The two articles coming up today were sent for publication last week Tuesday, but had to be removed shortly before the edition was printed when a full – page advertisement came in. Consequently, PABULUM was only available online for people to read last Wednesday.
I thank Sir Amos Ofoneme in Lagos (081-2586 – 028) and Mr. Essien in Akwa Ibom State (070-6592-0898), who phoned to find out if ill – health or something else caused the column to be missing. It was through another reader, Prince Kolade Roberts in Lagos (080-2364-4309), that I got to know that the column was on the internet. Here now are the articles meant for last week coming up in a rewritten form.
Prince Suleiman Anthony Momoh, popularly called Tony Momoh or by his initials TM, who came into the world on Thursday, April 27, 1939 in Auchi, his home town and joined the Saints Triumphant 16 days ago, on Monday, February 1, belonged to a rare group of human beings. These are the people with the combination of such attributes as striving for perfection in all they do, good nature disposition, humility, devotion to the betterment of their communities and selfless – service to their nation without counting the cost.
In addition to these qualities, Prince Momoh, Minister of Information and Culture (1986 – 90), was also a likeable, brilliant, detribalized and progressive person who was generous to a fault and an exceptional Prince of Peace in the promotion of national unity and stability and friendship with all and sundry.
The 165th child of the 245 offspring of King Momoh I, the Otaru of Auchi in Edo State, who had 45 wives, he was born into a Muslim family and given the name Suleiman, but dropped it for Anthony when he converted to Christianity. He started as an Anglican but in the 1970s or 80s became a member of the Grail Movement.
This is a spiritual group founded in Germany in the late 1940s by Oskar Ernst Bernhardt (a.k.a. Abd – ru – shin). Members of the Movement who are said to be ten thousand world – wide and found in 16 countries in Europe and the Americas and in 22 nations in Africa worship in ways different from those of Christians. Theirs is based on disseminating the spread of Abd – ru – shin’s message of In the Light of Truth which is on ideal lifestyle and commitment to the good of the society and obedience to the laws of God.
In politics, where he played a great part in the last 22 years, Prince Momoh was one of the few who commanded respect as decent and high – caliber politicians and people not in public service to make money. He made his mark in the calling that he became the pioneer National Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) when it was established in 2011. He was also one of the foremost chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party formed in 2014 and which made history in 2015 as the first in the history of the country to defeat a ruling party.
Prince Momoh would be remembered as one of the few in Nigeria who belonged to two professions and made a name and was a leading light in both callings – journalism and law. With a degree in Mass Communication from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka he rose to become the Editor of the Daily Times, the first newspaper in Nigeria established in 1926. He served in the position from 1976 – 80.
Prince Momoh who also had a Bachelor of Law (LLB) degree from the University of Lagos would remain evergreen in people’s memory as a man who during the Second Republic (Monday, October 1, 1979 – Friday, September 30, 1983), sued the President of the Senate, Dr. Joseph Wayas and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Umeh Ezeoke, at the Lagos High Court. This was on the grounds that the Upper and Lower Assemblies could not force him to disclose the source of the information in an article he wrote on the two legislatures. He won the case.
In other words, Prince Momoh was a journalist who fought for press freedom, taking the issue to court which nobody did before him and by his action caused it to be established that it is only on issues affecting national security that a journalist or anyone can be made by a court of law to reveal his or her source of information.
I first saw Prince Momoh in person in the Daily Times compound at Kakawa Street on Lagos Island in 1974 when I was a pioneer part – time columnist with Times International, a weekly magazine published by the company. I was then a Senior Current Affairs Officer with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
But it was in 1976 that I made contact with him when I was in his office to invite him to be on the panel of our three – to – four – man weekly Current Affairs discussion programme called “Behind the Headlines, broadcast on Sunday afternoon (3:30 – 4pm). One of my younger sisters, now Mrs. Adeoti Oluwatoyin Adefemi, was his secretary at the time, but she left the company in 1977 for the Union Bank.
After the discussion programme in the NBC studio in 1976, Prince Momoh and I became friends that I used to visit him at his residence at Randle Avenue in Surulere and later when he moved to Anthony Village and finally to his house at 13A, Sylvia Crescent, Maryland, Lagos.
Next week: Proofs that Prince Tony Momoh was a godly and forgiving person, a role model to be emulated and a likely candidate for the Kingdom of Heaven

Why General Babangida should heed my hereafter advice

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I was the one Almighty God sent to three of the four politicians He chose as His candidate in four of the seven presidential elections conducted in the last 28 years in His plan to make Nigeria a great country. I went to Chief Moshood Abiola in January 1993 for that year’s June 12 poll.
It was General Ibrahim Babangida the Lord sent me to in 2001 for the 2003 election and in 2005 for the 2007 voting exercise while it was Alhaji Atiku Abubakar I went to meet in 2017 for the 2019 election.
I knew what the Heavenly Father told me when I reported back to Him on the negative or lukewarm reaction of each person to His message. Ditto in 1999 when I took the matter of His Royal Highness Olu Falae to Him to make him win that year’s presidential election. He rejected my request because He had given him the opportunity during the presidential primaries in 1992 and that he ignored His message conveyed to him by a nephew of his.
As I wrote about four or five times from 2010 – 19 God caused the June 12, 1993 presidential poll won by Chief Abiola to be annulled by General Babangida’s government. The Lord told Dr. Ore Falomo, Abiola’s physician, this on September 24, 1994 when on His instruction I took him on a spiritual retreat to Ado – Ekiti.
Falomo never refuted my story until he died in November 2019. Abiola transited behind bars on July 7, 1998 four years into his detention. His wife Kudirat was murdered two years earlier, in June 1996. She had failed her husband’s instruction, conveyed to her by Dr. Falomo, to adequately compensate the 41 Muslim clerics God raised in Ado – Ekiti and who through a 41 – day fasting exercise made his victory possible in 1993.
She had also ignored the Lord’s message I delivered to her in October 1994 that she should stop going to see a witch – doctor in Cotonou, Benin Republic because He caused the June 12, 1993 election won by her husband to be invalidated.
Until I wrote about it everyone thought General Sani Abacha who was then the Military Head of State on his own got Alhaja (Mrs.) Kudirat Abiola killed by unknown person. And that General Abdulsalami Abubakar organized for Chief Abiola to be eliminated in detention through tea poisoning. People did not know God caused the couple to die.
Indeed, the Lord had told me on Sunday, December 21, 1997 that He would take away both General Abacha and Chief Abiola (cause them to die) shortly after Easter celebrations in April 1998. This is in Chapters 13 & 14 of the book I published in September 2004 on the Lord’s instruction titled: Nigeria set aside by God for greatness and the untold story of June 12 annulment. The transition of Abacha which is on Pages 252 – 264 in Chapter 13 has the caption: Revelation of Abacha’s imminent death.
That of Abiola which is on Pages 265 – 287 in Chapter 14 is titled: Dreams on Abiola’s oncoming demise. The names of those I told in December 1997 of the death of Abiola and Abacha are in the two chapters.

More to come next week