In a recent interview with OLUSEYE OJO, he said the growing insecurity in Nigeria, characterized by banditry and terrorism, can’t be solved with cold statistics or routine military updates.
Instead, he claims that true resolution would only manifest when President Bola Tinubu looks at the gruesome murder, torture or abduction of any citizen through the agonising lens of a grieving parent, viewing every single victim not as a collateral casualty of statehood, but as the heart-breaking loss of the President’s own child.
The cleric, set against a background of increasing grassroots vulnerabilities, rural displacements and an economy losing critical foreign investments to safer continental neighbours, serves a prophetic, non-partisan charge to the nation’s political elite.
In this interview, Bishop Oke explains the structural constraints of the body of Christ, exposes the sophisticated economic syndicates behind rural terror and takes off the veil on the massive, multi-million naira, humanitarian relief interventions the church quietly deploys across Nigeria’s worst-hit regions.
What is the central message the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) is trying to pass across to the authorities at this moment as the level of insecurity across the nation reaches a boiling point?
“We are burdened for Nigeria today because we have lost our sense of value for human life and its sanctity. The level of banditry, kidnapping, violence, insecurity and savage killings all over the Nigerian landscape has risen to an intolerable height. It has come to a point when every single Nigerian ought to cry out against it to God for divine intervention, and to our governments for immediate and effective action.
In Nigeria it is more than taking lives. It breaks our national unity, scares away vital foreign investors, causes a massive brain drain as our best minds leave, and fatally weakens the bond between the citizens and the state. It has created a pervasive wave of insecurity and terror that ensures that the Nigerian people no longer feel safe anywhere in their own country. “We are heavily burdened as this intolerable violence is tragically being normalised in Nigeria.
You spoke of the loss of humaneness. Can you paint a picture of the specific systemic failures and regional carnage that prompted this urgent cry from the PFN?
We are burdened for the loss of our very humanity. See the unchecked rampage of bandits and murderous herdsmen killing Nigerian farmers on their own farms. Look at the Boko Haram insurgents, who are using the noble religion of Islam to perpetrate heinous violence against peaceful Nigerians, completely unchecked across our national landscape.
The destructive historical and ongoing trajectory of this failure. Many Chibok girls remain in captivity years after being abducted en masse by Boko Haram insurgents. “Leah Sharibu remains in chains of bondage by religious kidnappers purely because she refused to renounce her Christian faith and the Nigerian state did nothing. Nothing happened to the killers of Deborah Samuel who was brutally burnt to death in Sokoto by a murderous mob for mentioning the name of Jesus.
Since then, Taraba, Plateau, Benue states and Southern Kaduna have turned to killing fields on a daily basis. Edo, Kogi and Ondo states have not been spared either.
“Today, as we speak, some communities in Kwara State have been completely sacked by rampaging bandits carrying sophisticated guns and dangerous weapons.
Innocent people are being kidnapped, raped and killed again and again in large numbers across Borno, Niger, Sokoto, Kaduna and other states of the federation.
The newest killing field is Oyo State. This climaxed in the recent horrific abduction of some teachers and students whereby one of the teachers (Mr. Michael Oyedokun) was gruesomely beheaded while another was shot dead.
Our political elite were carrying on business as usual during these satanic acts as if nothing was going on. “This is an unspeakable and despicable act of terror,” he said.
You have rightly said that the President has to see every citizen as his child. How does that paternalistic duty inform the government’s response to the current socioeconomic collapse and the flight of foreign investment?
Basically, all Nigerians are children of the president. The president is the father of all Nigeria, that is a basic principle of leadership and governance. So when one person is killed, one of his children has been killed. It should hit the leadership in that personal and painful way. When a citizen is brutally beheaded, humiliated, tortured and tormented, crying while they cut off his head, it means that one of the president’s children has gone through that horrible treatment.
It should never be treated as a normal news item. When our government leaders feel in their hearts the reality, when they feel the deep personal pain of a father losing a child, then they will stand up and deal decisively with these situations. That is what Nigerians want. They want a government that feels pain when its people suffer, and a leadership that acts with unwavering resolve to safeguard its home.
In terms of farming, all this violence is definitely affecting not only the farming profession, it is affecting every profession.
Farmers can’t tend their fields for fear of being raped, slaughtered or kidnapped. This triggers a catastrophic chain reaction through the entire economic ecosystem. Food prices are skyrocketing, supply chains are collapsing, and hunger is looming large over the nation. It cripples markets and livelihoods well beyond the agricultural sector.
Look at our position in the world and our economy on the whole. Right now, there are investors from developed countries who were planning to come to Nigeria because of our strategic advantage as the largest black nation in the world with a massive percentage of highly mobile and enterprising young men. We have a very vibrant, very energetic and very intelligent youth population and this makes Nigeria a particularly attractive market for global capital. They are keen to invest here but the absence of reliable power and the insecurity are forcing them to move their capital to countries like Ghana and South Africa where they consider the business environment to be safer and more predictable.
We are losing billions of dollars in potential investments, losing jobs for our teeming youth, losing our competitive edge on the continent because we have failed to secure our territory.
Hence, the Nigerian government needs to rise up to the occasion and deal decisively with these criminals in our forests, in our farms, in our cities, and those attacking churches and mosques to slaughter citizens. No criminal should get away with it, no matter where they operate or who they target.
In many of these theatres of conflict the military has been deployed but the killings continue. Where does the disconnect lie?
There is a clear lack of firm political will on the part of our Government to crush these horrible evils. They have allowed this cancer to spread unchecked, making empty promises that have done absolutely no good.
Our governments are busy rehabilitating so called repentant Boko Haram killers and even drafting them into our security network instead of crushing terrorism, banditry and the likes! Hence the Nigerian military is becoming demilitarised.
And this is why our valiant Generals and their gallant soldiers are being slaughtered like chicken. Why? Because our security system has been totally infiltrated and fatally compromised from within.
Nigerians are fed up with this evil. They are tired of the seeming misplaced attention of the political class on winning elections by all means, rather than focusing the full weight of our law and federal might to crush the killers of Nigerians.
In response to this crisis, the PFN announced a three-day national fasting and prayer session from May 22-24, 2026. Can you tell me about the background, strategic goals and the real political position of the PFN behind this exercise?
The National Executive Council of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria held a meeting on the night of May 19, 2026, for fervent prayers and deliberations on the scary state of affairs in the country.
We, as a Pentecostal community, spread across every single state of Nigeria, resolved that we would stand together in spiritual warfare, fast and pray to God our Almighty Father to arise and scatter the enemies of Nigeria.
