Pastor OkotieSenior Pastor of the Household of God Church, Chris Okotie, has said that the fact that he failed to win his presidential bids three times so far despite allegedly hearing from God to run for office does not mean that his hope of becoming President is dashed.
According to Okotie, failing to win presidential elections three times has not invalidated the prophecy that he would lead the country.
The cleric who contested the presidency in 2003, 2007 and 2011 but lost in all, said during an Arise TV interview today, August 25 said that God’s prophecies are futuristic and could take years to materialize.
“The thing about this is that it is difficult to communicate spiritual realities to a mind that is not renewed. The language of faith is totally different from that which we have in ordinary parlance.
“When God speaks to you, he doesn’t speak futuristically, he speaks in the present. God always says I have made you. He told Abraham ‘I have made you the father of nations’ when he didn’t even have a child. So, sometimes when we communicate spiritual information, people misunderstand. Because faith is beyond that which is cognitive.
“So, when I make a statement and when people think ‘Oh, well he didn’t win an election’ and they think that it is immediate.”
Pastor Okotie referred to instances in the Bible where God’s prophecies about Moses and Abraham took time to come to fruition.
“When the Lord sent Moses to Pharaoh, it took several times of going to Pharaoh before Pharaoh capitulated. When the Lord says he’s going to do something, he says it now but it takes time. It took time for Abraham to beget Isaac. So, we need to understand that it took time for the prophecy concerning the rainfall to take place when Noah started telling the people it was going to rain. It took 100 years before it began to rain and the people thought he was crazy. So, many times when we talk about faith, the unbeliever or infidel who doesn’t understand spiritual things runs into a place of confusion.
“But I can assure you that that which has been spoken will definitely come to pass. What I am doing right now is patriotic. I’m trying to evoke nationalistic sentiments at a time when Nigerians need to come together in a cohesive atmosphere where there is love, understanding, and unity. And we have that nationalistic brotherhood that could help us overcome the situation that we face today.”
Okotie had earlier proposed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration should be succeeded by an interim government that would restructure the country before a fresh election is conducted.
His proposal aligns with the one earlier made by Afe Babalola, founder of Afe Babalola of the University of Ado Ekiti, who had said that instead of holding elections in 2023, an interim government should be formed to steer Nigeria in a new direction and give the country a new constitution.
Okotie said: “We are involved in a process that I call the conversational level, where Nigerians are holding conversations with each other as to the viability of this project (Interim Government) because we’ve recognized that a regime change is not going to solve any problem. If we go through that route, we are just going to come back to square one.
“Our restructuring is inevitable because what we are practicing today is not federalism. Because federalism involves the manipulation of centrifugal and centripetal forces. People want to have an opportunity to decide how their resources are controlled. So, the interim government will provide a ‘raprooshma’ for people to come together and decide so that these agitations for secession will cease.”
He urged that well-meaning Nigerians should support him to lead the proposed interim government “because I have demonstrated the tenacity to do soI would say that I have paid my dues denominated in tenacity and resilience and if I wanted to be a part of this bandwagon, I would have done so many years ago when I first ran for president in 2003.
“I am saying very clearly without any equivocation that the only way forward is an interim government led by Chris Okotie.”
