Elder Nda Yakubu was on the Board of Directors of the Mission Guest House, for the first four years as a member from inception in 2003 to 2007, he became the Board Chairman from 2007-2018. The transformation had been massive- the momentum he built was massive. He made sure the Guest House became a point of contact to all the Christian Guest Houses, in Nigeria because our patronage increased that cut across different denominations not just ECWA but we had orthodox and Pentecostal, they were all staying with us and each of them testified to the cleanliness, good service at the Guest House. Elder Nda Yakubu would personally donate some items to the Guest House and he would not allow his name to be mentioned. All those things were donated to make sure that the Guest House meets the standard of what he had desired that the Guest House would be. In his words, he would say that MGH should be like the Standard of Hilton Hotel, a Five Star Hotel.

Elder Ogbaje was the pioneer Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mission Guest House, then Elder NdaYakubu. The current Chairman is Mr. Bruce Ayonote.

COUNTDOWN: Mission Guest House at 20 sir, it has been an enduring vision; you will agree with us, can you reflect briefly with us about how it all started?

ELDER: Yes, twenty years like a joke, it started in September, 2003, when it was commissioned by Bro. Gbile Akanni during one of the revival programmes. Actually, the concept started two or three years before then. The building was originally intended to be a Pastorium, to service about four or five Pastors including the Senior Pastor but in the course of time and with the problem of security in the Northern part of Nigeria, Churches were attacked and Pastoriums within the premises were attacked, Pastors became easy targets. We also looked at what was happening contemporarily in the city. I can also say that the motivation was from the Anglican Church by then, very distinguished Primate Emeritus, His Eminence, Jasper Akinola, who was a very visionary man, he thought of the concept of Guest Houses in Wuse Zone5. And again, Catholic Church near us followed. The Primate then was also a friend to Late Rev. Tugba; they were all staying in the same vicinity when they all started in Abuja in those days. So we said "let’s change the concept of the original purpose to be a Guest House not only to service the Church members, but even outsiders. As you know hospitality ministry is a very powerful arm of the Church, if well taken care of. That was how the change came and it was then redesigned. It was a complete reconstruction and there was no fund to implement it, so we had to have a special fund raising programme at Sheraton.  Also, there was this programme I went to outside the country, when I came back, I shared my experience and testimony with the Late Rev. Tugba, and he bought into it. To the Glory of God, I was one of those who supported the initiative because I've seen it succeed in other places. If an arm of the church that is interested in anything, any venture that is not contrary to the ministry, a support service to the core ministry of missions, we should go ahead and do it and he bought into it. That was how it came up and by the grace of God, it is 20 years now.

COUNTDOWN: From the testimony you have just narrated, what will be your response to those within the fold that posit that the Church has no business in doing business?

ELDER: With due respect, it is ignorance, perhaps, maybe lack of exposure. What is business? The Church is business. When people define business as mere buying and selling, then, that's wrong. Business is what you are doing to sustain an operation or sustain a set of positive objectives. There is also commercial with the aim of making financial profit. As a Christian, whether you operate a commercial or not-for-profit business, you must remain focused on the end goal-to win souls for God’s kingdom. You set up business or Church or non-Church organisation to promote the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ so that the end result, God is glorified. Whatever is on this earth is temporary, but the one that is eternal is eternal to the glory of God. Paul was a tent maker, what was he making the tent for? You are in the business of supporting other people or you are an organisation with an objective in mind and you are doing it diligently to the glory of God, the result will show up someday. What about Lydia of Joppa, she was weaving clothes, it was not all just for welfare, Yes, but in the course of that business, she did not forget widows. From Old Testament, Abraham was in business, the father of Faith, Isaac was in business, David was in business, the ultimate in their lives was that the business did not become their God. That is the difference between a Christian involved in a business and the world's concept of business. For the world, the business is the end and the means to an end, but for a Christian, the business is a means to serving God here on earth.

COUNTDOWN: In that line, what other areas do you think the Church can engage in empowerment/business ventures that can be a veritable tool in leading Nigeria out of the economic doldrums we are in right now, side by side serve as a venture to convert and win souls for the body of Christ just as you narrated now?
ELDER: Interestingly, ECWA is multi-dimensional in missions; I also worked briefly with ECWA over thirty years ago. So, ECWA had different arms, and it is biblical. We have the medical arm, we have the agro-business arm, we have ECWA Production that is involved in publications, and we have the hospitality and education departments. I just thank God for that Ministry. Incidentally, other denominations, like Living Faith, Redeemed, Deeper Life, etc have fantastic schools and some now have Universities. ECWA too has a University. So, ECWA is multidimensional, anything that is legitimate, that can serve people, earn money and push it also into support ministry. Like I said, the world does business with the sole aim of making profit and profit for the owners, but for missions involved in ventures, profitable ventures, it’s in three dimensions. First, to showcase how Christ will run a profitable business because the world has its own way of doing its own things in a crooked way, it’s an avenue to showcase Christ and Christianity. Number two, you are giving opportunity to people to be engaged. Apart from the Church, the number of employees that the ECWA Ventures, in those days (I don’t know of now), used to employ was enormous. Where the community cannot employ, the Church serves as the employer. Three, when properly run, and proceeds come from it, you use that proceed to support ministries, it’s not going to be shared as profit and loss or dividends. You can use it to support ministries, send out missionaries and support the needy, I believe that no child of God should be lazy and say there is nothing to do. You can and should do something tangible to impact others.

COUNTDOWN: As a Pioneer of this venture, what lessons and what words can you share as a guide, to the leadership of Churches, not only in ECWA, but across board, all over the country, especially, in the face of the ravaging mismanagement and businesses going into liquidation and all manner of negative indices?

ELDER: As an outsider and an insider, ECWA has its own share of business failures, we call it business failures. Business failures arise from basically three sources or causes: One, was God involved in it before you started? Was God involved in the location? That is what I call the G.O.D. factor in the commencement and location of the business, very important. Secondly, when you don’t employ the right people, that is management, and you segmentalise it or tribalise it and sectionalize it, if you have incompetent people in business ventures, it will fail because, the consideration is not whether the person can do the job or not, the consideration is whether the person is from my DCC or my brother or from my village or from my denomination. I must say that ECWA has her own share of business failures. The other issue is what you can call the environmental factors. As a country, we are having serious financial crunch in the system, that pressure is there, if you have that pressure and you don’t have people who have the know-how, you won’t be able to survive the business. So, one key factor is the competency of the people managing the business. If you don’t have people who are competent to manage and understand the times and the seasons that they are in and the industries that they are in, there will be a serious crack. Why do you bring a Medical Doctor to manage a hospital?, you don’t do that. That is the problem we have in the hospitals all over Nigeria. There is a course called Hospital Administration, Doctors are there in charge of surgery, Gynecology, Ophthalmology, and other specialists in different departments. You now have one Administrator who is a specialist who coordinates all these services, public relations, maintenance etc. You bring in experts to develop business model and implement it accordingly. I know of a friend’s friend, who is not an Academician; he is the President of a University in the US. You have professors in the Universities, researchers and so on and then you have the people who are managers, who are specialists. But here, we say because somebody is a Professor of History or a professor in other fields, he must become the Vice Chancellor. You can see what is happening? All around us!

COUNTDOWN: Can you link any of these factors to the experience we had at our Micro Finance Bank? While Mission Guest House is making true success, our Microfinance Bank has not been able to stand till now.

ELDER: When you apply all these three factors into it, you will see the reasons clearly, if we are sincere. They are trying to rebuild it but we lost money. When you allow something to spoil, it’s more expensive to repair. The current team has really tried, the shareholders, especially, General Agwai and his team, Elder Walter Ahrey, etc they are doing a fantastic job and they’ve made a lot of sacrifice to get it to where we are now. What I’m saying is that they’ve suffered because of some wrong decisions taken and lack of supervision. In my opinion they have been working very hard and tirelessly to bring it back. I pray it succeeds this time in spite of the difficult operating environment.

COUNTDOWN: Sequel to the previous questions, we can rightly say you are one of the Pioneers of the Guest House. When the Guest House clocked ten, the Visioner, late Rev Dr. Samuel Tugba, in his testimony published at the 10^th Anniversary a decade ago (See COUNTDOWN Vol. 11, No 2) , stated that one of the reasons for establishing the Guest House then was that he was looking for ways of supporting the finance of the Church. If you look back now, can you tell us some of the areas that the Guest House has been able to meet some of the needs of the Church to meet its mandate to providing missionary services to the world at large?

ELDER: You see, like I always say, let’s not compartmentalize missions. When you talk about mission, it is not only when you stand up to preach or when you are on the pulpit. It is wrong, Missions is about everything we are doing. Even your dressing can be a mission, the way you speak, the way you serve people, the way you talk to people, it is all about the reflection of the character and image of God in you, if you have Christ in you. The Christ in me is the hope of glory. In my opinion, the Mission Guest House has, really helped the Church. Can we do better, I will always say ‘Yes’. Even Apple, the most captalised company in the world, they are struggling to do better, how much more at a lower end. Why is Coca-Cola still advertising? They are the number one drink in the world but they are still advertising. In my opinion and that can be checked, there were also some errors at the beginning in the management of the Guest House but it was quickly corrected. To the glory of God, over time, the problems identified have been taken care of. Nobody can just go there, stay and run away. You can’t do that in Hilton, you can’t do that. Our business should be other Hotels and all that, its credit based, your credit card is held or cash deposit is held. The discipline has brought about more opportunity to support the Church. I remember at the 10^th Anniversary, we brought twenty-four million naira (N24, 000,000.00) to support the Church’s Mission work. I know there were other funds that have been transferred to the Church to support various arms. And the fact that one part of it is being used as a stopgap for Sunday school - this is ministry. Whether the Church pays for it or not, it is serving, it’s available to serve. If it were not there, there would have been no place for those children to use. The Guest House was the one fueling the generator being used by the Church. It is huge. If you remove that, they will be declaring more profit. You see, the issue of, support, it is either in kind or in cash. As a business owner for example, if your business is fueling your car, its buying food for the house, it’s paying for your recharge card, your internet, your DSTV that is dividend. Then you ask yourself without it, how would you have been able to pay for all these services? As much as I know, substantial part of the diesel bill is being taken care of by the Guest House. So, it’s either you pay for your diesel and I give you cash at the end of the day or I pay for the diesel, my profit is reduced and nothing goes to you, it’s either way. But the most important thing is what are we doing this for, is it for the Ministry and is it being done properly so that when we assess, you can say that they have done well. But if you look at only the raw figure cash, you will be in error because you have not taken into considerations the other factors.

COUNTDOWN: You are a well-travelled person and to the glory of God and as a Christian, you have seen the practices all over, the Hospitality industry in Nigeria, generally, do you think we are there or are there areas that you think there can be improvement?

ELDER: There are limitations, there are constraints, in the business operations in the Church, I was just reflecting over that this morning, not just the Guest House, but look at the people who come to the Church to sell assorted items. There is no space for them to sell, ideally they should have stores. If you go to Dunamis for example, they have stores, if you go to Living Faith, they have stores, either in Durumi or the one at Goshen, if you go to Deeper Life, and some other churches, there are areas that they have carved out for such services. The Guest House, because, it was not originally purpose built, it has that limitations. Some people want to stay there because of its serene and Godly environment; no prostitution or drinking or fighting and all that. Again, some people will not want to come because when the Church is having a programme, they feel the noise will be disturbing them because of the proximity. And the control of the entrance and the exit, and there is program in the Church, when a customer comes and parks and he wants to go out, he cannot.  These are the limitations peculiar because the Guest House is within the premises and close to the church building. If you go to the Redeemed Camp or City for example, the Guest House Houses are far away from the auditorium, yet they are in a very serene environment. These are the pros and cons of the Guest House so close to the Auditorium. It is peculiar. If you look at that of Jos, for example, it is slightly different and much more convenient.

Again, service, is another factor of in the concept of doing business as a Christian or a Church. The problem I had, particularly in Nigeria is that whether you are Church person or not a Church person, there is this cultural problem of inefficiency. We don’t pay attention to details. I call it cultural because it is not the same all over the world. As an employer of labour, you have to beg somebody to do his work, and you are going to pay him for the work, he’s not doing the work free for you. So that attitudinal problem affects the quality of our service all over the country. We have a few exceptions, may be, Hilton and some international brands and a few others in Nigeria.  And also some of the owners don’t pay attention to maintaining facilities. I have stayed in a Hotel that is about 55 years old, if you are not told, you would assume that it was about few years old maybe because of the structure, everything is functioning. I’ve stayed in another one that was about a hundred years old, but it is functioning, again, it is cultural, the investors see it as a quick means to getting money, and whatever money that comes in, they divert it to other places, they don’t maintain the facilities. Look at Hilton, it was opened in 1987, it’s about 35 years old, they keep investing and reinvesting. Now some Hotels that were built after Hilton, some of them have crumbled, its maintenance. When I was Chairman, Board of the Mission Guest House, we invested millions in maintenance, people were commending it, we are improving, both the face and the services. So it’s both attitudinal and competence of the management team. Let us continue to ensure that we put the right people in the right place at all times. People who are ready to work, who are ready to improve, who are never satisfied with wherever they are and we must invest in maintaining the facilities and upgrade the face of the place. The same structure of Hilton has not changed, but when you enter, it looks as if you are going into a new hotel but it’s the same hotel. It’s renewed every time. In those days, there was no executive lounge but now, there is executive lounge. They have different services here and there. That is my own suggestion as to how we can improve.

COUNTDOWN: So what are your prayers, expectations and specific areas you expect improvement in services in the Mission Guest House in the nearest future?

ELDER: In my view we need another location. I know it’s expensive, capital intensive. You see, business means boldness. We were talking about Akinola, Primate Emeritus, that man was bold and I respect him, I met him one on one once or twice, he’s very bold, he had vision. ECWA too had visions. Where people call bush today will not be bush tomorrow. Where we are now was bush thirty years ago, when we moved here. My vision, my dream, just like Martin Luther, I have a dream that one day our people will be bold enough, because it is a very good area of Ministry. Let’s have an extension that we can properly call Mission Guest House, considering a Five Star Resort or something. And again to look at the business model of the place, we can now agree and say Okay, the Mission Guest House should give only Five Million for diesel or only three million for diesel so that you can properly assess the place to see whether it is profitable or not profitable and then look at the peculiarities, the pluses and the minuses and see how you can remodel, reconfigure, modernize with even  just about thirty rooms, There are some clients who come with their families, who want to stay there and cook and they cannot. We need to have that vision, it will require money, and it will cost boldness and courage. To do anything now especially in Nigeria is highly capital intensive. I have a big dream that it will function and they will continue to maintain the facilities, improve the facilities, modernize the facilities so that the pluses can be increased.

COUNTDOWN: On a further note, we want to talk about leadership in Nigeria; the Church has been taking some bold steps especially in the evangelism and soul winning. How will you describe the successes of the Church Vis a Vis the state of decadence in leadership circles in Nigeria?

ELDER: My personal opinion is that the Church has not lived up to expectation. We talk more than doing. We get ourselves involved in things that don't concern us. What do I mean by that? When a man wakes up after eating eba and says he’s a man of God and starts prophesying whether Chelsea will defeat Arsenal or about what the outcome of a Tribunal would be, then you start questioning, who are these and where are they coming from? Whose Ministers are they? They will just wake up from the bed and say the Tribunal is going to do this, what is your business with all those ones? I'm not saying that we should not be concerned about our country but let me tell you this, if the Church leadership, or the Church membership will live the life of Christianity in our places of Calling, Nigeria would not have been where we are today.

On the other hand, I must be quick to say, the prayer of the Righteous, of the Church is also sustaining Nigeria because we are not warring against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, demonic wickedness the high places, that is what we are contending against. I believe that we need political education. The issue is that the Church is one of the unregulated entity, it is self regulated, I'm not saying that we should have Ministry of Church Affairs, but the Church is a Spiritual matter, anybody can ordain himself and call himself a Bishop and then say I am Engineer, Dr. Bishop, JP and all those kind of titles. Because the church is not regulated, people just come up and say all sorts of things and the media will want to sell, so they will sensationalise it and say one Bishop slept with somebody’s wife etc. They are not Bishops, they are just charlatans around. Then people take that as an assessment of what the Church is. The truth is that the Church is unregulated, it is self-regulated and it should be like that, it should not be Holy Spirit regulated but people because of our selfishness, wickedness and our carnality, we are not allowing ourselves to be mentored, so we see all sorts of characters There are enough churches, Pentecostal, Evangelicals, we are not truthful to God and because we are not truthful to God, we can’t be truthful to ourselves, so there are sections here and there. So my prayer is that to as many as can go into politics or partisanship or administration, as many as have the grace, the calling he is not a sinner, as long as you showcase Christ while there. There should be a difference between a Christian in politics and an unbeliever in politics. One thing I must confess and I agree honestly is that it is the prayers of the righteous that has sustained this nation. With what we have gone through and what we are going through, other nations didn’t survive it. Look at Sudan and the current fighting, look at Afghanistan, look at Ethiopia, look at Russian war on Ukraine, and look at what caused the crisis.

COUNTDOWN: Now that elections are over and the nation is settling down with new government, what will be your advice to the Church?

ELDER: The Election tribunal is still ongoing. My advice is that the Church should pray. You know, sometimes, some of us are angry with God, you have the right to be angry with God, He is the Omnipotent, God's ways are not our ways, and His ways are different from our ways, just like the far distance between the heavens and the earth. His ways are far away like heaven from the earth. Honestly, the point is we should continue to pray and speak out, not necessarily against perceived enemy but against issues that are not right, rather than keeping quiet or fear because of our private businesses or private interest, we should speak out.  That is why I respect Bishop Kukah. It is empirical that President Buhari’s regime is the worst in terms of corruption, the records are there. It's not a question of sentiment or that you hate Buhari. You don't have to hate somebody, if Tinubu is doing well, depending on the outcome of the Tribunal, we say he has done well, if he has not done well, we say he has not done well. The Church should not just be criticising, we should come up with constructive suggestion. The Church always plays reactionary; we are not planning ahead. El Rufai talked about their long term plan, what is the Church's long-term plan? We are just reactionary, but there should a long term plan, we should be strategic. What is the strategic plan for missions in Nigeria? We are so individualistic. Redeem is doing its own, Catholic is doing its own so is Anglican, there is no cohesion and this is because it is not regulated. Everybody is 'papa in the Lord.' Nobody wants to submit to the authority of God and the seniors. A young man coming up, and all of a sudden, he says he's Bishop and everybody calls him 'Papa in the Lord', he wants to come and rub shoulders with people like Baba Adeboye or Onaiyekan. These are men who have seen it all, they are human beings, yes, we can learn from them. They said we should be led by the Spirit of the Lord, but what has God said? God spoke in those days, God still speaks today. But can't we have a national meeting, a spiritual conscience meeting, where the leaders of Faith will sit down and say what has God said concerning our situation? By the time we have that congress, and then put six people together to seek God and hear from Him. I mean Holy Spirit-led programmes that are not against any party or any section but for the goodness of the country because if there is any hope for Nigeria, the hope will not come from the Politicians because our people are genetically selfish, wicked, cruel and ungodly. A human being is naturally terrible but when Christ regenerates you, you become a vessel in His Hands. The future of Nigeria is in the Church but because we have not been what we ought to be, that is why we are where we are!

COUNTDOWN: Thank you very much sir.

By:Countdown with Elder Nda Yakubu