How best can you recount your childhood memories?
I was born into a Muslim family and named Wasiu, my mother also has a Muslim name- Risikat,my late Dad who went to be with the Lord was named Sulaimon,he hails from Igboore in Abeokuta,while my mum hail from Ake both of them from Abeokuta , Ogun State.
I was born without a silver spoon in my mouth, from the family of seven and we were all living with my parents in a room,but my daddy taught me how to maximize opportunity which he learnt from his father hook, line and sinker, because some of those things that will make us go far in life when you identify, protect, celebrate and maximize opportunities, his beginning was so tough that when he came to Lagos he struggled by himself being the last born of the family, his father happens to be an Imam but he said to himself that nothing will stop him from going to Lagos to make it, being a farmer and that he did all by himself.
On his arrival in Lagos he slept in the mosque conducting prayers in the morning for the mosque congregants and later went to Mandillas to learn printing job, he didn’t go to school too but I think he told me when he was in the village he was able to attend standard six .
My Growing days was so rough and tough but later my parents gave their lives to Christ and they moved from Islam to Christ Gospel Apostolic Church Oshodi where they gave their lives to Christ,then we were living at number 34 Brown Street Oshodi that was where my story started.
Back then in Oshodi it was so tough and the first money my father made in his life was from printing then way back in the 80’s that was five thousand naira and he said to himself if others are buying television though he also bought a President Television then, he should do Something that will last a lifetime so he thought of buying a land, he wanted us to be great so he taught us that being studious is key, then whenever he returns from work he would teach us how to write, before I started my schooling with Saint John Primary School later to High Gate Nursery and Primary School been the first child of the family and way back when I was very small whenever he ask me what would I like to become, I always tell him I love to be a Doctor, the beginning was so rough, my mother was a pepper seller not far from Bolade but we were taught to endure in other to enjoy, because many people don’t really want to endure the process that is the reason why they cannot enjoy the journey, because when you endure the process you will enjoy the journey, knowing fully well that success is not magical, it requires process, it is going to be from one level of trouble and trauma to another.
So when my daddy made that money out of the five thousand he came to Alagbado having been intimated by somebody that there are virgin lands there where lands are sold cheaply and he bought a plot of land for three thousand naira way back and he used the remaining two thousand to build six room face-me-I-face you like it is called then.
He was also able to plaster it then with the five thousand naira and he told my mum that if they should go rent two bedroom flat or room and parlour then and start living large they might even go back to penury worse than they were before.
So my mother agree because they love each other we came to Alagbado in the 80’s where our house happen to be the only house around here that if you want to see another house you have to go like fifty, sixty miles away before seeing another house.
There was no light we started living in the bush and we were attending the CAC church in front of our house, because we were unable to go back to Oshodi.
Then that was where I gain admission into Ebenezer Comprehensive High School, a particular time when we really experienced what we called undiluted poverty,it was so tough that to get water to bath myself, I have go like twenty minutes away to fetch water in a keg,you can imagine how we are going to manage the water,it was a tough one that I may not like to recount because it will surely push me to tears,but I bless God today that he has been able to establish His word that ‘though weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning’.
As a Christ Gospel Apostolic boy we were taught with fasting and prayers we were trained to believe and wait on God no matter what. I call my father a walking Bible when he was alive, no job nothing now, he would just sit down and start studying the bible so we turned all unused land around us to farm, so many people that bought their lands but were unable to build it, he helps them tend the land,so my father will plant cassava and maize,then what we eat all the time was cassava,because that was what we were able to plant and my school was not too far from where we lived so I have to trek to school.
All through this harrowing experience how did you survive?
Then I had the mentality for entrepreneurship we plant cassava and maize we process it and we can make Ogi and other things out it, but if we eat rice in our house then it must certainly be on Christmas day after this Christmas it would be another Christmas, if you understand what I am referring to, so it went on like that but with our faith sometimes when we are strong that people say we are sick, no money for drugs so all we did is to pray in a cup of water and drink but way back my mummy told me that even when she was sick, while carrying me in her womb they told her that this man in her womb is going to work for God, but then she was a Muslim and was thinking maybe I will be one Alfa or Imam because my grandfather was an Imam.
She had no hint of what was coming at all and my journey was not even one anybody could give definition to,if not for the grace of God. So I started going to Ebenezer Comprehensive High School,it was so hard for me that if we were asked to buy books there was no money to buy it.
So I have to leave school to go hawk bread or moinmoin as far as a place they call Jankara where they repair cars and also do some odd jobs to make ends meet and help my parents cater for my siblings.
I just have to hawk,leave school early because there was no money for lesson.
There was a time in school when we were asked to pay our PTA levy and there was no money to pay so the principal was trying to beat everybody but as he was doing that people started running away dodging the principal, so they fell on me and I got my right hand broken and there was no money for proper medical attention, so my mother had to start begging for money to take me to Igboobi, she managed through some of the monies I have made while hawking to take me to Igboobi, POP was on my hand there was no money to go back there for further treatments,my mummy always have to beg inside the Molue ‘please help us there is no money I want to take my son to Igbobi’,that is why today when I see people abusing others begging I always feel bad, I don’t want to know whether the person is pretending or the form of the begging was pretentious.
So my father soaked my hand inside a pail of water, for so many minutes and the thing started dissolving,because I was really emaciating and going back then because we could not afford to go back to Igboobi to remove the POP maybe because of one hundred and fifty naira then, so my father removed the POP, if I was able to take it to Igbobi then they would have massage, re positing it and all that but that was not possible,so since that time this hand cannot touch this shoulder, maybe God gave it to me as sign of remembrance to know that I should remember where I was coming from,because if I could afford one hundred and fifty naira then my hand would have been restored but the hand cannot touch my shoulder because of the situation.
It got to a stage,we were going one day I saw one woman was abusing my mum in Yoruba ‘you will not go and look for work,you will be using your child to beg alms and truly what my mother went begging for really happened to me.
Being the first child of the family I gave my parents the hope that no matter what it is I am going to be great.
We preach early in the morning in our house and if you didn’t wake up on time if you see the way my daddy will discipline us, you will wonder what did we do wrong.
Then if anyone of us offend my parents the same way my father would beat you is the same with my mother, they will beat you,they will wake you up at night then you will start your own vigil with them when this one beats you to this side, this one beats you to the other side,my mother fights with teeth while my father wipes you with wire,with a view that,you cannot just give us problems,so we are living in the bush without light and nothing, it was so so tough, for years no cloth.
I didn’t go to University too neither did I attend a college aside the Secondary school where I later drop out, I went to University of adversity, faculty of problems and department of understanding,so I gained all through problems and challenges.
How did you get to be Celestial member considering the fact that you were groomed in CAC?
I remember what took me to Celestial Church, growing up we never liked white garment church, being a born again christian we believed people wearing it are barbaric, traditionalist and fetish but there was a development that changed my story, for so many years my mother was wearing one cloth and it is the same she wears to church, she would be the first to go to the church to do some cleaning and pray and would be the last to leave the church after cleaning but she happens to be the poorest in the church, my father being a strong person, a preacher sometimes some people get to know the Bible more than their pastor.
We were attending the CAC in front of my house,one day an Igbo woman abused my mum but my mum was an illiterate,though she understood what the woman meant only she cannot respond, being a joyful person,who love working for God even atimes when there are nothing the little coco-yam we had, she would take it to the Pastor, I never knew she was investing into our future, because she never knew I would be a Pastor or something, so the woman was abusing my mum in English that,look at her she is the one that will get to the church first, knows how to pray so much but her live is the worst of all,see her wearing a cloth for several years.
So there was a woman she borrowed twenty naira from,the woman came to the front of our house and started shouting that she needed her money,so as the woman held on to my mother’s old and weak cloth,it got torn at the front not right side or left but the center so there was no other cloth,she had to patch it.
Then I vow no matter what it would take me I have got to be great,because it was in my presence so I now linked it up to the scenario of my mother’s service to God and her being the first person and last person in church at the end of the day but the poorest among them all,so when she mistakenly torn my mother’s cloth because it was not really intentional,that informs why I said I won’t go to that church again for I can’t stand the shame and truly their claims were correct,to the extent that sometimes when we cook there will be no meat only when we caught bush rats.
At school then I don’t use to tuck in my shirt then not because I was unruly as many thought but basically I have gotten spider eyes on my nicker-I patched it so people thought I was recalcitrant but not because of that,I love tucking in my shirt,because my father takes that with a pinch of salt,he can even beat you for just that.
We were then acting wealth and affluence with the believe and conviction that sometimes it is gonna happen.
Did you have a role model in the Ministry after whom you charted your course?
I saw my dad as a mentor, even when he died and I buried him,the thumb in which we buried him remained my spiritual groove, I was still there two days ago,I instructed them to always keep the place lited so that I can be there all the times seeing all this blinking lights. I just want to keep the memory not to feel like my dad is gone. (sobs)
I had wanted to build a duplex for him but my father refused saying he preferred a bungalow, to the glory of God nobody will get to that street that will not know that this is Ogundipe father’s house.
The house is really not far from here but to the glory of God, he has use me to change the house from that number of rooms to another beautiful edifice,though a bungalow according to what my father requested.
If we see people building house in our area we offer assistance in exchange for tokens, that was what I have been bringing back home to take care of my younger ones and my parents,later I started playing drums and as a matter of fact nobody taught me how to play drums but I know how to play all kinds of drums, because I had this determination that no matter what I am going to be great, I won’t steal nor rob or engage myself in any shoddy deal but I will be great for my father taught me the way of the Lord,that the blessings of God maketh rich and addeth no sorrow.
I have experienced it so many times that there will be no food to eat from morning till night and we must not tell anybody, there was a time my mum has no food to give to us and we were all crying, she now feigned cooking with stone in our pot, there was no kerosene so we had to use dry cassava stems,it would seem to us something was cooking till we all slept off.
Before the second day she would have struggled to get something, so many times food without pepper or oil, I don’t want to go into that, i have been trained to manage , I can manage no matter how small, I can cook soup with one hundred naira right here that everybody will eat. It might not be palatable but it is just going to be eatable.
As a Christ Gospel Apostolic boy we were taught with fasting and prayers we were trained to believe and wait on God no matter what.
I call my father a walking Bible when he was alive, no job nothing now, he would just sit down and start studying the bible so we turned all unused land around us to farm,so many people that bought their lands but were unable to build it, he helps them tend the land,so my father will plant cassava and maize,then what we eat all the time was cassava,because that was what we were able to plant and my school was not too far from where we lived so I have to trek to school.
I moved into that celestial built with planks, but the head of the Church happens to be one of the youths around there, so he loves having children around, I went and we started playing and it was through the hand of love he extended to me that brought me to Celestial, it wasn’t problem or any issue that took me there, not madness or any other thing, so when I was with him we were just chatting, he was playing with us telling us how he got into the ministry. I was playing the drums like I usually do most times when I fell in trance for seven days without food or water, I saw angels and God know did wondrous that launched me into a new phase which i am still grateful till today.
I gain admission into Ebenezer Comprehensive High School, a particular time when we really experienced what we called undiluted poverty, it was so tough that to get water to bath myself, I have go like twenty miles away to fetch water in a keg, you can imagine how we are going to manage the water, it was a tough one that I may not like to recount because it will surely push me to tears, but I bless God today that He has been able to establish His word that ‘though weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning’.
How did you get to be Celestial member considering the fact that you were groomed in CAC?
We were attending the CAC in front of my house,one day an Igbo woman abused my mum but my mum was an illiterate, though she understood what the woman meant only she cannot respond,being a joyful person,who love working for God even a times when there are nothing the little coco-yam we had, she would take it to the Pastor, I never knew she was investing into our future,because she never knew I would be a Pastor or something, so the woman was abusing my mum in English that;
"look at her she is the one that will get to the church first, knows how to pray so much but her live is the worst of all, see her wearing a cloth for several years".
So there was a time they want to do a contribution in the church and my mother burrowed money from someone in the Church,then she would now fry ‘Garri’ or fetch ‘Gbure’ take to Oshodi to sell and bring the money to pay the church vow, but my daddy been a stubborn bible scholar would insist that if you don’t have you can’t struggle oh!, I can’t stress myself God understands that my children will eat but my mother would not look at it from that angle,she will go an extra mile to go and even borrow to do it.
There is one group they called "Good Women Group",but in that group she happens to be the only one wearing same cloth for over four years.
So how did story change?
Being the fist child of the family I gave my parents the hope that no matter what it is I am going to be great.
We preach early in the morning in our house and if you didn’t wake up on time if you see the way my daddy will knock you,you will wonder what you have done.
Then if anyone of us offend my parents the same way my father would beat you is the same with my mother,they will beat you,they will wake you up at night then you will start your own vigil with them when this one beats you to this side, this one beats you to the other side,my mother fights with teeth while my father wipes you with wire,with a view that,you cannot just give us problems,so we are living in the bush without light and nothing, it was so so tough, for years no cloth.
I remember what took me to Celestial Church,growing up we never liked white garment church,being a born again christian we believed people wearing it are barbaric,traditionalist and fetish but there was a development that changed my story, for so many years my mother was wearing one cloth and it is the same she wears to church, she would be the first to go to the church to do some cleaning and pray and would be the last to leave the church after cleaning but she happens to be the poorest in the church,my father being a strong person, a preacher sometimes some people get to know the Bible more than their pastor.
My father would say at times what the Pastor is saying is heresy, you know as an Egba man,since the church was not far from our house he will just say I am not going to church,he had just one cloth too but he never liked some of those things they were doing and he taught me what I called self development,he did not go to school but he started developing himself,if you see his hand writing you will doubt he didn’t go to school.
I didn’t go to University too neither did I attend a college aside the Secondary school where I later drop out,I went to University of adversity,faculty of problems and department of understanding,so I gained all through problems and challenges.
Then I vow no matter what it would take me I have got to be great, because it was in my presence so I now linked it up to the scenario of my mother’s service to God and her being the first person and last person in church at the end of the day but the poorest among them all, so when she mistakenly torn my mother’s cloth because it was not really intentional,that informs why I said I won’t go to that church again for I can’t stand the shame and truly their claims were correct, to the extent that sometimes when we cook there will be no meat only when we caught "bush rats", yes is that bad.
At school then I don’t use to tuck in my shirt then not because I was rude, as many thought but basically I have gotten spider eyes on my nicker-I patched it so people thought I was recalcitrant but not because of that,I love tucking in my shirt,because my father takes that with a pinch of salt,he can even beat you for just that.
We were then acting wealth and affluence with the believe and conviction that sometimes it is gonna happen.
Have you a row model in Ministry after whom you charted your course? I saw my dad as a mentor, even when he died and I buried him, the thumb in which we buried him remained my spiritual groove, I was still there two days ago, I instructed them to always keep the place clean so that I can be there all the times seeing all this blinking lights. I just want to keep the memory not to feel like my dad is gone.
So many times he would tell us don’t steal or beg for food things would be alright and today I bless God things are better but I didn’t have him around to enjoy more, I just bless God that I was able to rebuild that house to his taste the house is really not far from here but to the glory of God, he has use me to change the house from that number of rooms to another beautiful edifice,though a bungalow according to what my father requested, because if he had died before that time, I just imagine if the house remain in its former state maybe I would have poisoned myself that day,but I gave him a befitting burial and he has lived in that house for about four, five years though I had thought he is gonna live up to 90,100 years before he died. He left me at age left at age 74.(sobs).
I have experienced it so many times that there will be no food to eat from morning till night and we must not tell anybody,there was a time my mum has no food to give to us and we were all crying, she now feigned cooking with stone in our pot, there was no kerosene so we had to use dry cassava stems,it would seem to us something was cooking till we all slept off.
Before the second day she would have struggled to get something, so many times food without pepper or oil, I don’t want to go into that, that is why there no money I cannot manage no matter how small, I can cook soup with one hundred naira right here that everybody will eat. It might not be palatable but it is just going to be eatable. The table you are putting it on matters not all eatable that is palatable.
I moved into that celestial built with planks,but the head of the Church happens to be one of the youths around there,so he loves having children around,I went and we started playing and it was through the hand of love he extended to me that brought me to Celestial, it wasn’t problem or any issue that took me there,not madness or any other thing,so when I was with him we were just chatting,he was playing with us telling us how he got into the ministry. I was playing the drums like I usually do most times when I fell in trance for seven days without food or water, I saw angels and God knows did wondrous that launched me into a new phase and I still grateful till today.
I was born into a Muslim family and named Wasiu, my mother also has a Muslim name- Risikat,my late Dad who went to be with the Lord was named Sulaimon,he hails from Igboore in Abeokuta,while my mum hail from Ake both of them from Abeokuta , Ogun State.
On his arrival in Lagos he slept in the mosque conducting prayers in the morning for the mosque congregants and later went to Mandillas to learn printing job, he didn’t go to school too but I think he told me when he was in the village he was able to attend standard six .
My Growing days was so rough and tough but later my parents gave their lives to Christ and they moved from Islam to Christ Gospel Apostolic Church Oshodi where they gave their lives to Christ,then we were living at number 34 Brown Street Oshodi that was where my story started.
Back then in Oshodi it was so tough and the first money my father made in his life was from printing then way back in the 80’s that was five thousand naira and he said to himself if others are buying television though he also bought a President Television then, he should do Something that will last a lifetime so he thought of buying a land, he wanted us to be great so he taught us that being studious is key, then whenever he returns from work he would teach us how to write, before I started my schooling with Saint John Primary School later to High Gate Nursery and Primary School been the first child of the family and way back when I was very small whenever he ask me what would I like to become, I always tell him I love to be a Doctor, the beginning was so rough, my mother was a pepper seller not far from Bolade but we were taught to endure in other to enjoy, because many people don’t really want to endure the process that is the reason why they cannot enjoy the journey, because when you endure the process you will enjoy the journey, knowing fully well that success is not magical, it requires process, it is going to be from one level of trouble and trauma to another.
He was also able to plaster it then with the five thousand naira and he told my mum that if they should go rent two bedroom flat or room and parlour then and start living large they might even go back to penury worse than they were before.
So my mother agree because they love each other we came to Alagbado in the 80’s where our house happen to be the only house around here that if you want to see another house you have to go like fifty, sixty miles away before seeing another house.
Then that was where I gain admission into Ebenezer Comprehensive High School, a particular time when we really experienced what we called undiluted poverty,it was so tough that to get water to bath myself, I have go like twenty minutes away to fetch water in a keg,you can imagine how we are going to manage the water,it was a tough one that I may not like to recount because it will surely push me to tears,but I bless God today that he has been able to establish His word that ‘though weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning’.
As a Christ Gospel Apostolic boy we were taught with fasting and prayers we were trained to believe and wait on God no matter what. I call my father a walking Bible when he was alive, no job nothing now, he would just sit down and start studying the bible so we turned all unused land around us to farm, so many people that bought their lands but were unable to build it, he helps them tend the land,so my father will plant cassava and maize,then what we eat all the time was cassava,because that was what we were able to plant and my school was not too far from where we lived so I have to trek to school.
All through this harrowing experience how did you survive?
Then I had the mentality for entrepreneurship we plant cassava and maize we process it and we can make Ogi and other things out it, but if we eat rice in our house then it must certainly be on Christmas day after this Christmas it would be another Christmas, if you understand what I am referring to, so it went on like that but with our faith sometimes when we are strong that people say we are sick, no money for drugs so all we did is to pray in a cup of water and drink but way back my mummy told me that even when she was sick, while carrying me in her womb they told her that this man in her womb is going to work for God, but then she was a Muslim and was thinking maybe I will be one Alfa or Imam because my grandfather was an Imam.
She had no hint of what was coming at all and my journey was not even one anybody could give definition to,if not for the grace of God. So I started going to Ebenezer Comprehensive High School,it was so hard for me that if we were asked to buy books there was no money to buy it.
So I have to leave school to go hawk bread or moinmoin as far as a place they call Jankara where they repair cars and also do some odd jobs to make ends meet and help my parents cater for my siblings.
I just have to hawk,leave school early because there was no money for lesson.
There was a time in school when we were asked to pay our PTA levy and there was no money to pay so the principal was trying to beat everybody but as he was doing that people started running away dodging the principal, so they fell on me and I got my right hand broken and there was no money for proper medical attention, so my mother had to start begging for money to take me to Igboobi, she managed through some of the monies I have made while hawking to take me to Igboobi, POP was on my hand there was no money to go back there for further treatments,my mummy always have to beg inside the Molue ‘please help us there is no money I want to take my son to Igbobi’,that is why today when I see people abusing others begging I always feel bad, I don’t want to know whether the person is pretending or the form of the begging was pretentious.
So my father soaked my hand inside a pail of water, for so many minutes and the thing started dissolving,because I was really emaciating and going back then because we could not afford to go back to Igboobi to remove the POP maybe because of one hundred and fifty naira then, so my father removed the POP, if I was able to take it to Igbobi then they would have massage, re positing it and all that but that was not possible,so since that time this hand cannot touch this shoulder, maybe God gave it to me as sign of remembrance to know that I should remember where I was coming from,because if I could afford one hundred and fifty naira then my hand would have been restored but the hand cannot touch my shoulder because of the situation.
It got to a stage,we were going one day I saw one woman was abusing my mum in Yoruba ‘you will not go and look for work,you will be using your child to beg alms and truly what my mother went begging for really happened to me.
Being the first child of the family I gave my parents the hope that no matter what it is I am going to be great.
We preach early in the morning in our house and if you didn’t wake up on time if you see the way my daddy will discipline us, you will wonder what did we do wrong.
Then if anyone of us offend my parents the same way my father would beat you is the same with my mother, they will beat you,they will wake you up at night then you will start your own vigil with them when this one beats you to this side, this one beats you to the other side,my mother fights with teeth while my father wipes you with wire,with a view that,you cannot just give us problems,so we are living in the bush without light and nothing, it was so so tough, for years no cloth.
I didn’t go to University too neither did I attend a college aside the Secondary school where I later drop out, I went to University of adversity, faculty of problems and department of understanding,so I gained all through problems and challenges.
How did you get to be Celestial member considering the fact that you were groomed in CAC?
I remember what took me to Celestial Church, growing up we never liked white garment church, being a born again christian we believed people wearing it are barbaric, traditionalist and fetish but there was a development that changed my story, for so many years my mother was wearing one cloth and it is the same she wears to church, she would be the first to go to the church to do some cleaning and pray and would be the last to leave the church after cleaning but she happens to be the poorest in the church, my father being a strong person, a preacher sometimes some people get to know the Bible more than their pastor.
We were attending the CAC in front of my house,one day an Igbo woman abused my mum but my mum was an illiterate,though she understood what the woman meant only she cannot respond, being a joyful person,who love working for God even atimes when there are nothing the little coco-yam we had, she would take it to the Pastor, I never knew she was investing into our future, because she never knew I would be a Pastor or something, so the woman was abusing my mum in English that,look at her she is the one that will get to the church first, knows how to pray so much but her live is the worst of all,see her wearing a cloth for several years.
So there was a woman she borrowed twenty naira from,the woman came to the front of our house and started shouting that she needed her money,so as the woman held on to my mother’s old and weak cloth,it got torn at the front not right side or left but the center so there was no other cloth,she had to patch it.
Then I vow no matter what it would take me I have got to be great,because it was in my presence so I now linked it up to the scenario of my mother’s service to God and her being the first person and last person in church at the end of the day but the poorest among them all,so when she mistakenly torn my mother’s cloth because it was not really intentional,that informs why I said I won’t go to that church again for I can’t stand the shame and truly their claims were correct,to the extent that sometimes when we cook there will be no meat only when we caught bush rats.
At school then I don’t use to tuck in my shirt then not because I was unruly as many thought but basically I have gotten spider eyes on my nicker-I patched it so people thought I was recalcitrant but not because of that,I love tucking in my shirt,because my father takes that with a pinch of salt,he can even beat you for just that.
We were then acting wealth and affluence with the believe and conviction that sometimes it is gonna happen.
Did you have a role model in the Ministry after whom you charted your course?
I saw my dad as a mentor, even when he died and I buried him,the thumb in which we buried him remained my spiritual groove, I was still there two days ago,I instructed them to always keep the place lited so that I can be there all the times seeing all this blinking lights. I just want to keep the memory not to feel like my dad is gone. (sobs)
I had wanted to build a duplex for him but my father refused saying he preferred a bungalow, to the glory of God nobody will get to that street that will not know that this is Ogundipe father’s house.
The house is really not far from here but to the glory of God, he has use me to change the house from that number of rooms to another beautiful edifice,though a bungalow according to what my father requested.
If we see people building house in our area we offer assistance in exchange for tokens, that was what I have been bringing back home to take care of my younger ones and my parents,later I started playing drums and as a matter of fact nobody taught me how to play drums but I know how to play all kinds of drums, because I had this determination that no matter what I am going to be great, I won’t steal nor rob or engage myself in any shoddy deal but I will be great for my father taught me the way of the Lord,that the blessings of God maketh rich and addeth no sorrow.
I have experienced it so many times that there will be no food to eat from morning till night and we must not tell anybody, there was a time my mum has no food to give to us and we were all crying, she now feigned cooking with stone in our pot, there was no kerosene so we had to use dry cassava stems,it would seem to us something was cooking till we all slept off.
Before the second day she would have struggled to get something, so many times food without pepper or oil, I don’t want to go into that, i have been trained to manage , I can manage no matter how small, I can cook soup with one hundred naira right here that everybody will eat. It might not be palatable but it is just going to be eatable.
As a Christ Gospel Apostolic boy we were taught with fasting and prayers we were trained to believe and wait on God no matter what.
I call my father a walking Bible when he was alive, no job nothing now, he would just sit down and start studying the bible so we turned all unused land around us to farm,so many people that bought their lands but were unable to build it, he helps them tend the land,so my father will plant cassava and maize,then what we eat all the time was cassava,because that was what we were able to plant and my school was not too far from where we lived so I have to trek to school.
I moved into that celestial built with planks, but the head of the Church happens to be one of the youths around there, so he loves having children around, I went and we started playing and it was through the hand of love he extended to me that brought me to Celestial, it wasn’t problem or any issue that took me there, not madness or any other thing, so when I was with him we were just chatting, he was playing with us telling us how he got into the ministry. I was playing the drums like I usually do most times when I fell in trance for seven days without food or water, I saw angels and God know did wondrous that launched me into a new phase which i am still grateful till today.
I gain admission into Ebenezer Comprehensive High School, a particular time when we really experienced what we called undiluted poverty, it was so tough that to get water to bath myself, I have go like twenty miles away to fetch water in a keg, you can imagine how we are going to manage the water, it was a tough one that I may not like to recount because it will surely push me to tears, but I bless God today that He has been able to establish His word that ‘though weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning’.
How did you get to be Celestial member considering the fact that you were groomed in CAC?
We were attending the CAC in front of my house,one day an Igbo woman abused my mum but my mum was an illiterate, though she understood what the woman meant only she cannot respond,being a joyful person,who love working for God even a times when there are nothing the little coco-yam we had, she would take it to the Pastor, I never knew she was investing into our future,because she never knew I would be a Pastor or something, so the woman was abusing my mum in English that;
"look at her she is the one that will get to the church first, knows how to pray so much but her live is the worst of all, see her wearing a cloth for several years".
So there was a time they want to do a contribution in the church and my mother burrowed money from someone in the Church,then she would now fry ‘Garri’ or fetch ‘Gbure’ take to Oshodi to sell and bring the money to pay the church vow, but my daddy been a stubborn bible scholar would insist that if you don’t have you can’t struggle oh!, I can’t stress myself God understands that my children will eat but my mother would not look at it from that angle,she will go an extra mile to go and even borrow to do it.
There is one group they called "Good Women Group",but in that group she happens to be the only one wearing same cloth for over four years.
So how did story change?
Being the fist child of the family I gave my parents the hope that no matter what it is I am going to be great.
We preach early in the morning in our house and if you didn’t wake up on time if you see the way my daddy will knock you,you will wonder what you have done.
Then if anyone of us offend my parents the same way my father would beat you is the same with my mother,they will beat you,they will wake you up at night then you will start your own vigil with them when this one beats you to this side, this one beats you to the other side,my mother fights with teeth while my father wipes you with wire,with a view that,you cannot just give us problems,so we are living in the bush without light and nothing, it was so so tough, for years no cloth.
I remember what took me to Celestial Church,growing up we never liked white garment church,being a born again christian we believed people wearing it are barbaric,traditionalist and fetish but there was a development that changed my story, for so many years my mother was wearing one cloth and it is the same she wears to church, she would be the first to go to the church to do some cleaning and pray and would be the last to leave the church after cleaning but she happens to be the poorest in the church,my father being a strong person, a preacher sometimes some people get to know the Bible more than their pastor.
My father would say at times what the Pastor is saying is heresy, you know as an Egba man,since the church was not far from our house he will just say I am not going to church,he had just one cloth too but he never liked some of those things they were doing and he taught me what I called self development,he did not go to school but he started developing himself,if you see his hand writing you will doubt he didn’t go to school.
I didn’t go to University too neither did I attend a college aside the Secondary school where I later drop out,I went to University of adversity,faculty of problems and department of understanding,so I gained all through problems and challenges.
Then I vow no matter what it would take me I have got to be great, because it was in my presence so I now linked it up to the scenario of my mother’s service to God and her being the first person and last person in church at the end of the day but the poorest among them all, so when she mistakenly torn my mother’s cloth because it was not really intentional,that informs why I said I won’t go to that church again for I can’t stand the shame and truly their claims were correct, to the extent that sometimes when we cook there will be no meat only when we caught "bush rats", yes is that bad.
At school then I don’t use to tuck in my shirt then not because I was rude, as many thought but basically I have gotten spider eyes on my nicker-I patched it so people thought I was recalcitrant but not because of that,I love tucking in my shirt,because my father takes that with a pinch of salt,he can even beat you for just that.
We were then acting wealth and affluence with the believe and conviction that sometimes it is gonna happen.
Have you a row model in Ministry after whom you charted your course? I saw my dad as a mentor, even when he died and I buried him, the thumb in which we buried him remained my spiritual groove, I was still there two days ago, I instructed them to always keep the place clean so that I can be there all the times seeing all this blinking lights. I just want to keep the memory not to feel like my dad is gone.
So many times he would tell us don’t steal or beg for food things would be alright and today I bless God things are better but I didn’t have him around to enjoy more, I just bless God that I was able to rebuild that house to his taste the house is really not far from here but to the glory of God, he has use me to change the house from that number of rooms to another beautiful edifice,though a bungalow according to what my father requested, because if he had died before that time, I just imagine if the house remain in its former state maybe I would have poisoned myself that day,but I gave him a befitting burial and he has lived in that house for about four, five years though I had thought he is gonna live up to 90,100 years before he died. He left me at age left at age 74.(sobs).
I have experienced it so many times that there will be no food to eat from morning till night and we must not tell anybody,there was a time my mum has no food to give to us and we were all crying, she now feigned cooking with stone in our pot, there was no kerosene so we had to use dry cassava stems,it would seem to us something was cooking till we all slept off.
Before the second day she would have struggled to get something, so many times food without pepper or oil, I don’t want to go into that, that is why there no money I cannot manage no matter how small, I can cook soup with one hundred naira right here that everybody will eat. It might not be palatable but it is just going to be eatable. The table you are putting it on matters not all eatable that is palatable.
I moved into that celestial built with planks,but the head of the Church happens to be one of the youths around there,so he loves having children around,I went and we started playing and it was through the hand of love he extended to me that brought me to Celestial, it wasn’t problem or any issue that took me there,not madness or any other thing,so when I was with him we were just chatting,he was playing with us telling us how he got into the ministry. I was playing the drums like I usually do most times when I fell in trance for seven days without food or water, I saw angels and God knows did wondrous that launched me into a new phase and I still grateful till today.
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| The Ogundipe. |
