Have you been to CLAM Church at Omole area of Lagos of late? If you haven’t, lets us tell you about the brand new highrise complex that has just been completed. It is called the CLAM International Secretariat. It is a highrise of 4 floors, adjoining the main auditorium of the church.
It is a beautiful architectural masterpiece supervised by Pastor Wole Oladiyiun himself who many don’t know is a Civil Engineer. He has a 1984 BSc (Hons) in Building/Civil Engineering degree.
Last week City People team led by Publisher SEYE KEHINDE visited the building and spoke to Pastor Oladiyun. He how the building was completed in a record time of 16 months. It is very revealing.
Congratulations on this new gargantuan complex. How many years did it take CLAM to build it?
I give thanks to the Lord for what he is doing on the mountain of CLAM. This project took us 16 months, that’s a year and a half, so to say.
What are the various sections in the complex?
For so many years, I have been using the attachment to the church as my office and for the Ministers and we have our offices scattered all over the premises. One day, I was just relaxing downstairs and the Lord opened my eyes and I heard the voice. Look at the edge of the church. Draw a line. And from the hindsight of being an Engineer, I quickly took my pencil and I drew a line. I checked the length of this place to the gorge there, ideally, in Engineering we should leave about 6 metres, but I left about 9 metres and we still had space. I never knew this amount of space existed, honestly. Having checked that, I called my Architect and we discovered that we have ample space in this place.
The next thing to do as a professional person then was to do the Soil test. So I brought in a Geo-Technical Engineer, one of my protocol members.
He is a very seasoned Geo-Technical Engineer. He was brought in. He did the 1st test. And after 4 months, he did the 2nd test. Having assessed the stress load on this land, and knowing that there is a possibility of the earth movement, because of the gorge, I discovered that this place, with a proper pile foundation, would take about 5 storeys.
So, putting a bungalow here will be a waste of time and resources. So, what I did was to sink the piles. We spent about 5 months sinking the piles. Each pile is as tall as a storey building, I am saying this so that a Layman can understand. It requires boring a hole as deep as a storey building, then fixing the reinforcement, going down and putting a high grade 1,2,4 concrete.
So, with that and everything on top, that was how we got the foundation. We sank about 91 piles here. We designed the 1st floor, 2nd floor, 3rd floor. On the ground floor, we have the Family Life Department.
My wife, Pastor (Mrs) Bankole Oladiyun, superintends over that department. That comprises of everything that has to do with the Family, the Youth, Women & Men Fellowship, etc. And on the left-wing, we have The Pastoric, with their washrooms, tearoom, and a place for the head of Pastoric. Moving towards the lift area you have on the left, a reception for visitors. We have 3 floors. We have one there. Then we have the kitchen. There is a place linking to the altar. Then we have the lift, for people who cannot climb the staircases.
Then we have 2 exits on the right-wing and the left side. In the middle floor we have the International Conference Centre, the Accounts, then offices, about 5 of them for the senior ministers all ensuite. Then we have our Library and our Research Centre. I believe a lot in Research and Development, research and production, then we have our archives. The archival system for the ministry is very strong. I have always believed in being a curator, keeping events. Its something I have been doing right from my University days, in the then University of Ife. I like keeping records. We are going to train a lot of people along this line.
So that we can gravitate into the global future that we are in already. That place equally has a reception.
And on this floor is Senior Pastors office, then space for my secretary and my PA. I have P.As on social matters, PA Administrative matters, PA operations, space of my Chief of Staff.
There is going to be a studio there. There is a reception for me and my dining area. Then we have space where we are going to have anything that has to do with IT. On top of this floor is the Prayer Tower. It is a Vast place with 3 suites, in case we have any guest Minister. The Prayer Tower has 2 conveniences one for Male & Female. It has a kitchenette and a place for Intercessors to relax. The importance of that place in this. CLAM is resting on the spiritual tripod of Intercession. Intercession actually grows any Ministry or any system.
Intercession is the act of standing between God and the system, talking to God, using the word to pray.
So, the Prayer Warriors and the Intercessors will be using that place to pray. We have just ended our 70 days Intercession. We prayed at the hours of prayer -3 am, 6 am, 12noon, 3 pm, 6 pm, 12noon for 70 days non-stop. And that is where we generate Prayer Volume, Energy, the real raw Apostolic powers for signs & wonders. That is what the place stands for.
