Posted by VAL OKARA, Owerri on
Bishop Alexander Ezeugo Ekewuba is the General Overseer of Overcomers Christian Church with its headquarters in Owerri.
Bishop Alexander Ezeugo Ekewuba is the General Overseer of Overcomers Christian Church with its headquarters in Owerri. He was among the principal actors at the centre of the 1996 Otokoto crises. In an interview with Daily Sun, Bishop Ekewuba, who spoke on various issues, said the exalted position of the country's number one seat will continue to elude the Igbos until they stop their idol worship.
To him, Igbos are a peculiar specie of God's creation and, therefore, they should make efforts to drop Osu caste system.
How did you receive your anointing?
It was in the 1965 in our classroom, our teacher was talking about Elijah and 450 Baal prophets and along the line, he started to teach us about a man who is committed to God and how one can be used by God.
He suddenly stopped and made a statement, "I remembered when I was in Kano, a Moslem read Psalm 91 and after reading it, he blessed a blind man and he started seeing." It made very wonderful impact in my life and a voice asked me, have you seen how a Moslem used your own Bible to heal the sick? Do you know that God can use you more than him?
I was touched and I took permission from the teacher and left the class. I went to my dormitory to pray. The incident happened at the County Grammar School, Ikwere Eche in Rivers State. And at that time I was a chronic stammerer. My father was a stammerer and I stammer in such a way I couldn't even talk unless I jerked and struggled.
When I was on my bed praying and asking God for forgiveness, suddenly I felt relieved, it seemed that something was lifted out of me, I got up with a new experience and my heart was changed. And after the confession, my heart was warmed and changed; I became tender. The first person I saw was after I left the dormitory where I confessed was a student I used to beat up from time to time. Instead of being aggressive as I used to be when I saw him, I called him as a friend.
I asked him, how are you, and when he saw me he wanted to run away thinking that I would pounce on him. I told him that I was now a Christian. But after that encounter , a voice said: 'Have you discovered that you are no longer stammering?" When I talked to several people and I didn't stammer, I said to myself, ‘Oh God has healed me of my stammering.'
Another miracle was that I was a Jehovah Witness and my father was the founder in my community and we never believed in divine healing or that a man can have a spirit of God in him. According to the theology of the Jehovah Witness, healing is a thing of the past and that if the Spirit of God enters you, it will only make you to explode, but the Holy Spirit gave me a new theology and that is why it is not good for a man to rely solely on what his church or pastor tells him, believe on what the Bible says. Your pastor may be wrong but the Bible will not be wrong. That is when I started praying for the sick. My mother was of the Anglican group.
When I went to Anglican Church, I discovered that a pastor and the deacon were quarreling over the fund and both of them were drunk at Okoboko in Eche, Rivers State. We students discovered that they were quarrelling over the offering of that morning so the pastor came out and asked who will preach, I volunteered myself they gave me the pastor's robe. What did I preach, Elijah and Baal prophets, that thing that converted me and that had always been my theology and vision till tomorrow, dealing with occult men and native doctors.
After the Nigeria civil war, I had an encounter with 50 native doctors in my village, Avu. They came to initiate the mother of a retired army Major General into water spirit (Owu miri spirit) and I drove them out of my village and they placed a curse on me that I will die within three months time and I told them they would die within one year, if they did not repent. Today there is no native doctor in my place or any of their signposts in Avu, Owerri West. It is the only town where you don't get any native doctor.
Biafra experience
During the Biafra war, my grand father stubbornly refused to leave our village, he said he didn't want to die in another man's compound, he prefers to die in his compound. He said I should stay with him. He was the one who named me ‘Ezeugo'.
He said that for all his children, I would be the ‘King' "you will lead the others and they would follow you." He said I should stay with him if he dies. I stayed back with him and the Nigerian soldiers who invaded our village made him the traditional ruler and they were honouring him with dried fish (Mangala) and salt.
They gave him a mandate to gather other people and start the market. And God told me that if your grandfather could start a market, why can't you start a church. Then I started a small gathering of people clapping hands and praising God. And the Nigeria soldiers joined us and I started praying for them.
After the war, I came to my village to preach a new kind of message and my village was predominantly Anglicans, they called me "Santa Pastor" that my preaching is so foriegn that nobody can live the kind of life I was preaching.
1996 Otokoto saga in Owerri
When the problem started over the death of the little boy, Ikechukwu Okonkwo, we were enjoying the story. I was busy at time. There was a woman who came for deliverance and when the demons were being exorcised, the woman made an open confession that her husband was an armed robber. She said:
"Why should I marry an armed robber" and she was unconsciously saying it. After the confession, somebody, who was at present during her confession, went and told her husband everything that his wife said (confessed).
Her husband came in company of four other men to kidnap me one Friday in my church and when they saw the crowd in the church, they left, promising me that they would came back. By then, I reported the matter to the Police. One Monday evening they came and laid ambush, the policemen arrested them and took them to Fire Service Police Station.
At the police station, they made a statement that they were going to burn my house. In fact, I thought they were joking but they finally make good their threat when they were released from the Police custody. My encounter with them happened in April 1996.
Proliferation of churches
Church is church. Church is called church of God. We also have the church of Satan. As you have good coins so you have bad ones. If the country can detect armed robbers and cultists and sent them to prison, let them detect bad churches and close them down. The proliferation of churches is not a problem, wherever there is any good thing, there must be a counterfeit, devil always does it to blindfold people.
There are so many bad churches. For instance, government always groups us together with white garment churches. They are not Pentecostal; they call themselves spiritual churches and they have nothing to do with the Holy Ghost.
There are churches that are no churches, many native doctors have changed their signpost and are answering Christian names. "By their fruits we shall know them."
The leadership of CAN and other people are behind the recent ban of advertising miracles on the TV.
Flamboyant lifestyles of some pastors
Flamboyance is part of the work (ministry). If I said the Lord is good and I am a witness and I lived in a shanty or, when you have no money to pay school fees of your children, and you said the Lord is good, how do you know that the Lord is good. If the Lord is good He must prove it. "Your calling must correspond with your vision and your vision must also correspond with your ministry, your ministry with your cross and your cross with your lifestyle".
The lifestyle of Jesus Christ was different from that of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was expected to live in the wilderness but when Jesus Christ came, He (Jesus Christ) was wearing beautiful clothes.Even the soldiers shared the dresses at his death. If the dresses Jesus Christ wore were rags, no soldier would have picked them to wear. Jesus Christ and John the Baptist were contemporaries but each lived a different lifestyle because they had different ministries(callings).
Igbo presidency project
There is something peculiar to Igbos, they are not ordinary Nigerians. They are peculiarly created by
God. Igbos originated from the Jews. And one thing God had given them is that "they should not have any other God before me". I idolatrous lifestyle of the Igbos will hinder them from becoming president. I am talking from the standpoint that their relationship with God is very peculiar and God is a jealous God. If Satan refuses to worship God in heaven and comes down to earth that we should worship him, he is making a fool of us.
The issue of idolatry is very common in Igboland with Osu caste system in place. In Igbo land, church leaders, traditional rulers and elite refuse to condemn the Osu caste system. How many pastors will allow their children to marry an osu person. Why should we be so cruel to eachother, God is not happy with us (Igbos). Look at the good yam God has given to us, Igbo man will not eat it (yam) without sacrificing it to the gods with chicken(s). The Igbo brand of cows are scarce because they are used to bury traditional rulers and other title holders.
God made the Igbos kings but we sold ourselves to the devil. If Igbos are serious about ruling this country they should abolish the osu cast system. It is very common that in Igboland some people go to native doctors to seek for protection and at the same worship God. What a contradiction.
Igbos are unique people created by God to live a life that would give us (Igbos) glory but idol worshiping has destroyed the Igbos. Looking for presidency, let's take time to get to the root of the problem, that is idolatry, and come back to the living God who made us unique and he will give us our position. }
Why should the country rotate power among the retired army generals, when will our own Ojukwu a retired army general become the president of Nigeria when presidency has been rotated among the retired generals, let it go to Ojukwu.