The Sun News On-line/man in the pulpit

Primate Elijah Babatunde Ayodele can be likened to Nostradamus, the Frenchman who had an uncanny ability to predict future occurrences several hundred years before they happened.

Nostradamus predicted the assassination of John F. Kennedy and later his brother, Jack Kennedy. He also predicted the development of submarine-launched ballistic nuclear missiles. One of his predictions that also came to pass was the bombing of the World Trade Centre (WTC), in New York, USA on September 11, 2001.

Since the WTC bombing, the United States Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, has actively reviewed his book of predictions and burning computer hours trying to decipher the other predictions which are wrapped in symbolisms.

Back in Nigeria, Primate Ayodele is widely credited with prediction of the death of late Chief Bola Ige, former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Federation under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He also predicted the crashes of Bellviev and Sosoliso airlines and the removal Nuhu Ribadu as EFCC chairman.
Because of his accurate predictions, Primate Ayodele is now much sought after by the high and the privileged both within and outside the country to the extent that every December people throng to his church for spiritual assistance.

Lately, he added another dimension to his numerous callings by establishing an NGO that takes care of widows, orphans and the less privileged. Recently, he sat down with Sunday Sun for an interview and he talked on sundry issues.
Excerpts…

How did you meet Christ?
At the initial stage, my Dad was a devout Christian. He was the one that led me to Christ at the age of six. All through my childhood heard about Christ. He would tell us to go to church. My Dad then taught me wonderful things. One of the things he taught me which happens to be one of the pillars of Christianity today is how to give offering. And that is how I received Christ through offering. When I was about nine or ten years, I disagreed a little bit because I was so young. I started doing all sorts of nasty things like following masquerades, even getting involved in putting on masquerade costumes. I was involved in knowing traditional things.

When I was about starting my primary education, I was following friends out. At age eight, my father took me back to the village to see what was happening in there. Honestly I want to tell you that I was happy about it. That makes me bold to tell you that I was once a village man. That really taught me a lot of things about what life is all about. When it was a month to my 18th birthday a woman predicted that I would die on the day of my birthday. I started asking myself, how can I die? Because then, I was in bondage. I had encounters with the devil.

The devil started terrorising me, and had the feeling that I would die. But God being so good, one spirit told me I should go on fasting on my birthday day. Funny enough, one thing I hated most during my growing up years was fasting. I didn’t joke with food when I was young. Then I asked myself how can I fast? My father was the first person to force me into fasting; my mother taught me how to go about fasting. On my 18th birthday I fasted. When it was 15 minutes to noon, I started shouting, ‘God is it true I am going to die today’ and felt dizzy, but I was praying that God should spare my life. I fell into trance for 14 days.

Then I was preparing to take the West African School Certificate examination. For 14 days I was in the spirit, I didn’t have time to read for my examination. I went for the examination. I did not prepare for the examination. The funny thing, which is still a mystery to me till today, was that I cleared my papers; I had credits in all my subjects. I found myself in the exam hall writing the exam and God crowned my effort.
While I was in the spirit, I saw a bell but when I woke up from the trance I saw the presence of oil in my right eye.

Ever since I was 18, I have been feeling the presence of God in my life. Our church when I was young was Christ Apostolic Church. My father was a member of the committee that compiled the hymn-book of the church. At the Christ Apostolic Church, God ministered to me that he wants my church to be white garment church.

From the bottom of my heart I didn’t like the practice going on in the white garment churches. In my village, we believe that white garment churches are fetish people. Celestial, Cherubim even Aladura church, we believe that they were fetish; that was the doctrine we were fed with. Anytime I hear about Aladura then, I used to run away. But thank God and glory be to his name today. I led an Aladura church from age 18 till the time God called me to this church, which is a new version of Aladura in Nigeria, Africa and the whole world. My encounter with God was super.

Do you have any particular event that prepared you for these challenges?
Well, challenges? Nothing because I never knew that God would eventually use me; so, I never prepared. But one thing I know was that I played a prominent role in the lives of my friends. Before I got to Aladura Church, I remember a woman, a prophetess who told me that I would end up as a tool in the hands of God. God used a friend of mine to get me to Aladura Church.
Then I thought that my friend would become a Reverend father because he seemed to be a staunch member of Catholic Church then.

What was your life’s ambition before Jesus called you?
Well, my parents wanted me to be a doctor, but I wanted to be a lawyer, because I like anything about law. I like to argue and I believe so much in explaining things to people. I love defending the less privileged. I really loved to defend those who could not defend themselves then. But when the whole thing changed I gave thanks to Almighty God.

What were the funny things you did while growing up?
Well, funny things I can think of was my experience of going to the farm, doing bricklaying jobs in my father’s factory. I have offloaded containers before; I once did the work of a bus conductor for 30 minute. I loved youth development when I was small.

How would you describe your calling?
Well to the glory of God, I can tell you I am a prophet, I can also claim to be an evangelist, I can also tell you that I am a teacher. Soon I will become a Bishop. So, those are my callings. But predominantly, I am a prophet. There are lots of lies in miracles, these made me to be wary of the miracles. My own miracle is the one that will come into physical manifestation.

What is your understanding of a prophet?
A prophet is somebody who is very close to God; people that take decision with God. The relationship between a prophet and God is likened to the relationship between a governor and his commissioners or between the president and his ministers. So, we the prophets, are the mouthpiece of God. But I must acknowledge that we have a lot of fake prophets now.

There are prophets and there are prophets. There are people whom God did not say anything to and they still deliver messages to people. There are the prophets called by God himself, but they continue arguing with God. A lot of people do not respect prophets anymore because many so-called prophets are deceivers. There are contradictions in the word of prophets today. But there is no contradiction in mathematics and in English but there is a lot of contradiction in the words of prophets today. These things are really affecting Christendom today, and especially the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

How often do you set tempted, especially from the opposite sex?
When you have your wife, you must be contended with her. I am not focused on women, but I am focused on the word of God. One thing is that I love women because they play prominent roles in the church, for this reason I love them, but I don’t have any ulterior motives towards them.

How do you escape temptation?
There are series of temptation like financial temptation, power temptation etc. Well temptation can be escaped through your vision, your mind where God stays in, your mind where God rules. You use God living in your heart to control temptation. I cannot be easily tempted, because I cannot be done for me are wonderful things.

Can you tell me your most memorable moments?
I really suffered in my growing up years. I passed through hell. I have lived under uncompleted building because of the work of God. I have slept under in a hut all in the name of propagating the gospel; I am talking of the house built with palm fronds. Where we are now was swamp. So it means we’ve lived with crocodiles, serpents and what have you, all in the name of taking the gospel to the grass root.
But all in all when I look back, I consider them as moments of joy. When I look back I see great achievement, super achievements.

And I give thanks to the Almighty God.
Another memorable moment I remember was that I once used two clothes for two years and a pair of shoes. Other moments are great moments. We’ve denied ourselves food in order to let our followers eat.

Not long ago you established an NGO to take care of the widows, orphans and the less privileged. What informed this decision?
I followed the directive of God. He specifically told me that at the latter part of the job he gave me, I should establish a body that would take care of widows, orphans and physically challenged people. How we are able to do it, I don’t even know, but what I know is that I am following God’s instructions to the letter. At the beginning of the whole thing, we found it difficult to fund the project; I mean taking care of widows materially because they are too many.

At the initial stage, we had about five thousand widows; but because of the requirements, we reduced them to two hundred. The children are too many. At present, we are taking care of 500 orphans. We pay their school fees; we take care of anything you can think of in their lives. We give them school uniform, school sandals, toiletries, textbooks, exercise books, writing materials. I am not their guardian but their father. So I can tell you that I have about 500 children.

Where did you get funds to execute this lofty project?
We get our funding from God and wellwishers who are friends that love what we are doing. I sold my land, my car and some other things just to see to the well being of these widows and orphans. But today we thank God because we are able to achieve our aim; we are taking care of them conveniently. If I take you to the store, you will be amazed. People of like minds are supporting us. Hope World Wide is an organisation that is happy with what we are doing and they are giving us their support. They acted as intermediary for us. We also get support from Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA). We are also affiliated of the women affairs ministry.

We were able to achieve these because of our good work. Though, what they are giving us is just stipends compared to how much we spend, but we appreciate them and urge them to continue with their support for us. They normally give us N100,000 every three months; they monitor the disbursement of this fund. We spend more than one N1.8 million monthly. We pay salaries, we give incentives, we pay the children’s school fees, their accommodation, we empower the widow, we give them free micro-credit loans, we buy clothes and festivity materials for them. We take care of these widows and their children so that they would not feel rejected in the society. To make them happy, we organise periodic picnics for them.

The woman at the helm of affairs at Akodo Resort took interest in what we are doing and gave us her support. Every year this woman would ask for five children she can personally support. We go as far as buying school bags for these orphans. Apart from paying their house rent, we do visit them regularly so that they wouldn’t feel lonely. Mind you, we also take care of their medical requirements, taking them to the hospital when the need arises and buying drugs for them.

We even go as far as making provisions for eye glasses for those whose situation demand for it. We don’t allow them to drink ordinary water or sachet water; we provide them with bottled water because we believe that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. If anybody gives me N10,000, N8000 out of it will to the widows and the orphans, the rest I share among my workers here.

Why I am able to do it is that I don’t go to parties. I don’t engage in social activities except church activities. If we dance together outside you will beat me, but if it is church dance you cannot beat me. You will never see me at any social outing except church.

With this enormous task before you, will you welcome any assistance from either the federal, state or local government?
If they want to assist us, they are welcome. In real sense of it, we can’t do it alone, You can imagine that we are spending N1.8 million on monthly basis, times 12 months. This amounts to N21.6 in a year. Therefore we need not only government, but corporate organisations and well meaning Nigerians. Even if we can get assistance from the world over, we don’t mind. All I want is that the widows and orphans should not suffer; they are human beings too. Let us join hands together in raising their standard of living. We’ve advised the government before on how to eradicate poverty, but they did not listen. That is why we took it upon ourselves to engage in poverty elimination not even eradication this time around.

Can you take me to your early life?
I went to LCD secondary school for my secondary school at Mushin in Lagos. I went to another secondary school in Ikere Ekiti, Ekiti state. I also went to Federal Aviation School.

How did you meet your wife?
Ahaa! Can I remember? I met my wife through my sister. My sister and I went to her house. She first became my girlfriend as the practice was in those days. That time I saw something special in her and I fell in love with her.

What is that particular thing that attracted you to her?
I love her because of her prowess in house administration; she is so meticulous. The way she coordinates home front is superb.

What do you love most about her?
I love her because she is a complete mother to me.

Do you believe in keeping joint account with a woman?
Joint account? Account is your life record everyday. So you keep your life record to yourself. Joint account, you can have it with your wife monetarily if you want. Everything depends on your decision. It all depends on how you cherish it.

Do you bath together with your wife?
Ah! No

Why?
Because, I don’t have the time.

Do you assist her in the kitchen?
Each and every one of us has his or her own civic duties or responsibilities. So, I don’t because I don’t have time. Before I get home on daily basis, my food is already on the table; how then can I assist her in the kitchen?

What is marriage to you?
Marriage is a life friendship. That is how I see marriage. It is an institution you cherish for life.

Lately gay church was introduced to Nigeria, what is your view on it?
It is the fulfilment of God’s prophecy that at the end of the world, man would be getting married to man. We’ve seen it on CNN, where a man got pregnant and was delivered of a baby girl, now I learned that the man is pregnant for the second baby. All these things are not funny. They are pointer to end-time prophecy as it is revealed in the Bible. Though they’ve introduced it to Nigeria but I bet you, it cannot work.