Ibadan Baptist Church Raises Alarm Over Convention President’s Role in Prolonged Conflict

Press Statement

Dear Brethren,

Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

Following the resistance of the people of New Glory Baptist Church (former Ajegunle B.C.), Agbowo, Ibadan, against Rev. Dr. Israel Adelani Akanji’s undue and toxic interference in the internal affairs of the church, and his unprecedented victimization/hostility against our pastors and members of their families, the church has decided to report his current evils against the church to you. The reason for taking this resolution is not far-fetched. We have no representative to present our side of the story when lies are flying around against our church and pastors in your executive meetings.

To begin with, Rev. Akanji, in his characteristic hypocritical and duplicitous nature, reported, through his legal officer, in the Book of Reports for the recently concluded Annual Session of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, that members of Ajegunle Baptist Church had instituted a legal action at the Magistrates’ Court in Ibadan against Rev. Dr. E. O. Oyekan for the recovery of the pastorium and other properties of the church in his possession (page 73 of the Book of Reports). Whereas Rev. Akanji, representing the Registered Trustees of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, is the number one Claimant/Plaintiff in that lawsuit (evidence attached below). His pretense, not to be directly involved in the unlawful and/or kleptomaniac attempt to help his cronies ‘snatch’ the church’s properties, has, once again, validated our rebuttal against his concocted lies in his press release of February 24, 2025. His alliance and collaboration with the former church members who have been persecuting the church since 2015 have confirmed, over and over again, that his claim, shortly after he assumed office, to be a peace broker between the church and the so-called ‘concerned group’ who left the church since 2018, was a sheer deception. Rather than helping the matter, his biased and nepotistic intervention further compounded the whole situation.

In the first instance, every Baptist member who is conversant with the policies of the denomination knows full well that no pastor can lay claim to any of the properties belonging to any local Baptist church, either for himself or his family members. Not only that, it’s common knowledge that the properties of every local Baptist church belong to the entire congregation and not any individual, not even the Nigerian Baptist Convention. The Convention President himself, during his recent interview with the Editorial Team of The Nigerian Baptist Magazine, unequivocally attested to the fact that every local Baptist church in Nigeria has the right to own properties. He explicitly stated that the Convention is not interested in taking what belongs to any church and does not even have the constitutional backing to do so (May 2025 edition of The Nigerian Baptist Magazine, pages 15 & 16). In sharp contrast to these statements of fact, Rev. Akanji’s penchant and insatiable appetite to blackmail the church and the church pastors have propelled him to embark on the ignoble and ill-thought-out adventure of instituting a lawsuit against the senior pastor of the church to claim the church properties, none of which is in the pastor’s possession.

The misleading information being peddled around by Rev. Akanji’s cronies concerning our church’s registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, is equally worthy of note for necessary clarification. It was reported by some national newspapers, sometime last year, that a deadline of July 7, 2024, had been set for operators of small businesses and PoS in Nigeria to register with the CAC. This was later extended to September 5, 2024. Before then, our Schools Management Board had been having recurrent issues and hitches with the smooth operations of the bank accounts of our two schools, just because those schools were yet to be registered with the CAC. Instead of embarking on separate registrations for the two schools, the schools’ management was legally advised that registering the church with the CAC covers both schools and any form of business (charitable or profit-oriented) that the church may intend to venture into in the nearest future. So, how does the decision, unanimously taken by the entire congregation, to register the church with the CAC, correlate with the slanderous information emanating from the camp of Rev. Akanji and his friends?

The group has persistently and deceptively alleged that Rev. Dr. E. O. Oyekan has gone to register his own church with the CAC. This was also reported by the President and his Vice (Ministerial), Rev. John Enyinnaya, on page 66 of the Book of Reports, all in an attempt to misinform members of the Baptist family and the general public. Meanwhile, Rev. Akanji himself disclosed, in the aforementioned magazine (page 16), that the Convention recognizes that some churches had already registered with the CAC. As a matter of fact, under the leadership of Rev. Israel Akanji as the senior pastor, before his appointment as the Convention President, First Baptist Church, Garki, Abuja, was registered with the CAC in 2012. And again, during that same interview with the editors of The Nigerian Baptist Magazine, Rev. Akanji emphasized that the Convention did not ask any church to go and de-register. Instead, the Convention is only advising the registered churches to ensure that their constitutions are in harmony with that of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, he concluded. Simple! Therefore, what’s the basis for the fuss and/or hullabaloo about registering New Glory Baptist Church (formerly known as Ajegunle Baptist Church, Agbowo, Ibadan) with the CAC? Are the members of the ‘concerned group’ encouraging the church not to be law-abiding citizens of Nigeria? Do they expect everyone to be lawless characters like them, who, in collaboration with their godfather (Rev. Akanji), hired thugs armed with all sorts of dangerous weapons to lock up the church since November 17, 2024, till date?

To us as a church, appealing to Rev. Akanji’s sense of reasoning on this matter is of no use again, as this will continue to amount to flogging a dead horse. Nevertheless, it’s very important, for record purposes and for posterity’s sake, to mention, without any ambiguity, that the Lord has helped the church to weather the storm and overcome the crisis instigated by the so-called ‘concerned members’ long before Rev. Akanji came on board as the Convention President in the year 2021. It is on record that Dr. Akanji intruded into our church affairs as an unsolicited reunifier who paved the way for his friends, the former church members who had left the church since 2018, to be accepted back by the people of New Glory Baptist Church (after they had been away for exactly five years and seven months), despite the obvious indicators that they’re yet to repent of their past evil deeds against the church.

For other false allegations against our Senior Pastor and the entire congregation reported in the 2025 NBC Book of Reports and through other means, we leave Rev. Akanji to his conscience. His persistent portrayal of New Glory Baptist Church, an organised and government-recognised Baptist church with ten Baptist-trained pastors, twenty-four serving deacons and deaconesses, and many daughter-churches – as ‘just a group’, has, by no means, hindered God from showcasing His goodness and faithfulness in our church on a daily basis. Therefore, he is at liberty to continue lying, distorting facts, and misinforming members of the denomination and the general public about the church of God and her pastors. “Ìbàjẹ́ ènìyàn kò dá isẹ́ Olúwa dúró” (Denigration of humans does not stop the work of God).

In conclusion, as the tenure of Rev. Dr. Israel Adelani Akanji is gradually winding down, it’s our heart cry that the Lord will choose for His people, God-fearing leaders who will lead the Nigerian Baptist Convention in the right direction towards the expansion of God’s Kingdom. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
Thanks and remain blessed, sir/ma. Shalom!

Signed: The Church Council, NGBC, Agbowo, Ibadan.