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He trained as a banker but never practised it. For this, his father was very angry and disappointed in him, having chosen to go into pastoral works. Now, he runs the largest church in Calabar.
He trained as a banker but never practised it. For this, his father was very angry and disappointed in him, having chosen to go into pastoral works. Now, he runs the largest church in Calabar. In the last six years, he has consistently given out predictions on the Nigerian State that have always come to pass. He made some on New Year Day, this year. In this interview with OFONIME UMANAH, the Rev (Dr) Emmah Isong of Christian Central Chapel, Calabar, spoke of how people have embarrassed him and sometimes took him for someone's personal assistant because of his size. He also spoke on what would befall the ruling PDP this year, among other issues. Excerpts:
You trained as a banker. Will you say you decided to go into pastoral works because of the attractions or you had envisaged that the banking industry would at a point become shaky?
None of the above. At the time I went into Ministry, we didn't see the attraction. Secondly, the banking industry was the strongest at that time. So, the two reasons here were never considered. I think there was a greater revelation from God.
How has it been since then?
In 1987, I finished my degree programme in Banking, served for one year, settled down by 1989 and got married. By 1990, I began to answer the call of God upon my life. We were waiting for a breakthrough, hoping and wishing that we were in the right direction. By 1996, when we kicked off the Christian Central Chapel in Calabar, till date, it has been a success story. The Lord has mightily blessed and expanded us as you can see.
During those days of waiting, were there moments of disappointment or discouragement?
Quite frankly, every glory has a story behind it. Ours have not been very different. This is a young man who ventured into an area which was not his profession, in quote. This is a young man whom the whole world had hoped was going to be a banker, a bank manager, and then you are into Ministry. So, there were moments of discouragement; some moments of darkness. I remember one moment in particular. It was about our rent. My wife and I were given a quit notice, in the hotel we were using as a church because we were paying N60 as rent per month. Then the man came and demanded N200 per month. It was a gruesome moment for us. We didn't have N200. And the interesting thing is, that led us to finding this land. It never occurred to us we could get our own land. But the landlord told us, ‘come tomorrow and I will take you to a land'. That is why we call it the City of Testimonies.
Were you discouraged by your parents when you decided to abandon your degree for the Ministry?
They were very sad, because in the family of nine, I was the first graduate of the family, the hope of the family they had invested their entire resources on. And here he is, instead of coming to tell them where he was working, as the best graduate of his time, he was coming to tell them he is a preacher. My father didn't take it kindly. He cried and almost regretted sending me to school. But I think today, he is happy that what I am doing is giving my generation joy.
When was your turning point?
I can remember a few instances. Like the issue of the rent, we could not pay the rent. It made us sad. The second turning point was my landlord giving me a quit notice. It made me build my house. I can remember the incident of having to change from a fellowship group to a church organisation.
Has there ever been a time in your life as a pastor when people embarrassed you because of your stature?
So many times. People grow up with an ancient belief that a prophet, a clergy should carry some physical gifts of fatness. Stature wise, my stature gave us a personality problem, so to speak. People will say is that the Emma Isong we have been hearing about? People always expect to see Emma Isong as a tall, huge man with a big tummy. And then here you find a young man in his early part of life; it gives us problems.
But now, people watch me on the television and they have come to know me. The name has become bigger than the size. One day, I was travelling to Port Harcourt and I was at the back of the car. And then at a point near Eleme Junction, there was a squad of mobile policemen who were mounting a road block. They were shouting on all of us. Then one of them came and said to us, 'can I have the documents of the car"? I gave them to him. He opened and then asked, 'Do you know the owner of the car?" My driver said, 'That's him seating there." Then the man took some steps backwards and said, 'compliments, sir. We did not know you were the one." So, you see, the name continues to be bigger than the size. I think it happened in the days of Jesus. This is a man who, at the age of 30 years, was in Ministry and most of his disciples were older than him, including Peter. What does it teach us? It teaches us that it is not about the size of the flesh, it is the condition of the heart that God uses; not the size, not the shape of the body.
I also remember one day in Aba. I was invited to a programme of the Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship, and I went with one of my sons in the Lord who was carrying my briefcase. Then we arrived and they nearly took my son to the hotel and left me behind before the man now said, 'I am not the preacher, see him there," and he was pointing at me. They had to apologise to me. Again, the first time I went to New York to preach, the people came to take me to New Jersey. We missed ourselves at the airport three times because of the kind of person they were expecting to see. They had been used to people like Idahosa( of blessed memory). I was in my jeans up and down and we were in touch on phone. I kept telling the hotel that I had not seen the pick-up van you sent to me. They described the men that came to pick me, it was then I walked to them and said ‘I am Evangelist (Dr) Emma Isong', and they said they were sorry. I knew the problem they had because I had met them three times at the airport and they won't even look at me.
Every year, you reel out prophesies. Will you say all of them have come to pass?
All. I will give you instances and they are all on record. We prophesied when Obasanjo took over power that an American president was going to visit Nigeria. That was Clinton. Everybody doubted it but it happened. We also said some two, three years ago, that there was going to be a plane crash and it was going to involve a serving minister. I was coming from Namibia when I was told at the airport that there was a plane crash and the minister of sports died in that crash.
I prophesied the re-nomination of Obasanjo even when he had a heated political crisis. He won the nomination and the election. The other year, we prophesied that there would be a mighty crusade in Calabar, like the Bonnke crusade. That year, which is last December, Bonnke came back to Calabar and confessed openly that he had no Calabar in his schedule but somehow; God spoke to him to come. It was a one-month notice crusade.
During the last prophecy, we talked about the pending PDP crises; that they were going to pay the same coin that the AD and the ANPP paid. We talked about missing persons. Of course, if you read the papers today, you will agree that some of them have started manifesting. We are not God to know what will happen but the few that he has revealed to us have always come to pass. The Bible says that one of the signs of a true prophet is that whatever he says would come to pass.
You gave a prophecy about Buhari for this year
Yes. I talked about Buhari, that we should pray for him, that God should take away death from him. So, if we pray hard, God will take away death from him.
Are you saying you saw death around him?
Very seriously. I can see that you are shocked. But, you see, if we pray, God can save him. If he asks for God's mercy, God will save him. And then I had said that Atiku Abubakar, Peter Odili in Rivers State, Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos, have something in common. I don't know, maybe they will declare it.
How will you feel if this prophesies do not come to pass?
Never have they failed to come to pass. Never, and I am bold. Even if somebody tries to stop it, it will not work. You were there when I spoke of the PDP crisis. It happened the next day. The shaking will be too much and if the PDP does not put its house in order, it will be the case of a house divided against itself, and it is going to be like what is happening to the AD and the ANPP. You can see today, the AD can't even have a convention. The AD has only one governor who is not even AD, but more of Afenifere. Massively, last week, all the AD people under Tinubu defected to the PDP.
Is it to say that the PDP will become factionalised?
Heavily. It has already started. Let me tell you the problem of PDP. They had a plan to phase out the opposition and that was why they had the three political parties. But because opposition is part of democracy, the opposition they were trying to run away from externally is what they are facing internally. What you are afraid of outside is right with you inside. That house can never be intact again except God intervenes. If the PDP does not listen to the voice of the masses, if it is still going to be the government of hijacking and double- crossing, because of the prayers of Nigerians, they may have to face the anger of God. They better think of the plight of the Nigerian people.
Why is it that somebody is killed on the street and we don't set up a tribunal to probe it. A south- South coordinator of PDP died and there was so much noise. Why is it that when a minister of justice dies, we go all out and investigate and probe, but we don't find a solution. Then your cousin is killed, nobody talks about it. The other day, a girl was killed in Lagos by armed robbers just to collect her handset. I can tell you that that case died right there. It is a dead case as far as Nigeria is concerned. Then let them kill a woman who is a federal minister, you are not going to sleep. Why do you set up tribunals over a certain person if you cannot set up a tribunal for the other? The government is not a government of the people by the people and for the people.
What therefore will you say is the problem with this country?
Nigeria has a cultural problem. As you are sitting here, get yourself a jeep this afternoon, build three mansions, have N3 billion in your account, even the governor of this state is going to send for you. Doors will open for you. Embassies will give you visa. Aso Rock will respect you and you will become a small godfather. Nobody questions your source of wealth. We need to change our cultural values. We need to change who we give national awards, we need to change who we call a chief. We place wrong values. We don't value those who are clean but those who have made it. We have not taken time to find out why a senator in four years can build such a large house and own such fleet of cars when there is no good primary school in his constituency. If you accuse anybody of asking for bribe in the Senate, everybody fights you. You fight a governor, for instance, and someone confesses that he rigged the election, but nothing is done about it. There are two states we are not sure of who won the election- Ogun and Anambra, courtesy of a court judgment and Chris Uba's confessions respectively.
But the two people are still moving freely today. There is a problem in the country. My disappointment is that a lot of our people travel out of the country to developed countries and when they come back, at the airport in Ikeja, their eyes become blind. We are dealing with people who went to school abroad; people who are intellectuals. They speak intelligently, they have ideas, but why can't we bring it to work? So the economy is so bad that an armed robber can shoot a 26- year old girl who has just finished her youth service last August, to collect a handset which is N11, 000 with a SIM card. You and I are not safe. That is my disappointment.
Are you also disappointed about the handling of Uba's confessions?
I think we should leave Uba's matter in the court of public opinion. Even though people have not heard both sides, according to the young man, but he has confessed openly that the elections were rigged. We should start from there. 'We rigged election, we did not clear Ngige," says the young man. This is not somebody accusing him. The first thing the police would have done would have been to pick up the man who rigged the election and move on from there. Then we go to the Anambra House of Assembly who has the right to handle the governor's case. We are no more suspecting that elections were rigged. We have seen the people who rigged the election and we are not saying anything about it. It is very sad. And then a young man will go on the road and steal a tyre and he will be burnt. There is no justice in Nigeria. The law applies to you as much as you are rich. Our children are not having a good example. There should be sanity. We are talking about due process, does due process apply in this case?
In the House of Reps, they were slapping themselves and they were given two weeks suspension. After that, they were paid their full salaries. Our leaders are not showing good example and I am afraid that the man we pick up on the street and beat up and accuse of being a criminal is almost committing the same crime as the man who is in the office perpetuating evil. Until we have a blanket application of our laws, the constitution is not powerful enough to keep us as one. I am disappointed that the police have not arrested Uba. It is self-confession. What evidence do you need again?
It appears there are cracks in the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria over leadership. What is going on?
I am a stalwart of the PFN. I am a member of the board of advisers in Cross River State. The PFN has set down a constitution and if anybody complains, they should do so constitutionally. And I know that what is worrying some people is that there are three posts that are not subject to elections. It is a matter of the Elders in Council nominating who they want to be there. So, Mike Okonkwo is not there by his power.
2007 is near, what are your expectations?
I am one of the proponents of a ban on the word 2007. I propose there should be a ban on 2007. We started talking about 2007 in 1999. It is very sad. I heard from the newspapers how a group of people in Ogun State said they had nominated Gbenga Daniel for 2007. I get very sick to hear that. By that statement, you are asking Governor Daniel to sleep in the office. Anybody who wants to think of 2007 should perform. I think our politicians are deceiving the people by talking about 2007.
We have just voted them into power and they have not shown us the dividends of democracy and they are talking about 2007. It is very sad. We are hungry. Graduates are roaming the streets. The mandate we gave you has not expired and you are talking about 2007. It is the electorate that should talk about 2007, how we can throw away some people from office.