Two of those who are new to my column last week asked why I am writing this series. Consequently, I need to let others like them know the reason for doing do. As stated when I started three weeks ago, on December 9, I came up with the pieces on hereafter advice because General Abdulsalami Abubakar to whom God sent me in April 1999, General Ibrahim Babangida in July 2001 and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in December 2017, did not know they offended the Lord by ignoring His message I conveyed to them or for treating them with levity.
They also do not know that their wife or son who died or took ill and the other unpleasant experiences they had gone through were acts of God for the way they reacted to His messages to them. And this is not a made – up or make – believe tale by me. As disclosed in last week’s column His Royal Highness Olu Falae, a cousin of mine, ignored the message the Lord sent to him through a nephew of us in 1992. It is instructive that he lost in a plane crash in Lagos in October 2013 his second – born child and second son, 42 – year – old Barrister Ayodeji Falae, who was then the Commissioner for Culture and Tourism in Ondo State.
I had written about Chief Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola and his wife, Alhaja (Mrs.) Kudirat Olayinka Abiola in this column on a number of occasions in the last 10 years. Their stories are also in the book the Lord caused me to write and which was published in September 2004 with the title: Nigeria set aside by God for greatness and the untold story of June 12 annulment.
The Heavenly Father sent me to Mrs. Abiola in October 1994 to stop going to see a spiritualist in Cotonou, Benin Republic because He was the one who caused the June 12 presidential election won by her husband to be annulled. She ignored the message and was shot to death by people believed to be state security officials in Lagos in June 1996.
God raised 41 Muslims in Ado – Ekiti in January 1993 to fast and pray for 41 days for Chief Abiola to win the June 12 poll. The Lord sent me to him on May 4 that by Sunday, June 13 he would have heard from his party’s agents across the country that he had won the election. And that unfailingly he must send his thanksgiving offering to reach the clerics by June 14.
Abiola did so on June 15 and sent the paltry amount of fifty thousand naira to the priests which came down to one thousand, two hundred naira per person. The results of the election were cancelled on June 23 and Abiola was detained in June 1994 for declaring and privately getting himself to be sworn – in as Nigeria’s President. He died in incarceration four years later on July 7, 1998 (7/7/98).
In September 1994 the Ancient of Days instructed me to bring Dr. Ore Falomo, Chief Abiola’s personal physician, on a spiritual retreat to Ado – Ekiti. We did so on Saturday, September 24 and the Lord told him He caused the June 12, 1993 election won by his patient to be annulled. I wrote on the issue about four times in this column from 2010 – 2019 and not once did Falomo refute my story until he died in November last year.
The Heavenly Father sent me to General Babangida in 2001 that He was His candidate for the 2003 presidential poll and the one He wanted to use to lay the foundation of Nigeria becoming a great nation. I travelled to Minna on Sunday, July 15 that year. I was told by one of the security men at the gate into his compound that he was away to Germany to see his doctors. I left the letter I took along with the information on why I came and which had my postal address in Lagos and my telephone number.
But General Babangida never reached out to me when he returned to Nigeria. The Lord gave him another opportunity in 2005 to contest the 2007 presidential election. Again he ignored the message. It is also instructive that his wife, Maryam, died of cancer four years later, in December 2009.
With the deaths of Chief Abiola, his wife, Kudirat, Oba Falae’s son and General Babangida’s spouse, I know some would wonder if it is Almighty God that is sending me to people. Some would even say it was the Ancient of Days of Old Testament times that acted that way not the Lord of the New Testament who is merciful. They will also say that once one accepts Jesus Christ as his or her saviour and becomes a born – again one is assured of going to Heaven.
But I ask such people if this was the case would there be a Day of Judgment? Since there is one how can God treat the people of the Old Testament era differently from those of the time of Jesus Christ and the generations after? What the coming of Jesus provided was an opportunity for those who accept him as their saviour and who behave well to go to Heaven. But those who are born-again but do not follow the laws of God and teachings of Christ will not make the Kingdom of Heaven. But being a good Christian those not mean that one will not go through difficulties or die peacefully. To this end, I am now going to provide information on how the disciples of Jesus Christ died. Apostle Peter and Apostle Philip were crucified upside down on a cross in Rome while Andrew was killed the same way in Patras in Greece. Matthew was said to have been killed with a sword or stabbed to death in Ethiopia. James the son of Zebedee was beheaded in Rome, the other James (the son of Alphaeus) was thrown down from a cliff in Jerusalem and clubbed to death.
Bartholomew was flogged to death with a whip in Armenia, while Thomas was stabbed to death in India. Thaddeus who was also known as Jude was shot to death with Simon the Patriot stoned to death and then beheaded. As can be seen in Matthew 27: 3 – 10 and Acts 1:18 – 19 Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus killed himself. The only one who died peacefully and the last to go was Apostle John, the son of Zebedee but at a stage of his life he was thrown into a barrel of boiling oil but escaped miraculously
Next week: Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in focus
Weekly sales of Sunday Times when Gbolabo Ogunsanwo was Editor (2)
Prince Kolade Roberts of Lagos who 24 days ago told me that the Sunday Times sold one million copies weekly when Ogunsanwo was the Editor (1972 – 75), got me writing on the issue. He had phoned me on Sunday, December 6 that one Tunde Rahman, a reporter with the Daily Times in the 1990s and a former Editor of ThisDay on Sunday, in a piece in that day’s Sunday Tribune was his source.
Rahman made the disclosure in an article in which he paid tribute to the 75 – year – old Ijebu – Ode – born remarkable Editor and colourful columnist titled: Gbolabo Ogunsanwo: “A great tree has fallen.” I told Kolade it was not true that the Sunday Times in the early 1970s had a weekly circulation (sale) close to one million copies as Rahman had claimed.
I informed him that in a report in the Saturday Sun of May 10, 2003 that Alhaji Ismail Babatunde Jose, the Chairman of the Daily Times Nigeria Limited from 1968 – 76, gave the weekly sales figure of the Sunday Times as 355, 000. I thought this was enough to have convinced him since I gave the date the report was published in the Saturday Sun. But it was not the case.
Because four days later, Kolade called me again when the Nation on Thursday, December 10, in its Editorial Opinion also had it that the Sunday Times under Gbolabo Ogunsanwo sold one million copies weekly. That day he asked: Egbon (elder or big brother), how can everyone be saying one million copies a week and you are claiming it was 355, 000?
I told him those talking of one million copies must have contacted people with wrong information or read documents derived from fake reports. I therefore gave him the telephone number of Mike Awoyinfa, the pioneer Managing Director/Editor – in – Chief of Sun Publishing Limited, who along with late Dimgba Igwe, his friend and Deputy in both capacities, interviewed Alhaji Jose in 2003.
I also told Kolade to go online to read the document on the Daily Times and Sunday Times where he would find out that the former which began publishing on Tuesday, June 1, 1926 had a daily circulation figure of 25,000 in 1950, 95,000 in 1959 and 275,000 in 1975. While the Sunday Times which came on board in the 1950s in 1975 had a sales figure of 400,000 a week. There is no information on what it circulated before then. When Kolade contacted Awoyinfa and went online he found out that the weekly circulation figures of the Sunday Times in the early 1970s which I gave him were correct.
To be continued next week with proofs that it is news and feature stories that sell a newspaper, not the articles by columnists as many erroneously believe.