Olakunle Olafioye

If the 2019 Presidential election held in the penultimate Saturday were to be decided by religious leaders, President Muhammadu Buhari, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, would, perhaps, not have stood any chance against his main challenger and candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar.

Buhari, who was the beautiful bride of the pulpit in the build up to 2015 election, surprisingly turned out to be the rejected stone during the 2019 electioneering with series of prophecies going against him.

But like the biblical rejected stone,
the president and his party had the last laugh last Wednesday when the
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared him winner
of the election.

Indeed, the prophecies for the presidential election took three different dimensions. There were those who gave it outright to the president just as another group of seers favoured the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar. Yet, there are those whose predictions came with a caveat. A good number of seers who fall in the latter group predicted Atiku’s victory if the poll was free and fair.   

With the election results declared, the PDP and it standard bearer have threatened to challenge the outcome of the poll in court, accusing the ruling party of manipulating the exercise.

Reverend Fr. Ejike Mbaka, spiritual director, Adoration Ministry, Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), is one of the clerics who hit the bull’s eye with his predictions on Buhari’s victory. The fiery preacher took to the podium to celebrate the President’s re-election last week. Mbaka, despite falling out with the President whom he predicted would defeat former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, after his triumph at the poll, still had a favourable prediction for the retired army general.

Speaking at the 2018 cross over service, the man of God threw his weight
behind the President’s second term bid in what many saw as a volte-face from his earlier position when he was reported to have said Buhari might lose the 2019 presidential poll to Atiku, although he added that there was room for the president to improve on his performance which was the basis for his rejection.

“Among all the presidential aspirants, Buhari stands in best position in winning the presidential election,” the cleric had announced amid gleeful enumeration of what he described as his achievements during the first term.

“What happens in the Ministry of Agriculture such as massive production of rice is unprecedented in Nigeria’s agricultural history.

“In all this, we urge Nigerians to vote President Buhari in order to complete his eight years tenure and after which he will hand over to a younger candidate,” Mbaka had said during the cross-over service.

Rev Mbaka was later to firm up his prediction in favour of Buhari when this year, the vice presidential candidate of the PDP, Peter Obi, visited the Adoration Centre during a bazaar but refused to make donation. As the Catholic priest engaged the former governor of Anambra State, he said that Obi and Atiku would fail the presidential election if they continued in the way they were going.

Also in his series of predictions for the 2019 elections, popular seer and founder, INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Lagos, Primate Babatunde Elijah Ayodele predicated the defeat of the ruling APC by PDP on two major conditions.

Speaking at the unveiling of the 2018/2019 and beyond edition of the book of divine messages, “Warnings to the Nations, in July 2018, Ayodele predicted that PDP would only return to power if it fielded Senate President Bukola Saraki as its candidate for the presidential poll.

“God wants to use Saraki for something symbolic for four years. So, if PDP is desirous of winning the election they should go for him,” Ayodele had predicted.

And recently, while reacting to the postponement of the presidential poll, which he equally foretold and captured in his annual book, Ayodele also hinted that the PDP might have a chance against the ruling party if it was able to frustrate the ruling party’s rigging strategies, saying, “PDP must follow APC bomber to bomber because of the rigging methodology and rigging technicality they (APC) wants to use.”

Also the Presiding Bishop, Divine Seed of God Chapel Ministries, Ibadan, Prophet Wale Olagunju, in his prophecies for 2019, predicted that the
former Vice President would win the presidential contest amid admonition to his (Atiku) followers to observe a day of fasting and prayer against manipulation of the results by the ruling party.

According to him, “God said Buhari has become a disappointment in His sight and He has sought and found a man after His own heart to replace him. 

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“As a result, God said the road to Aso Rock Villa for Atiku is now very clear as his name will continue to ring bell and that many will still root for him.

“But God said all lovers of Atiku must go into one day prayer and fasting to rebuke manipulation of election result.”

Satguru Maharaji, founder One Love Family, in his own prediction, foretold President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory at the presidential poll.

According to him, “elections are for human beings. This is the time to call a spade a spade. Buhari is there. He has another term in the office. I don’t see Atiku, Ezekwesili, Sowore and others as president. I believe, if they will listen to me, they should not think of going to elections. They should support Buhari.  Buhari is from the North, he would have spent four years by May, let him complete his second term as the tradition that a man from North will spend eight years and the South will spend eight years. All of them should wait for him to complete his second term.

“There are many reasons, unknown to many Nigerians, that will make President Buhari defeat all other candidates jostling to unseat him in Aso Rock in February.

“What the other candidates can do is to support Buhari to take Nigeria to the Promised Land. Atiku, Ezekwesili, Sowore and others should support Buhari instead of aiming to face him in the presidential election”, he declared.


A South African-based Nigerian cleric, Prophet Samuel Akinbodunse of Freedom for All Nations Outreach, during a live service at his South Africa Church, predicted the emergence of a young president at the end of the election and added that God only made Buhari the president because he wanted Nigerians to learn some lessons.

The man who accurately predicted Zuma’s exit and Mugabe’s disgrace from the seat of power, had earlier revealed that President Buhari might die if he attempted to seek a reelection. 

Also a renowned Islamic cleric in Oyo State, Prof Sabit Olagoke, equally predicted President Buhari’s victory.

Olagoke, who is the grand Imam of Shafaudeen in Islam worldwide, revealed that the former Vice President Atiku would be disappointed by his party, PDP, during the election.

The cleric said: “Against all odds, winners would emerge. APC as a party would have some threat and surprises, but election would tend to favour the incumbent president. The PDP on the other hand, would create scene of disappointment for its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.”

Olagoke’s prediction was said to have been made after his confinement and fasting as well as prayer for the country.

Giving his own predictions on the presidential election, founder of the Christ Deliverance Ministries Inc. (CDM) Lagos, Prophet Ekong Ituen, revealed that President Buhari would be re-elected.

“Let me start by telling Nigerians that election result will spring surprises, but in my revelation, it has been established that President Muhammadu Buhari of All Progressives Congress (APC) will win the 2019 presidential election. You may not like him, but that is the truth,” he declared.

Reacting to the seeming contradictions in the prophecies and the outcome of the election, a theologian and Pastor-in-charge, Dominion Tabernacle and Prayer Assembly, Ota, Ogun State, Dr Olalekan Akinsola, noted that the turnout of event did not take anything  away from the clerics whose predictions failed neither did it confer any special status on those who got it right. 

 According to him, “the ministry of prophecy is a delicate one because those who have the gift are prone to certain ridiculous situations which unknown to the carnally minded, may have divine purposes. Look at the case of Jonah who attempted to evade going on divine prophetic mission to Nineveh because he knew what God was capable of doing. 

“God only instructed him to inform the people of the city about the impending doom, Jonah didn’t give them any condition for their preservation. But without being told, the people repented from their sinful way and they were spared. Jonah’s message didn’t come with any hope of preservation. That was one of the reasons Jonah felt angry when eventually God visited the people of Nineveh with His mercy. Does it mean God didn’t know that the people would turn a new leaf? No! He knew, He only sent Jonah so as to achieve a major divine result.

“So, the turnout of event does not take anything away from those whose prophecies didn’t go as predicted neither has made champion out of those who got it right. But the basic fact remains: God knows His true servants,” Dr  Akinsola noted.