If the Ancient of Days will have a candidate for the 2023 presidential election only He knows if the person will come from the South or North or if he will be a Christian or Muslim. If the King of kings chooses anyone as His candidate for the next poll I hope the person will take my advice of last week seriously by responding positively to His message.
This is because to do otherwise will bring problems for the person in his remaining days on earth and in the hereafter. I know this because the Most High once told me that He was yet to forgive Chief Moshood Abiola, the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, who died 23 years ago. But the good thing is that He has promised to pardon him and would let me know when He does. The Lord will punish anyone who ignores the message passed onto him because his refusal would make Nigeria to continue to suffer and such a crisis could lead to the death of some people.
What I am focusing on today is if the person the Lord chooses for the 2023 poll is a Christian and I am doing so, because as I had made it known a number of times in this column in the last eleven years, the clerics He uses to fast and pray for people on a cause are Muslims in Ado – Ekiti. It will be a mistake for a Christian to decline to use the priests because they belong to another religion. As I had written and proven in this column again, in the last eleven years, Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
I had raised the issue with the Heavenly Father before and His reply was who do Christians pray to? I said you the Ancient of Days! And who do the Muslims pray to? My answer was you my Lord! The Supreme Being then went on to ask is the Old Testament in the Christian Bible not what you have in the Torah, the Holy Book of the Jews or Judaism, a religion founded by Abraham, the father of mankind?
And does the Qur’an not contain issues in the Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, including the name of Jesus Christ? Are these not why the three are called Abrahamic religions? And are these therefore not proofs that the Jews (Hebrews), Christians and Muslims worship the same God, who is me?
Another evidence that Christians and Muslims worship the same deity is in the book the Lord told me to write and which I published in 2004 with the title: Nigeria Set Aside by God for Greatness and the untold story of June 12 annulment. I had also written on the matter in this column and this is that the Spiritual Guide God sent to bring me to start speaking directly with Him in Akure in 1969 was a Christian of the Catholic Church.
But in 1972 when the Ancient of Days did not fulfill a promise He made to me in 1970, I stopped going to my Spiritual Guide to take me to the Holy Ground to communicate one – to – one with Him. But the Lord gave me another opportunity 20 years later, in 1992 because He said I was His son of destiny.
And the person He sent to me as my new Spiritual Guide 29 years ago and who still takes me to speak with the King of kings is a Muslim cleric. And the man and his parents and their offspring were Christians of the Anglican Church before the Lord called him in 1975 and told him to convert to Islam. He, his wife and children are the only Muslims in his extended family
•More to come next Wednesday
Eternal rest Fola Alade
Not many people know that the full name of Chief Fola Alade who was born in his home town Aramoko – Ekiti on Friday, November 24, 1933 and went to glory eleven days ago, on Saturday, June 19 were Isaac Folayan Alade. But because he contracted the name to Fola Alade, most people believed that his birth and surname was Fola Alade.
I got to meet and became close to Chief Alade in 1985 when I was the Editor of the defunct Sunday Concord published by late Chief Abiola. I was surprised to receive a phone call from him and that he was an admirer of my column known as: ‘The Heart of the Matter’ in the weekly and invited me to his house at Allen Avenue in Ikeja, Lagos.
On the day we met, he became more adhered to me when I told him that I was an alumnus of Christ’s School, Ado – Ekiti (1958 – 62) which he attended and where he passed out in 1950s. His immediate reaction was to say exhilaratingly Up School! I now know the origin of the quality. From that day I became a regular visitor to his architecturally distinct bungalow along the street and his office in Tafawa Balewa Square, Race Course, Lagos.
After passing out of Christ’s School, Chief Alade went to the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria which is now Ahmadu Bello University, where he was one of the pioneer four architecture graduates in 1961. The institution was also the first in the country to teach the subject.
Chief Alade had his postgraduate education on Commonwealth Scholarship at the Architectural Association School of Tropical Studies, London where he passed out in flying colours in 1965.
•To be continued next week
10 topmost immigrant Lagosians focus still on J.K. Randle (2)
An alumnus of Church Missionary Society (CMS) Grammar School and King’s College both in Lagos, Chief Joseph Kosoniola Randle was a socialite and a philanthropist who began the Anti – Tuberculosis Society in Lagos and Nigeria. He was also a founding member of the Island Club and one who later became its chairman. As a sports enthusiast, he was the Vice – President of the Nigerian Olympic, British Empire and Commonwealth Association in the early 1950s as well as the chairman of the Lagos Race Club in 1956.
In addition, he was the Chef de Mission (Leader) of the Nigerian Olympic Team to the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. He took ill on his flight back home and died in December that year at the General Hospital, Broad Street on Lagos Island, it was the best hospital in Nigeria at the time.
As a politician, Chief Randle won election into the Lagos City Council in the early 1950s was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II of England with the Medal of the Victorian Order (MVO) and the title of Member of the British Empire (MBE). While His Royal Majesty Adeniji Adele, the King of Lagos from 1949 – 64 bestowed him with the title of the Lisa of Lagos about two years before he died.
Prominent immigrant Lagosians from Oyo, apart from Herbert Macaulay and J.K. Randle, included the Akerele brothers, Dr. John Akerele a medical practitioner and Chief Abiodun Akerele, a lawyer and politician and one of the seven founders of the Action Group (AG), a political party in the country from 1951 through the first military coup of January 15, 1966.
Others were Chief Afolabi, a sibling of the mother of Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie of the Catholic Church and Chief Olabode Akanbi Thomas (October 1919 – November 1953), who was popularly known as Bode Thomas. A lawyer, he was also one of the founders of the Action Group and the first Deputy Leader of the party until his death at the age of 34 and replacement by Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola (SLA), who later became the Premier of the Western Region (1959 – January 15, 1966).
•For continuation next week