Can you talk about the origin of the name Holy Spirit Mission?

The man God used to start the Holy Spirit Mission; Bishop Michael Marioghae was deeply rooted in the Anglican tradition. He was a preacher. The Anglican Church used him to give birth to some secondary schools including the famous James Welsh in Delta State in 1957 and Anglican Boys Grammar School also in Delta State in 1965. He was also a one-time principal in one of the best Anglican Girls’ Schools in the country. You can therefore see that his Anglican background was deep. His father was a Catechist in the Anglican Church. At a stage, he got baptised in the Holy Ghost and this marked the beginning of his problems with the Anglican Church. People who wanted Holy Ghost Baptism came to meet him in his house and many got filled with the Holy Spirit. The Anglican Church of that time could not tolerate this.

The disagreement was a front-page national issue. It was in the course of all these that the headquarters of Benin and Delta Diocese of the Anglican Church in Benin City summoned him and he was told to renounce the person of the Holy Spirit during a Sunday service and that the Holy Spirit only operated in the time of the Apostles- the likes of Apostle Peter, Paul and the rest. He refused and he was booed. He and his wife were then excommunicated from the Anglican Church. It was at this stage that the Lord told him to start a ministry. So, when he asked the Lord what should be the name of the ministry, Bishop Marioghae was then asked, ‘What is the nickname that is being used to mock and abuse you?’ He then answered, ‘Holy Spirit people’. He was then told to add the word ‘mission’. That is the origin of the name Holy Spirit Mission. It will also be important for me to inform you that before he went home to be with the Lord, I accompanied him to where he ministered in an Anglican Church. He was happy to see that the Anglican Church started welcoming the person of the Holy Spirit. He was happy to see that his efforts and those of others who sowed this seed in the Anglican Church never ended in vain. When he eventually died, Anglican bishops came to personally pay their respects. Moreover, about four or so years ago, a service was held where the excommunication was lifted even after his death.

The ministry used to have its headquarters in Benin, what informed the decision to relocate to Lagos?

Well, it will interest you to know that nobody openly objected to my being made the General Superintendent of the Ministry because a few million people were impacted by the marriage and family and miracle aspects of our ministry. My movement to Lagos was divine because it did not make physical sense to move from Benin City, where our ministry was doing well and we were almost becoming a household name. People told me that Archbishop Benson Idahosa made it to Benin and that I should remain there. My answer to the question is that if I had remained in Benin City, I would have made more impact provincially (in some states in that part of the country). My stay in Lagos opened me up to circumstances and some people I would not have met if I were still in Benin City. My being in Lagos positioned the ministry for a more global impact. I am not saying that only those in Lagos have more global impact; far from it. In life and ministry, divine location plays a critical role. In the case of Benson Idahosa, Benin City was his divine location and he made a global impact from there. But in the case of Charles Ighele, Lagos is his divine location and after years and years of taking root downwards, we have started to grow upwards in parts of the world. For example, apart from the branch churches handed over to me by Bishop Marioghae, more have been planted in Benin City and South-South. We are firmly in Lagos and Ogun State in the South-West. We have churches in northern states such as Kogi, Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe and some other places in the north. The Maiduguri branch in Borno state will soon take off. We will soon be on the ground in some African countries including Malawi, and the 95 percent population of Muslims in Gambia. Our work is already in the United States. The church there has about 30 adults but the surprising thing is that about half of them are white Americans. By the grace of God, I have become one of the speakers during some Ministers’ Conferences in the US. My wife, Carol, hosts an Annual Women’s Conference in the US and she is unable to meet up with the demand from city to city. Our Sharon University of Agriculture and Rural Development will soon take off. We have acquired a few hundred acres for the university and other projects in Ogun State near Lagos. You can see that my moving to Lagos has not drawn us back. The food processing arm has already taken off and our products are in some of the big supermarkets in the country though people do not know that it is from us. By the grace of God, I’m an entrepreneurial leader and a developmental leader. And the bustling city of Lagos with over 20 million people energises me to fulfil God’s kingly call upon my life (apart from the priestly call) to fulfil my priestly and kingly ministry as an entrepreneurial and developmental leader. From Lagos, our ministry has been positioned to raise and retrain our youths (no matter the tribe) to use their education for development, especially in skills acquisition and agricultural areas.

What can other ministers can learn from the ministry’s success story in the last 50 years?

The answer to your question is that apart from the anointing of God that is upon my life, what I cherish most in my life is integrity or honesty. It was the integrity I saw in Bishop Michael Marioghae that made me join the Holy Spirit Mission in the 80s. I have seen that honest leaders are few. I was personally quite happy when the late Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke sent for me years before he died and told me that he had heard of my high level of integrity and that I should keep it up. We have about 160 pastors in Holy Spirit Mission as of now and they say that my honesty with them is what makes them follow me. I learnt this from Bishop Marioghae and also from others and some ministries can learn this from us. There is no growing ministry that does not have problems. We had problems but these were early during my tenure as the GS of Holy Spirit Mission. Some of the problems were caused by some people who had their agenda while some were also caused by my inexperience and youthful exuberance. For the past many years, I have had a team of pastors whom I seriously believe in. My work is to use my office to build up my pastors and not to be angry with them or humiliate them when anyone sins or does not behave too well. What are you looking to achieve in the years ahead as a ministry? We are a ministry with a sanctified ambition to make an impact. So, in the next few years, we should be in at least 50 other nations of the world. By the grace of God, we should go beyond that.

You said earlier that your pastors trust and believe in your level of integrity; what else makes them speak very highly of you?

When I started in ministry, I looked out for pastors with a high level of anointing to push the work forward but after about six years or so, I changed my style. I stopped looking for the anointed and started looking for the faithful. The anointed may give you an immediate impact but with bad character. But the faithful may not give you immediate results but will certainly bear fruits that will endure. I lay more importance on the fruit of the Spirit than on the power and gifts of the Spirit because; it is the fruit that will take you to heaven and not the gifts. That was why Jesus said ‘By their fruits you shall know them’ and not by their anointing or largest churches. So for me, the character of a man and how the man of God uses the anointing with good character is more important than the anointing that brings scandals and makes one in the news for the wrong reasons. I have peace, I like peaceful people and I like to be with peaceful people.

Beyond liking peaceful people; how have you been able to stay off scandals as a minister?

Before I got married and before I joined the Holy Spirit Mission, I stood on the altar of a church and made a vow that no lie would ever come out of my mouth. I also made a vow that I would never commit fornication and adultery. I told God that I prefer to die if that is the only way of preventing me. I asked for His grace to see me through because by my power, I could not because females used to like me a lot. I was handsome. Like in Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart” like a bird, I had to learn to fly without perching when men had learnt to shoot their catapults without missing. Moreover, I have always had this principle of not allowing married or unmarried females who have no sense of shame to be in my inner circle or very close to me. Once I discover, I will distance such a female from me. About money, I have a conscience that is very, very sensitive so is my wife. Church money is church money and my money is my money.