I've asked God to forgive Wole Soyinka and I for co-founding Pyrates Confraternity --- Prof. (pastor) Muyiwa Awe

Having toyed with atheism, agnosticism and other ideas that wouldn’t acknowledge the existence of God, Professor Muyiwa Awe, who co-founded Pyrate Confraternity with Professor Wole Soyinka in 1953 at University of Ibadan found Christ in 1991 through what he called the humility of

the person and simplicity of the sermon of Pastor Adejare Adeboye. Awe, a top-rate scientist who bagged his PhD in 1960 and professorship in Ionospheric Physics is 1968, former Dean, faculty of Science of both University of Lagos and Ibadan, husband of the famous academic/activist Prof. Bolanle Awe, is now the pastor of Fullness of Christ Evangelical Ministry (FOCEM) in Ibadan. Recently, he renounced his membership of Pirate Confraternity and went ahead to ask God to forgive Wole Soyinka and himself for giving birth to an association that has become a nightmare for most Nigerians. More of his thoughts in this interview conducted by Bola Adewara at his FOCEM office in Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria.

Science and what we call religion are two opposites that one becomes curious how does a top-rate scientist like you become a believer and went ahead to become a preacher of word. How do you reconcile the two? 
It has been easy for me because I have resolved in my mind that there are two segments to life, the physical which we see, much of which we can’t control anyhow and the spiritual which underlines the physical. So there is no conflict in my mind. The important thing is that whether or not one agrees that there is God who is the supernatural, omnipotent and omnipresent. If you accept that, all other things fall in place.

Even in science there are many things we do not understand. We talk about electron, how much do we know about it? We only describe it by equation and that does not go to the root of the problem. So if we accept as people like us must accept that there is a limit to what man can know, then we must also accept that there is a supernatural which we can not reach except in cooperation with God Himself. Although the supernatural can also be reached in cooperation with devil.

After a very long in sojourn in the scientific corridor, how easy was it for you to abandon the quest for physical proofs as preached by science for beliefs and faith in the unseen upheld by Christianity? Somehow it was not difficult for me. I think what prepared my mind for the supernatural was a friend who headed a Cherubim and Seraphim church. I was not a member but I was able to go in and out of the church and saw things that were happening. He once came to this building and said it would have a extension at a time I never thought it will ever happen, and it turned out so.

So how did giving your life to Christ happen to you?
It was at a seminar which was addressed by Pastor Enoch Adeboye of Redeemed Christian Church of God at the University of Ibadan in 1991. I gave my life when I was already 58 going 59, that is why I always say I came to Christ as a matured adult going to become a senior citizen. Most of my adult life I sometimes lived as a nominal Christian, sometimes as an agnostic, sometime as an atheist. So I have passed through the whole gamut.

At that seminar, Pastor Adeboye was speaking about the Holy Spirit and I was so impressed that I thought is all he is talking about from the bible? I was completely swept off my feet such that when he made an alter call, I responded to it. I have attended many seminars were preachers made alter calls and I’ve always been cynical about them. I wished they shouldn’t waste our time with such calls but that day I managed to go out; only four of us went out, so it was not a question that I hid myself in the crowd.

I was quite prominent and I was shy that ah! a whole professor of physics and at my age. But I thank God that He has not allowed me to regret going for Him. I give glory to Him that He made me to overcome my inhibition. The very word Adeboye said which touched me was that “if you re not sure that if you die today you’ll make heaven, come out now”. I asked myself, “am I sure, am I not sure?” I knew I was not so sure so I went out to make assurance doubly sure.

Age 58 when you gave your life was a twilight era. Could it be the fear of death that led you to God? 
At that time I was never thinking of death. Fear of death has never been in my mind. I have never been hospitalised so that was far from me. The Bible says those who hoard their life time are subjected to bondage through the fear of death, but I am not one of them.

 As a top-rate scientist, is there a meeting point between science and Christianity? Yes. I have found out that God is behind every thing. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 29:29 that the secret things belong to God, the thing that are revealed belong to us and our children that we might live by that law. It is what God reveals that we know by science so every thing is connected to him. He is the greatest scientist.

 But why it is popularly believed that scientists say that there is no God, what is it in science that creates such impression that scientists are always agog to dispute the existence of God? The point is that scientists are logical. And once you do that and base everything on reason and on what you can see, it is very difficult to have a supernatural dimension added to your life, so the run-of-the-mill scientists will say there is no God, just as the atheist would say, or if He exists, there is no means of proving it which the agnostics say. But some of us have been able to cross that boundary through the grace of God.

You have gone through agnosticism, atheism, etc before coming to Christ. How did you get into these? What was your background like? I was brought up by a strict father who converted as an Ifa diviner to Christianity at a matured age. I, as his second to the last child, was born into Christianity. As the Baba Ijo of the Anglican Church in our village, Esie in Kwara state, he gave us a strictly orthodox upbringing. But when I came to Government College, Ibadan for my secondary education, these ideas were given free rein amongst a couple of us who were shared the same attitude of rebellion.

When I got to the University of Ibadan, I returned to church and I got confirmed in the Anglican Church by Bishop Akinyele. After my degree, I went to Britain where it is strictly your interest if you go to Church or not and I went whenever I felt like. That continued until I came back in April1960 and my wife to be, Bolanle, whom I met in England came back in September and we got married. She was brought up in, St Annes, a strictly Anglican school, as one of the founding children who were sent there from CMS Girls School in Lagos. When we began to have children, I will take them to chapel and at the appropriate time return to pick them, it went on like this until the Adeboye seminar.

How far did you go in agnosticism and atheism? You don’t have to go far; having read the book of Thomas Paine, Age of Reasoning, which was available in our library and having rubbed shoulders with the kind of friends we had, you just felt you can do without God.

But I thought Thomas Paine did acknowledge God before he died. I was told he did on his death bed. I don’t know the truth of that any way.

 At your younger days did you imagine that one day you will preach the gospel? 
Frankly I did not but my father touched upon that once when I finished what was then called Standard Six. When I told him that I was admitted to Government College, Ibadan, he said it was alright but he had thought that I would go to St Andrews College, Oyo to become a reverend gentleman. May be that was why he named me Samuel.

Did you ever use the name? Did it reflect in any of your certificate? 
It reflected in my certificate but later nobody knows anything about it except people in my hometown. I think my father named me Samuel after his own kind ofHannahic experience. I think he must have said if God gave him a son he would give the child back to him. I am the only son of my mother’s five children, the fourth child precisely.

 Having given your life to Christ how challenging has it been for you? What were the initial challenges? The initial challenge was that most people thought that it was not genuine because I had already dipped my hands in to so many things. Even my wife did not think it was genuine but latter on she must have seen the power of God.

What were the reactions like? For instance when I was newly ordained at Christ Life Church, Ibadan, under Rev now Bishop Wale Oke, there was a time we went for a wedding ceremony and the pastors were processing out. I passed by a friend who saw me, he said “Ah, you? a pastor?” I said“Na so we see am o” I didn’t work for it. I did not pray for it. But it was the grace of God.

At the time you were not a Christian what was your wife’s disposition to Christ? Did she trouble you to give your life? Her upbringing in strict Christian background has all the while brought her close to God. But her attitude to my disposition was live and let live. She never disturbed me at all. It could be that she was praying for me silently but it never became an open thing at all.

So now, what do you do in FOLCEM? It’s just a ministry. I worship at Jesus Embassy, one of the RCCG parishes here in Ibadan. Our ministry is for counselling and when an unbeliever comes, we offer them Christ. For Christians who come, we pray for them after deliverance on Thursday.

Do you have any regret that you did not know Christ much earlier? Yes, I do. But on the other hand the scripture that consoled me is in Matthew 10, the story of the labourers who were hired at different times. Some were hired at 12noon, some 3pm, others at 5pm and the work closes at 6pm. I feel I am one of those who were hired at 5pm and at the end of the parable all of them were rewarded equally. So I think God wanted me to pass through some things before I become his servant.

Now that you are in Christ what are those things that you think you could have done that you have not done? If I had started earlier, I would have affected more lives. By now that the Lord called me late, and if Jesus tarries, I pray he gives me more life so I can compensate for the time I have spent in other ways for His glory. He talks about redeeming the time the locust had eaten; I am asking him for a longer life. I am even covenanted with him on that so that I can say like Simeon, now let thy servant depart in peace.

You earlier said people doubted your new life because of what you have dipped your hands into. What were these things? I am one of those who founded Pirate Confraternity (PC) and I am one of those who maintained that though PC which transformed to National Association of Seadogs (NAS) truly dissociated itself from PC on campuses, it can not really separate itself from it. This was the basis of the attack of Prof. Wole Soyinka on me at their 50th anniversary where he gave an 18-page lecture, where substantial part of it was an attack on me and my ministry. That only showed me that his camp noted that someone has left them. In fact, I have just finished writing a reply to him on that.

My attitude is that whatever we may say today, it was the idea of PC that gave rise to these virulent cults. Even though we were not violent when we started it and we didn’t call it cult, but the cult culture began after when we started. Today, they still recognise we the founders as the Magnificent 7! The NAS does not want to agree with that. Though they decreed that no PC should not exist on campuses, but we all know that they still do. The fact is if they say they have no link to the ones on the campuses, I’ll be prepared to accept that but to say they don’t exist on campuses, I disagreed and we parted ways on that.

I want you to look back at those years. How did the group begin? Who called you and how was the idea conceived? The idea was conceived by Wole himself, at least I know he was the one who talked to me. I don’t know who spoke to the other five members but we actually assembled at Teeder Hall, the second hall to be completed after Melamby. We assembled in the basement and just made merry in the evening. We were just out to be different and I saw it to be fun. None of us envisaged that we were laying the foundation of a virulent cult in that 1953/54 session, though the association insisted that it was in 1952 hence they celebrated their 50 years in 2002.

At that basement we had something to drink, nothing potent, we went around the campus in unusual ways, we were well known and there was nothing like secret oath, nothing spiritual about it all.

What were the creed of the association?I wrote it somewhere I can not locate now. I think they were to abolish convention, revive the age of chivalry (where you show deference to the weaker sex) etc. In any case I can’t remember anything that we did to promote those creeds. Also, Wole did not stay long enough because he left a year after for Leeds, because he wanted to study English honours which was not available as a course in Ibadan then. I think Ralph Opara took over from him as the head. But I stayed till 1956 when I left for Britain. Three of us Wole, me and Pius Olehie, who formed the PC, were from the same class in Government College, Ibadan while Ralph Opara was a year before us.

So when would you say Pirate Confraternity became virulent? I think by the 1980s. The thing is that at the beginning, there was only PC and so many people struggled to be a member because it was a prestigious thing. When I returned from Britain, some students who wanted to become members needed a lecturer to sponsor their membership, those who came to me got my nod.

Up till about 1972, PC was the only association, but when there was schism over one of them who violated the law and he was not ready to subject himself to discipline, he left and started a rival organisation and that was how the Buccaneers Confraternity started. About the same time, Eye Confraternity started. You must not also forget that violence was become rife in the society. This began in Ibadan with Operation Wetie around 1964/ 65. Things became intolerable until the coup in 1967. Violence became the order of the day and it crept into PC by the time, I had become disenchanted with the club and was ready to leave. Some of the PC members had their vision beclouded by violence and the old PC decided to form National Association of Seadogs and went ahead to register it at the Cooperate Affairs. They said PC should no longer exist on campuses but there is a difference between saying and establishing it.

So the whole thing between Wole and I was the inability to establish what they proposed, and so other groups began to spring up in various universities using the name Pirate Confraternity because nobody has any right on the name. This is the problem between Wole and I.

At what point did you renounce your membership? I must say that I did not officially renounce until I became a Christian. I kept being less and less active because I kept seeing it as an activity for children and younger people. But when I became born-again and established this ministry, I consciously went to God and confess that we were the people who started this thing, which has become something we did not envisage. I asked Him to forgive me and forgive the rest of us and I confessed on behalf of others too. That is the only time I’ll say I renounced it. It was a private thing.

Have you done that publicly? No, I have not bothered but I’ve told all who are concerned that I’m no longer one of them. At any public opportunity, I always say it and they know that I am no longer one of them. If Wole could take the trouble to attack me in an 18-page report, then I know it has registered that I am no longer one of them.

Did they make any effort to ask you why you were leaving? 
No, we did not bond ourselves to be members forever. I think when they found out that I stopped turning up for their meetings that must have convinced them that I was no longer interested. But I didn’t make any statement concerning them until I started this ministry and got involve in the University as chairman of Anti-cultism Campaign Committee.

Did you take the cultism to a higher level like joining the Ogboni, as people believe it happens? As I said, I was only active in it between 1953 and 1957after which I left for Britain. When I came back in 1960, I was on the staff of the University and was just an adviser to them. I didn’t know what they did at their services (meetings) I didn’t know when the oath taking, etc started or if it was actually done. However, I know it is done today. This is what the Seadogs pretend not to know.

Have you spoken about Christ to Wole Soyinka? 
I have not but I will certainly welcome the opportunity. The only problem I envisage is that unless God softens Wole’s heart, it might be difficult to speak with him on Christ. His language in the paper he presented is intemperate.

Let us focus on Christianity in general. How do you react to the preponderance of churches all over the street? Are you getting it right?I wonder myself. I have seen Christians who say because they have agreed to get married they find nothing wrong in premarital sex. There are so many of such experience such that I begin to see being born again as a vogue which people just mouth. However, there are people who are truly born again. Someone, who claims to be an evangelist, came here recently saying he wanted to join us. But during my discussion with him, he was sharing the Jehovah Witness beliefs that Christ was a created being. I had to tell him that he had no place in our ministry because we don’t believe that Christ is a created being, so he left. This man is already ministering without telling people that he is a Jehovah Witness. If he had told me that he was one, I would not have allowed him in the first place, but fortunately God exposed him before we went far. He could have tarnished our image as Christians.

 Are you satisfied with the quality of the message from the pulpit across churches in the land? I cannot say yes or no because I have not studied many messages of different pastors. But I know that there is too much flogging of the issue of prosperity relative to the issue of salvation.

Are we over churched 
I don’t think so. The problem is that we have churches working at cross purposes. If there was unity, even if every other house is a church, there is no problem. The early Christians began churches in people’s houses and there is no reason why we cannot continue like that. Some churches have house fellowships that are like churches too.

 As a scientist, how do you react to a situation where the West is getting more scientific and less spiritual and we here who need science must now shun science and get more spiritual? Are we doing the right thing?When you say get more spiritual, I don’t see any thing wrong in that because I don’t see why we shouldn’t. The main problem is that our leaders are not focused. If they were focused, we should not be were we are. They budget so much for science and technology but the bulk of it goes in to paying salaries and emoluments rather than research and teaching.

I left the university two years to retiring age because I was disgusted! I have been a professor for so many years, became Dean of Science for University of Lagos between 1965 and 69, and again in University of Ibadan. Though I did not become Vice Chancellor because there is more to it than meet the eye, and I did not care for it any way, but by the time I would leave the university, lecturers were already buying chalks to operate as teachers from one’s meagre salary. I thought what was I trying to prove again by staying here, when I couldn’t continue to work in my area of specialisation? So I gave them the six months mandatory notice which was to terminate in September 1991 and it was in May 1991 that I gave my life to Christ. So to God be the glory.

Some people believe that the fire that gutted the University of Ibadan laboratory long ago was God’s turning point in your life because you lost so much which could have kept you going as an atheist. How do you react to this? 
Even when that happened, I was not looking in that direction of God but that of rehabilitating the laboratory. We actually got money for rehabilitation at which time I was no longer the head of the department and the man who was to do it was not really enthusiastic about it. The money became less and less relevant to what we actually needed it for until when it was finally released, it was not sufficient to do anything again. So whether it was God’s design to touch me or not, I did not look at the Lord’s way then.

Did it contribute to it?
I cannot consciously link that to my finding God.

How do you react to these miracles you’ve seen today? There are Christian who say the age of miracle is past but I don’t subscribe to that because I’ve seen miracles myself. But I believe that genuine miracles are what God uses to spread His gospel. Though I’ve heard people who say there is a portion in the Bible, which says the age of miracle has passed or will pass, I have not seen a part, which can thus be interpreted. So I believe that genuine miracles done by the power of God still exist and part and parcel of the gospel.

The effects of miracles in the ministry of Jesus and in the ministry of the apostle are such that the gospel was well propagated and so many people were converted through miracles. The age of miracles are not passed. However, miracles can also be performed by the devil and this power will expand and increase in the latter days, that was why Jesus said even the elect could be deceived. May God protect us.