Can you recollect how the accident you were involved in recently happened?
The accident was just sudden. God knew about everything before it happened. God has knowledge of all things. Nobody is completely insulated from accidents as nobody can tell the number of years he will spend on earth. Nobody can add or remove from the number of days that Almighty God has given unto a man. That God made it to happen is to remind me that He is bigger than everybody on earth.
On the 31st day of December, every year, I usually go to the mountain to pray, the mountain is between Arakeji and Ilesa. I used to commune with God for some hours before I go for the Cross over night service. I went to the mountain with in new Equus Hyundai car with a promise to my wife as usual that when I returned to Akure, I would pick her and the children on my way to Warri to attend the service. I left the mountain around 7.00 p.m. in spite of heavy harmattan haze. As I was descending around Joseph Ayo Babalola Christ Apostolic Church Camp, I swerved off the road and all I heard was a loud noise. That is the much I can recall. I didn’t know what happened next.
How did you manage to escape and what was your initial reaction to the loud noise?
To God be the glory. It is miraculous. My escape is captured in the Book of Isaiah 41:6-12, God has promised to be by me always and give me help at the time of my needs. As I used to say, I am not afraid of death. To me, death is death; any death that comes my way is sanctioned by God. I am not afraid, as kidnappers, armed robbers have threatened me in the past. Some fake journalists even threatened to blackmail me if I do failed settle them but I am not moved.
Their threats and criticisms make me stronger in the Lord. I was not afraid as I work within the limits of what God instructs me to do. That it
happened (my escape) miraculously reinforces my belief in what God has revealed to me that I will not die young. If God decides again that I should die this hour, I am ready. Our Lord Jesus Christ in His Ministry did not live more than 33 years. I have even tried. It is what pleases God that I am ever prepared for.
My escape was supernatural. God does not look into the ways of man to judge. Jehovah, God knows that my hand is not stain in any blood. All that I know is that God is a merciful father. If I call myself a prophet of God and I die through gun or accident like that, would people not begin to ask questions? My background is rooted in the Cherubim and Seraphim, Celestial Church before I ventured into my ministry and all along, God did not allow my hands to be stained. My calling has been from the womb and my youth days.
Miraculously, it happened like that. The devil is very cunning. About three months ago, the Lord said that I should not leave Warri for three months. But as a man, your spirit may be willing, but your body may not be willing and sometimes, the body may be willing but the spirit is not. Paul says that it is better for a man that wants to work for God not to marry but because of fornication and adultery, marriage is recommended for those that cannot keep themselves. I decided to go and carry my wife to attend the all night service as I don’t allow driver to drive me and I don’t go in a convoy.
And I refused being followed by police escort and convoy as the church had wanted to give me. If I have offended anybody, let them forgive me. My mission was to fulfill my annual rituals of praying on the mountain, but I thank Jehovah God for the miraculous escape.
There are insinuations that you used juju power to escape, what is your reaction to this?
If there is any juju that can save life, it is a nice juju so far it does not destroy. But what do you even mean by juju? Can you get one and sell to me? I will buy. Let me tell you one thing, we Africans believe that we can use juju to conjure things like somebody becoming rich suddenly, some believe you can do juju for money to the extent that they allege witchcraft can make you rich. For a man to escape through God’s miraculous doing, to them, means that the fellow has fortified and insured himself. This is not the first time that God has miraculously saved my life. I was surrounded some years ago by 18 armed robbers at Otumewho village (outskirt of Warri). After I came back from London, they came to my office to attack me, as I sometimes work late into the night then; they shot sporadically at me after they had ordered all the villagers to remain inside their houses. They entered Otumewho village and told the villagers that they have not come to attack them but the Yoruba man called D. A. Samuel. It remained myself and my handiwork. They rained bullets on me at close range but no single one penetrated me. They shot at me until about 4.30 a.m. There have been so many other escapes like that and they always alleged that the man used juju or African magic. As I have always said, I am running a dangerous ministry. I don’t expect people to speak well of me. I am even surprised that some are doing so. Why are they praising me? Who is good? Who is perfect? There is nobody that is perfect. I am used to criticism. I even enjoy it when people attack me. I am born a man. I am a typical Yoruba and a typical Warri man at the same timr; I have lived in Warri for more than 30 years; I can claim to be an indigene of the place. I have added Yoruba and Warri blood together. I am a man with large heart. I was elected spiritual president of Africa by a team of prophets. Let me tell you there is one power that is more than any juju. Even a juju man would call on God to make his things work. There is somebody in me that is greater than all juju put together. I want to tell the whole world that I don’t have any juju but I have Jehovah, God. I am a general overseer of a big congregation with lots of responsibilities to my congregants. From my mother’s womb, I have been fortified. Before I was born, God knows everything about me.
Looking back at the year 2013, how would you assess the state of the nation?
As I had predicted in the beginning of 2013, there were lots of bloodshed in Nigeria even though there were lots of intercessory prayers to the Lord. There were plane crashes, auto crashes, terrorism, most especially Boko Haram insurgents, kidnappings, armed robberies, rape and other acts of criminality. To compound these was the issue of corruption and political instability characterised by defections. In fact, there are lots of evils that bedevilled the year; therefore, our leaders need to move closer to God this year in prayers.
What is your message for Nigerians as we enter 2014?
Many predict yearly but as a journalists that has been following my footsteps for long, you should go back and look at my book of predictions of 2010 which covers five years. Most of the happenings today like Boko Haram were predicted with many magazines and newspapers reporting them then, but they did not take me serious. I anointed President Goodluck Jonathan when he was deputy governor in my church. He knows and has been to my office at Otumewho. So far so good, I don’t see anybody removing President Jonathan as President except he refuses to contest or dies before then. President Jonathan should be more careful with those who work with him in 2014. I will not say more than that but I will continue to pray for him. In the year 2014, our police will be more equipped. I can see a lot of improvement in our police. The soldiers and State Security Service personnel are working and they will prove this more in 2014. The evil doers will be exposed, pretenders will be exposed; those who have stolen our money would be exposed. There would be no coup but they should pray against revolution. Anybody that plans coup is deceiving himself. It is no longer fashionable. Letter writing has replaced coup, which is better.
We should guide against people running helter shelter all over the country.
With recent happenings with pastors in various criminal vices, have you changed your mind on proliferation of churches?
You only talk of pastors, what of the Alhajis and Alfas? Are the pastors not product of the society? When a pastor commits a crime, journalists blow it up, but when it is a rich man, they gloss over it. Thank God that people like Governor Akpabio is now a pastor. The growth of more churches is good because the Bible gave us injunction to go into the world and spread the gospel. What of those stealing billions of naira?
What do you see to the recent political development in the country?
I see chaos starting from the Niger Delta areas if the present anti-President Goodluck Jonathan forces continue to gather and do the way they are going about it. I must confess the opposition are grossly overheating the polity. However, we are lucky that God in His mercies has always shown His love for Nigeria to make it remain intact till date. I see bloodshed, uprising and chaos. Reducing Nigeria to letter writing vitriolic is dangerous to our politics and inter-group relations. If our former leader knows that the President is not good, why has he given tactical and all ancillary support to get him to power? To me, President Jonathan is still on the course of transformation.
Kudos goes to the military ranks and file, as well as the police as enlightened and disciplined officers have subjected themselves to civil authority in the last 14 years of our democratic practice.
Nigeria now ranks as the advanced countries of Europe and America. This has effectively changed our ugly past. This is what the mafia should realise that we are in a changing time.
Respect, they say is reciprocal. President Jonathan should as a matter of fact realise that his regular visits to their private houses has made the respect they have for him wane. He should also realise that it is God that used me to prophetically put him in power. He should therefore fear that God and not any man. God is higher than any man. He is the one that destined and put him in power not man.
How many times have they heard that the late former President of the Republic of South Africa, Dr. Nelson Mandela, castigated his predecessors in public? Statesmen should not be seen as contributing to heating up the polity. Why are our leaders inciting the public against the government? Has he and Nigerians in general forgotten the genesis of 1966-67 Nigerian civil war? Do you want to turn Nigeria into another Somalia or Sudan? Why heating the polity and promoting inter and intra-ethnic hostilities?
We need peace in Nigeria. We cannot afford war. Nigerians should not listen to most of the retired generals as some of them are war mongers. It is where and what they have left Nigeria and President Jonathan has been trying on transformation of the country. As I am talking to you now, I am heading straight to the mountain in the forest for three days prayers and fasting for peace to reign in the country. We all know the effects of war. We need serious prayers to hold the country together in peace. This is the only time that opposition political parties are humane to keep quiet. This shows that other political parties love peace. I am pleading, like other peace loving Nigerians, with the PDP leaders not to cause war.
What is your reaction to the emergency rule declared in the three northern states of the country so far?
Before the declaration of the emergency rule, President Jonathan waited patiently long enough. When he eventually declared the emergency, most of us hailed him. If not for the emergency declaration, terrorism in the form of Boko Haram activities would have spread to so many other states of the federation. When they are talking of negotiation, do you negotiate with terrorists? America tried to negotiate with late Osama Bin Laden for several years to no avail. It did not work. My appeal is that Nigeria should avoid another civil war. They should just allow peace to prevail and allow President Jonathan to complete his second term. If the country should go into another civil war for political consideration that we can avoid, generations yet unborn would not forgive us.
culled:NEWSWATCH
No comments:
Post a Comment