‘Frustration in the land has affected gospel artistes’

Lola Martins-Olukoya is a gospel artiste, who had ministered in the United Kingdom (UK) and Nigeria. Lola, who inherited the singing talent from her father, was a choir girl at the age of 10, and has never left the choir ever since. Today, the mother of four has built a career in gospel music. In this interview with DAYO EMMANUEL, she talks about her music, her passion and the fact that gospel artistes should bring people to God instead of merely for dancing and entertainment. Excerpts: How did you start off? I started as a young girl in the choir when I used to attend church with my dad in Ekiti. I travelled out of the country and I made it a career in London. I decided to leave it but it kept on coming through prophecies, I even have a call of God upon my life more than that. I was in the choir throughout while I was in Nigeria and when I left the country, I still joined a choir in the UK. My pastor actually advised me to get a promoter and followed his instruction. …and how far did you go with the promotion? Well, it went well. I was ministering in the UK, and whenever artistes come from Africa, we minister together. Things are more organised over there than what we have here in Nigeria. I am a gospel minister though I still perform and sing secular songs. It is not how they do it in Nigeria, where you as a gospel artiste cannot do any other song. I do secular songs, but it is not the dirty type; it is such that can bring sanity to the society. What is your message? Basically, the core of my message is to make people know God. You know the world of today is so frustrating and it draws people away from God. People are not recognising God as they used to. When I was growing up, as children, we were more into the things of God, unlike what we have today. My message is to make people know that God exists, we cannot see Him physically, but He exists. We should be closer to Him than before. I want people to come near to God, no matter who you are, you need God, even the herbalists know God, they may not know how best to worship Him, they may think it is through the idols they can get to Him, but somewhere in their hearts, they know God exists. They know a God created the idols, they believe the idols will bring them closer, the Muslims as well believe Prophet Mohammed will bring them to God, just like we Christians believe Jesus Christ is the only way to God. So the rallying point here is this, God and my music is a way I use to introduce people to God and make them know He needs to be appreciated. I am not an activist so to speak but that is how I pass my message across. Going into the situations of countries like in our own countries, we are going through a lot and I have songs to address these issues. Are you based permanently in Nigeria now? No. I am not based here permanently for now; I still shuttle between Nigeria and the United Kingdom. I have to, owing to the situation on ground now; I like to have my own ministry here in Nigeria but not a church. You must have interacted with a lot of our gospel artistes here, how do you see their message? You know there is frustration in all aspects of the nation. So, it affects the gospel artistes too. You will see a lot of our gospel artistes doing the secular entertainment things, though there is really nothing bad in it but they have to distinguish themselves. You know the happenings in the country has affected a lot of them, an artiste will always be an artiste. Artistes are there to entertain but in the gospel music industry, we are not to entertain the world, we are to minister to them and worship God, so something is amiss when gospel artistes now get neck deep in entertainment instead of ministering. You will see that a lot of our artistes are more into entertainment do you foresee a problem? Yes, they do it a lot even in the church, they entertain a lot. When you are ministering and people are not sober, crying, getting closer to God, they should see it from the ministration how far they are from God, people should feel the presence of God when gospel artistes minister. The frustration like you said has actually affected every aspect of the nation, including gospel artistes. Do the home churches of these artistes encourage them? The churches are not helping at all. In my case, no body helped me but God. You cannot receive anything if God has not sent it; the so called men of God in Nigeria are not being supportive. I can see some of these young upcoming artistes are better than some of the established ones, but no encouragement and that is why they are running out of the church. How do you advise pastors in this case? They are my fathers in the Lord; I am just an evangelist, what I can say is that they should be focused; most of them are just running after what will benefit them. Like I said, the frustration in the land is more, and most of the young artistes just want to do whatever they feel like doing, they just want to do something radical. Coming back to Nigeria after about 12, how can you say the country has fared? A lot of things have changed; there is more civilisation but our people should emulate what other civilised nations are doing. My producer, whose studio I use when I did a work, said he cannot produce it because of pirates; he said also that I had to join a group of gospel artistes. And right there, they have so many factions. I told him I would just join PMAN though I couldn’t do their politics. The question about civilisation is another thing. How did you meet Christ? I have been in the church at a very young age, but I actually recognised Christ in 1994 through evangelism from the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC). Pastor Alfred Ajifowowe was the one who actually ministered to me. My dad was a patron in the CAC and was there since the days of Apostle Babalola. I inherited some of the talents of my father, he was a singer, and my other siblings sing as well. Three out of my four children are singers; one of them is a secular musician, so it is a family thing. The pastor actually led me to Christ; you know it is a different thing to be going to church and to really have salvation experience. I was already married and have children. My album is titled Irohin Ope (thanksgiving). There are seven tracks in it and we are now promoting it. I want my fans out there and Christian and non Christians to get copies for spiritual upliftment. From Sunday Newswatch