“…LEADERSHIP SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE THEIR CONVICTION THROUGH THEIR LIFESTYLE…” REV DR SAMUEL TUGBA

 

VITAL STATS

Birth : 3^rd Dec., 1943

Birth Place: Gboko, Benue State of Nigeria

Making Christ His Lord and Saviour: 1954

Baptism: 1959

Laying the Foundation of ECWA, Wuse II: 1987

Retired: February 17, 2007

Died:  Jan 15, 2015

Buried: Jan 23^rd, 2015

PUBLISHED  ARTICLES

·       Marriage Was God’s Idea Countdown Vol. 1 No 1, July 2002

·       Church Growth – Leaders are Servants Countdown Vol 2 No 1, Jan 2003

·       Christians in Rough and Crooked Places Countdown vol 2, No 2, July 2003

·       Fulfillment in Christian Marriage Countdown Vol 2, No 3, April 2003

·       Married but Still Lonely? Proffered Solutions Countdown Vol 2, No 4, Dec, 2003

·       True Pentecostalism Countdown Vol 3, No 1 Feb, 2004

·       Godly Leadership I Countdown vol 5, No 3, June 2006

·       Godly Leadership II, Countdown Vol 5, No 4, Oct, 2006

 

BIOGRAPHY

Rev. Dr. Samuel Tugba was born on the 3^rd of December, 1943 into the family of the late Pa and Mama Tugba Agundu in Gboko, Benue State of Nigeria. Like the biblical Samuel, he grew up under the divine direction, guidance and control of the Almighty God, as can be seen from the pattern of his life and schooling, culminating in his pastoral call.

Making Christ His Saviour

In 1954, at the age of eleven years, young Samuel gave his life to Christ after listening to a preacher who had challenged the audience to choose between heaven and hell. He chose heaven and hence began to grow steadily in Christ. He was baptized in 1958 in NKST Church in Mkar, Benue State to reaffirm his faith in God for the rest of his life.

Pastoral Training Experience

In 1967, when the student Pastor Samuel Tugba was at the point of completing his course, there arose a great need for a pastor in ECWA Good News, Bukuru, Plateau State. He was the indisputable choice and recommended of the Principal of his college to the Church. Thus, straight from school, he moved into pastoring the Bukuru Church which membership was mainly young people, students and a few mine workers. He faithfully pastored that Church for three years when another call for a bigger Church in Kano came to him again. He hesitated for some time, but after prayer, he felt led to go. Thus in November, 1970, he left for Kano and took over from Pastor Victor Musa who was going for further studies in the United States.

For his dedication to the work of the Lord, he was surrounded with the presence and blessings of God. One of such blessings was after two years of his pastoral work in Kano, he got married to his late wife, Mrs. Comfort Tugba and they were blessed with four children: Emmanuel, late Benjamin, late Eunice and Lois Tugba. Pastor Tugba was in Kano with his family for nine years during which the Church experienced much spiritual and numerical growth. Among other things, he had led the Church to establish its own Secondary School and laid the foundation for a bigger Church building before leaving Kano.

Further Studies

In obedience to the biblical injunction in II Tim 2:15, young Pastor Samuel Tugba did not feel adequate with his Diploma in Theology. He therefore disciplined himself to rigorous studies which earned him GCE ‘A’ Level Certificate in some papers. With this and his Diploma, he proceeded in 1980 with his family to the USA for further studies. He returned in 1984 after  successfully completing his first and Masters Degree programmes.

He came back with the zeal to show himself approved of God, a worker who wanted to go and faithfully pastor a Church in Makurdi. But ECWA Headquarters decided otherwise and posted him to Abuja as its liaison Pastor in Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He obeyed, reported in Abuja and started work in the English Section in Garki Church on the 5^th January 1985. In 1987, he moved with about 200 members to clear the thick bush and lay the foundation of the Church which is ECWA, Wuse II today.

His Legacy and Joy

Rev. (Dr). Samuel Tugba left behind a rich and lasting legacy which includes: ECWA Wuse II which has greatly grown spiritually and numerically to over 3000 worshippers presently where two services are held.

Rev. (Dr). Samuel Tugba will be highly remembered as the founding Pastor of ECWA Wuse II whose humility ,firmness, truth, sincerity and other Godly qualities have led the whole congregation to cherish and demonstrate God’s love to one another and to others too. Part of his legacy is that ECWA Wuse II has become a great centre for leadership training, evangelism, marriage counseling, Bible Studies and prayer warfare. His dream is to make ECWA Wuse II the Macedonian Church of our time. He is therefore highly appreciated by his congregation. ECWA Kano too appreciates him, naming a building after him, and his Alma Mata, Kagoro Theological Seminary did same by honouring him with an Honourary Doctorate Degree and naming a dormitory after him. A Microfinance Bank, ECWA Wuse II Microfinance Bank (EWT) licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and fully serviced Guest House (Mission Guest House), a currently ongoing Hospital Project for Bingham University Permanent site are all part of the legacies he initiated during his era as the Senior Pastor for 22 years.

Rev. Tugba went to be with the Lord on Thursday, 15^th January, 2015.

 

When the good Lord decided to call our father Rev. Dr. Samuel Tugba home, the editor went in search of this interview which was granted to the COUNTDOWN CREW in 2007 shortly before the end of the year. We will like to keep Baba’s memory fresh for as long as we can, thus the crew decided to republish the interview again. We hope you also find it refreshing like we do. God bless you.

COUNTDOWN: Would you like to tell us how you would like to be introduced sir?

BABA: I am Rev. (Dr). Samuel Tugba and also with me is my wife Mrs. Lizzy Tugba. I’ve worked as a Pastor of ECWA for 39 years, out of the 39 years, I took out five years to go to school. I have now retired but to me it’s a change of function. Not being Pastor at the ECWA Wuse II but I am still in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, my boss for life. So that’s how I will love to be introduced – Rev. (Dr). & Mrs. Tugba, retired but not tired, still in the service of the Lord Jesus.

COUNTDOWN: Sir, you just said you have been in the service for 39 years and that‘s a long time. We‘ll like you to share with us briefly, the experience in the ministry, may be the upcoming Pastors, and some of us too who are working closely with the ministry could learn something from your 39 years of experience.

BABA: Immediately after my graduation from Kagoro Bible College in1967, I went straight to ECWA Good News Church, Bukuru, then in Plateau State and I served there three years. There, God helped me to start a little Church and it was a kind of enclosure surrounded by the next staff quarters, there was a very big Anglican Church building behind… That Church was deserted by the Igbos, this was during the Biafran war. The war was just about being ended. So we went to Jos and asked the Anglican Bishop if we could use the Church. The Church building had become a dumping ground. The Anglican Bishop was very happy. He said it was better to have God’s children use it than to use God’s building as a dumping site. So we began to use it but we actually had to clean the Church. I remember one Mrs. Ferry who was the General Accountant to UNESCO at that time and she was also a very hardworking housewife. She was a German but the husband was a Briton. She was very hardworking. She said we should clean the Church ourselves; this is service we could render to God, not money, not looking for money to clear refuse. So the Church organized and we cleared the Church ourselves. Mrs. Ferry was the first one to kneel down to begin to scrub the floor and remember this place was full of refuse. You know, people were excreting in this place and a white lady knelt down and cleaned the place and when I saw that, I became humbled. I also knelt down, when I did, others joined. This experience taught me something in the Pastoral work. I could not do the Pastoral work with pride; you could not serve God with pride. That humbling experience set me up to the foundation of Pastoral work. I was there for three years until I moved to Kano, ECWA English Section where I spent nine and half years. The experience in Bukuru helped me in starting off a Church there too. I took over from Rev. Victor Musa but I also started a new Church which has become a very big Church now over there. Anyone who goes to Kano from the Eye Hospital in SIM compound will find there is very big Church there.

Having worked for nine and half years, there was need to go for more training. So I went to US with my family then, with my late wife Comfort Tugba and our four children. We went to US from 1980 April. We spent close to five years in US. We started working in Abuja, with what is known now as ECWA Wuse II in December 1985 for 22 years after which I retired on the 17^th February 2007.

You are asking of experiences. Those experiences of serving God, some were trying and challenging experiences, some were pleasant experiences. You don’t expect a Church to just grow all of a sudden; you have a lot of hard work to put in, some hours of prayer, when you spend time with the Lord, crying to the Lord to do His work through you. Teaching the word of God and also wanting to see that the word of God is being put into practice does not come with nothing or automatically. It requires some patience, attention and prayer, faithful teaching and discipleship to be able to get something out of the growing congregation. Those have been my experiences in my pastoral work. I’ll like to see people come to Christ and also go into discipleship programmes to build up the faith of Christians.

COUNTDOWN: Sir, would you mind sharing with us the major elements that contributed to your success especially on the field?

BABA: Humility and dedication, clear sense of commitment to Christ are the key words. A verse in Psalm 84 says it is better to be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to be elsewhere. I’ll rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord that is the least that could be done. Just opening the door, that is a sense of service, humble service in the household of faith. So, that is the backup that I told you that, that lady taught me – humility: hardwork with humility. Wherever I go, I want to sincerely follow God with honesty and humility. Learning to work together with others as a team; not being a boss, serving God as one of God’s servants, learning to build up a team… working to do God’s work. That has been my theme for service.

COUNTDOWN: In your 39 years of being in the employment of ECWA sir, was there any time , any situation where we can say you experienced  any difficulty working with ECWA, may be some ideas or some decisions in the Church administration?

BABA: Working with ECWA as an organization- there is no way you can work with an organization without some differences in your service. As an organization, you have a Constitution but the implementation of this Constitution is another thing. You have to work together with other Pastors; sometimes you have people As Chairmen or Local Overseers and to serve as a Pastor under them, the way they may want you to do things may not be exactly the way you read from the Scriptures. So there may be differences but you learn to be loyal administratively but in terms of spiritual ministry, you know that God is your boss. So, you have to serve him with transparency, honesty and humility. Whereas you take instructions from other people that you work with, you want to be sure that you have a clear conscience before God, that your service is directly to him. So there may be areas of differences in doing your work but you will want to be careful not to disobey your leaders. You maintain a good relationship but you know that your boss is Christ himself.

COUNTDOWN:  Would you like to point out a particular one either in Kano or Wuse II, those were the two biggest Churches you pastored?

BABA: Our administration set up in ECWA, you have your immediate area of responsibility in the Church you pastor, you call it the Local Church Board (LCB), there you have Elders and this is the key to your pastoral success. If you are able to handle church properly, spiritually and maintain a good relationship with the Elders leading them, then both of you can become loyal to Jesus Christ. So, what I’ve enjoyed most is the leadership at that level because here, you deal more with Elders and you deal more with church members bringing more converts and then going to areas of discipleship where you see people’s spiritual lives taking shape and the church growing. You may have some disagreements within the Elders sometimes but then in most cases, once you spend real quality time studying the Bible and praying, then you have people who emerge as Elders who desire to see the church growing spiritually. We have had some cases where we disagree with some Elders, but eventually they have to respect the truth as the Bible teaches it. Now, I don’t want to exercise naked power but power as derived from the Word of God. When you know the truth and you really want to see it practiced, you really begin to see God at work, the Holy Spirit takes over and those people who are not in line with the leadership of the Holy Spirit, you find that they will begin to discover that they are out of shape and that becomes very obvious.

When you move to the next level of Local Church Council (LCC), where you have a number of ECWA churches in one place, you have the Pastors coming together to hold Pastors’ meetings and so on. At that level, you don’t have much in terms of working… except you are like a Local Overseer. Otherwise you are able to maintain your contribution at that level, be part of other pastors. Some other Pastors may not agree with your perception of the ministry because even though we are an evangelical church, sometimes you have political differences. And differences in form of tribal differences, and differences in administration, what the Word of God says. So, you don’t know how to perfectly agree to be able to relate to each other.

Then you have another level that is called the District Church Council (DCC). It is at that Council which is just like a state, where you have the Governor and the members of the executive. They take leadership of that particular state. This is what the DCC is all about. They maintain leadership at that level. You see there an act of loyalty and maintain that type of relationship. Sometime, you don’t agree but the disagreement may not be such that, you have to physical struggle or do one thing or the other. This is in terms of responsibility, the way you see it, the way other leaders see the administrative functions. There may be differences but you don’t have a pronounced difference where you follow.

Then you have instructions coming from the headquarters. The Church Council has also maintained a good relationship with the General Church Council (GCC) especially in Abuja; because I was actually posted to Abuja… even though I worked with other Church with all these administrative layouts, I still relate directly with ECWA headquarters. They have always counted on me; they have always been respectful, even I to them too. So, my work has been greatly enhanced by good relationship with leadership and General Church Council, the ECWA Headquarters. They have great confidence in my ability to perform and lead the Church. So they gave me all the support I needed throughout my twenty-two years, especially in Abuja. So that has greatly helped me in my ministry.

COUNTDOWN: As a Pastor, your era was very appealing to the young and old people alike, a balanced Church, one would say. What precisely can you pinpoint as a factor responsible for this? Is it the mode of worship or is it the programmes of the Church?

BABA: If you read the Bible, you wouldn’t go too long before you realize that true life consists of true thanksgiving, commitment to prayers, releasing yourself to God as a life style. So, worship is part of Christian conviction. You worship God as you meditate, as you read the scriptures, as you pray, as you sing. If you read all through the book of Psalms, you’ll realize that worship involves music, involves the whole of your lifetime which may involve singing; singing praises to God, sometimes, in times of sorrow. So, this is the type of music David had so much to convey to us. So, any true Christian should be able to put his life to God which involves music in terms of expressing one’s desire, one’s loyalty, one’s commitment, one’s joy, expression of thanksgiving and that may be done culturally. In the times of Old Testament, they had ways of expressing their appreciation of God and admission to God. Culturally, David said “I will dance, I will sing with guitar and drums and other things. So all these instruments were used even at that time for singing and worshiping God, The true and living God and in our time, we use modern musical instruments. We may not use exactly what they used at that time but in our time, what is available for the praise of God is what we embraced. For as we have a church comprising of different ages- we have the aged, men, women. But we must learn to appreciate God and totally enter into the life of worshiping God. The young people will enjoy singing with musical instruments which carry them along better. That is part of the ministry of the church. To carry out a survey and find that, for every given occasion you have, that 70% of the members in the church will be young people. So, if you are going to carry the whole church along with you, then you have to give proper attention to the music ministry of the church which will carry along 70% of the Church with you. You may not be able to satisfy the grownups, the aged, but in that case you also give freedom so that they too can enjoy at their own level. We made sure we have sufficient hymn books in the church from which to sing, for those who may not want to go along with the musical differences that the young people enjoy. They can enjoy the traditional songs that we sing. We made sure that all these are available in the Church that different groups may enjoy worship. So, it’s not a waste of money and I had to take the leadership along with me, that it’s not a waste of money to invest in having musical instrument because they will ensure that we have a balanced church –young people and the elderly people. All will have their spiritual needs met. And the worship life of the Church in various aspects will also be met. It’s a way of investment, so that people can truly worship the living God. It is God who provides, who touches people’s lives to provide money so that this money can be used to have something that will aid worship in terms of musical worship. It is not a waste!

COUNTDOWN: How were you able to convince the leadership in Wuse II to devote such amount of money to the musical instrument, ECWA not being known for that ‘fancy’ of musical gadgets we have today.

BABA: We had to invest in musical equipment to be able to carry out the programme, to carry along with the young people of the Church. At that time, I had to explain to all the elders that anytime you take the statistics of the Church members, you will find that about 70% of the Church attendance is young people and you would have a whole generation with a lot of competitive demands. In the secular world, you will find a lot of young people are being carried away by secular music. So if the church is going to play her part in the heart of the young people and you tell them not to follow or fall into secular music, then you have to provide an alternative and the alternative in the spiritual musical life which will involve investment in buying musical equipment. This way you will have good excuse to build up your young people because if you just tell them don’t do this, don’t go to cinema, don’t go to public theatre, and don’t join these people who are jumping here and there, naked music and so on, they’ll tell you o.k., we have potentials, we have the need within us that need to be met, where do we go to satisfy this need and if the church does not proffer alternative, then, we will have no excuse, so you have to proffer alternative. So, having explained this to the Elders, they too were able to reason with me, they were able to carry the eldership of the Church along. So where there is a need to buy these things, we also take the need to the Elders’ Board and say this is the budget for musical department of the Church. This is how much and so on. So, if there are some that are totally out of place, some will argue and they will give us reasons but most cases, we have Elders whot are understanding and they will say, o.k, if this is going to help us to build up the musical aspect of the worship, let’s go ahead. So we have this understanding with the leadership of the Church. This is how I have been able to vote sizeable amount of money to buy modern equipment for the musical department of the Church.

COUNTDOWN: You made mention of the young people of the Church and the proportion they make of the Church, is it the reason you always had time to attend children service.

BABA: To follow the example of Christ. Christ says you don’t drive away children from him for of such is the kingdom of God. So, if Christ during his time gave time, sufficient time to the ministry of meeting with the children, then, if we are following Christ, the Church actually is the body of Christ, then we should follow the example of the Master. So we look at children as a very important arm of the Church because that is where the Church begins. You know on the level we are to build truth in the life of these children. It is easier to reach children at the level and so we try to get people who are gifted, who have a gift of teaching and dealing with children and encourage them, so that they can truly build up a powerful Sunday School Ministry so that the children are not left out. They are taught properly at that stage, we are able to capture them when they are young and working together with parents. We also try to get parents to go along with the Church, the children’s Church so that what they are taught in the children’s church is being reinforced in homes and the Bible gives the true condition to these children both at home and in the church. So, we have had to look at the Sunday school service very critically. We have Child Evangelism Fellowship that specializes in ministering to the children. I’ve got quite a number of members trained in the CEF so that they can take care of the children’s arm of they can properly take care of the children’s arm of the teaching ministry of the church.

COUNTDOWN: Sir, I will like you to give us a word as a Nation, our leadership, administration of the country and as a pastor who has been at the pulpit for 39 years. When you read papers and you hear news of some activities of some supposed Christians in the corridors of power, in terms of abuse of office, maladministration and some other things that are not supposed to be heard amongst Christians. Can we have your word for today’s Christians in power?

BABA:  For me as a Pastor, there was a verse where Timothy was instructed to obey and I’ve tried to put the particular verse in my pastoral work. In I Timothy 4:16, Paul told Timothy to be careful with the doctrine, to observe the doctrine so that in doing it, he will both save himself and Also help the audience, his hearers. Watch over your doctrine, because in the obedience of this doctrine and teaching it, you will both help yourself and those who hear you, your hearers. That is very important because Paul about himself said follow me, follow my pattern, my example of life. Once again, he told Timothy, be an example in teaching, in speech, in doctrine, in whatever you do so we cannot say one thing and do another. We should always watch. What we find to be the truth in the Scriptures, they should be implemented in our lifestyles. So, if Church leaders are able to obey what the Bible teaches, it will be easier to tell other people to do what I do not to say ‘do what I say and not what I do.’ So we can tell people ‘follow my example.’ Therefore both in the Church and in the Nation, leadership should be able to demonstrate their conviction through their lifestyle, through their leadership style. I tell the people ‘this is the way, walk ye in it.’ That’s what the Bible says. So we should be able to live a life that could become examples to others. Leadership by example, even our own president now (Late President Musa Yar’adua)  who said he wants to be a servant leader. You think that’s a very good thing to do whether he heard it explained because it is not a normal political statement. So we have been praying for him so that truly he will be a servant leader. Christ taught his disciples and said don’t do like others do but do be a servant and let your servant leadership affect the lives of the people you are leading. You know He washed the disciples’ feet and He said you call me your Lord and your Master, this is true; what I have done, you do it to one another. So we should be people of our words. Actually what will help our society is the truth of the scriptures being implemented in ordinary lifestyle. Wherever you are, at the office, wherever you work, the classroom, you should be prepared to put the truth into action and serve as servant. Be a servant leader, not become so bossy.

COUNTDOWN: Do you think that the Church has a role to play in ensuring the philosophy of servant leadership in our homes and different place of work? What then is the role?

BABA:  Wherever you are as a Christian, you should be prepared to put the truth into action because God is really the one we are serving. Leaders, whether in the Church or in the national political set up should be God fearing because God has given assignments even as Public servants. Whoever takes the responsibility of a political assignment should have it in mind that we shall give account of our stewardship one day. It is a shame that the Church is not a good example in this area. The Church ought to be in the fore front in setting example as the salt of the earth. What will help our society is to ensure we practice what we preach. We should lead as servants. They shouldn’t copy others but copy Bible teachings.

COUNTDOWN: You would remember the year 2007 for a lot of things. You retired this year on the 17^th February, you remarried this year on the 24^th November and about a week ago, the 3^rd December, you celebrated another birthday, how would you describe the events in the year 2007 as regards your wedding?

BABA: His grace has been sufficient. It hasn’t been easy without a wife for the past six years. Just as the toast on the wedding card says God makes all things beautiful at its own time, though it has been rough, God has really been there for us in the face of it all. We are looking up for him to clear the road because the road is rough. He has brought us through this far and we pray that He that brought us this far will take us completely through. We still request prayers from all who know us.

By:Countdown