the world can survive it except a few.
If one person got that kind of money in America itself, the economy would go down, and we are allowing such a thing in this country. Now if you want to deal with such a person, people will start crying and alleging tribalism. Well, they won’t talk about the offense that is affecting the economy. You know? Now look at this.
I just read today (the day of the interview) that over 10 trillion naira was shared with the state governments by the Federal Government. This is the money they share almost every month. Okay, what are they doing with the money? The Federal Government is not the one running the state. The land for agriculture belongs to the state government according to the constitution. They are collecting this money, but nobody is asking them.
They are protesting against the Federal Government, who is not the one to develop your state, who is not the one collecting monthly allocation for your state and we are leaving the real thing and chasing shadows because we do not like facing the truth.
If we can hold our leaders accountable, the state government and the local government, things will happen. Like asking: ‘you collect this money, they publish it every day, what do you do with this money? Tell us. Or what do you want to do with the money? Tell us.’ With this, people can monitor and hold them accountable. That is part of the easiest ways to hold them accountable.
Nobody is asking questions and you are saying the economy is bad. You are talking about the Federal Government. The Federal Government has its job to do. But the state government and local government are the ones closer to the people. They are the ones that will develop what the people need that will affect them positively. As I mentioned earlier, we have the banking sector, then the tyrants of government, who are not being held accountable. That is where the problem is.
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