OKOH...A Modern Day Timothy

                                                                      

(First published in a Kingdom People magazine Special Section, Vanguards of the Faith in 2010).

The just elected President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Most Reverend Daniel Okoh's antecedents remind one of Timothy, the Bishop of Ephesus, who was Apostle Paul's spiritual son and travelling companion.

Of him the great Apostle wrote: “the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also” (2 Timothy 1:5 KJV). In other words, faith ran in the family three generations deep!

Of the General Superintendent of the Christ Holy Church International, second term vice-president of Christian Association of Nigeria and current President of the continent-wide Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC), it can fittingly be written: the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Agnes, and thy father, Marius...”

Indeed, his is an enviable pedigree in the Christian faith in Nigeria, beginning East of the Niger. His grandmother Prophetess Agnes Okoh answered the call of God to be an itinerant evangelist and subsequently founded the church in 1947. No mean feat for a woman who was illiterate in western education and operating in the then fiercely male-dominated ambience of Igboland of Eastern Nigeria.

Born to Onumba Emordi and Ntonefu at Ndoni in today's Rivers State in 1905, she resettled at Asaba, after the death of her parents and married a Ghanaian immigrant sailor, James Okoh, in 1924.
Six years later, she was widowed and left with only two of her several children, survivors of the high child mortality rate in their family.

Her husband's sudden death and the loss of many of her children in rapid succession took their toll upon her. Severe migraine and despondency set in. She sought healing wherever it was said to be available, traditional or western. Nothing worked until she came across a prophetess, who healed her miraculously.
Thereafter, she relocated to Enugu, then capital of Eastern Nigeria, became a textile trader and simply set about being mother and bread winner.

Then, in April 1943 as she returned from the market one day, she heard a voice repeatedly calling out ‘Matthew 10’. She looked around again and again to ‘see' the voice, until she was persuaded there was nobody.

Puzzled, she headed for a partially literate friend's place with the question: what is Matthew 8?

Her friend got a young man to read to the the Gospel According to St Matthew Chapter 10 to her from the Union Igbo translation.

Sensing a call upon her life, but needing clarification, Agnes, accompanied by her friend, went to see the prophetess through whom she had earlier been healed. The prophetess aligned with their thought, but advised her to await another confirmation from God.

 Agnes took the advice and continued her textile business until 1947 when she responded to a strong, irrepressible impulse to preach the Gospel. As a result, she sold everything she had in stock, gave the proceeds to the poor and set out with a Bible and bell in hand, to preach the Gospel.

Someday the full story of this woman of God will be told in full. It suffices to state that what is tiday kniwn as Christ Holy Church International began as a nameless 12-man prayer group led by an illiterate, but spiritually gifted, zealous woman, who sold all she had and took to the street in answer to the call upon her life. It metamorphosed to Odozi Obodo Prayer Ministry and Christ Apostolic Church, Odozi Obodo to what it has become in the hands of her son and grandson. Talk of the unfeigned faith of a twentieth century Lois.
If Grandma Agnes was a latter-day Lois, Marius Anyetei, though male, can be styled as a modern day Eunice, the first-line inheritor of his mother's faith.

He was born April 15, 1927, one of only two children who did not pre-deceased their father, James. He started his Christian walk in the Catholic Church where he was baptised and even served mass at the Catholic Church in Asaba.

Marius, a civil engineer, public works department official was initially a sceptic. Although he was witness to how his mother suffered from depression and migraines for many years and was miraculously healed by a prophetess and how he at 20, his mother began to heal and preach the Word of God from one place to another, he was still unconvinced about God’s call upon her life.

He even tried to entice her back to the textile trade with a substantial seed-capital, which she rejected. This changed his attitude to the mum, but it didn't make a ministry candidate out of him. He continued apace with his plan for further education abroad in spite of his mother's prophecy that he would later be called to do the work of God.

Again, this is not the place to discuss Marius Okoh's many exploits in ministry as administrator, moderniser, teacher and leader.

Of whom it was recorded in one of Dr Thomas Odaro's  works on the Okohs as follows: "God gave him a lot of spiritual gifts which enabled him to distinctively evangelise, counsel, pastor, teach, and perform miracles in the name of our Lord Jesus." By the time he passed on at 53 on March 2, 1980, predeceasing his mother by 15 years, he had been credited with raising the dead, increasing the church's congregation from one to about 300 and his reputation was such that he was described in his epitaph as "a foremost African evangelist."

There can be little doubt that it is the same "unfeigned faith" that is in grandson and son Daniel which led to his ascendancy to the headship of the church, by divine prophesy. As a result of this, the church has grown from 300 congregations at inception when his daddy died in 1980, to over 850 congregations comprising of over two million members at present, including five in Ghana and two in Togo.

To achieve this monumental feat, this "Timothy" has zealously and selflessly adhered strictly, by faith, to the principle upon which the church was founded and developed. These include regular open air evangelistic crusades, indoor revivals, where healing, prophetic utterances, emphasis on the Word of God have continually yielded bountiful fruits in testimonies of changed lives.

Other hallmarks of Christ Holy Church under the visionary leadership of Daniel Okoh, include empathetic communal responsibility and great emphasis on unity and stability. As part of Church responsibility to the larger society, apart from meeting the spiritual needs of her members, the church has built schools and skills training centres in many towns and villages.

At Avedo, a village in the Volta region of Ghana, the church has a six-classroom elementary school, where the students enjoy fee-free education. The Church is also involved in HIV & AIDS awareness campaign.

Indeed, Dr Okoh represents the new face of churches founded in Africa for Africans. He is one of the younger generation of leaders who while holding on to the faith of the founding fathers refuse to be held down by tradition. That explains why apart from seeking the spiritual needs he likes to style the Christ Holy Church International as reformed Aladura with a mission to worship to worship the Triune God in holiness and to teach and spread the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ across borders, race and cultures urgently, powerfully, faithfully, wisely and fearfully till Jesus Christ comes again.

WHERE WAS GOD WHEN THIS MAN…? (2)

"Three issues obviously agitated their minds as they began what turned out to be a 12-week stay in the hospital. Would she survive? If she did, would she be able to walk again? And was she going to be well early enough not to miss her examinations and if she did take them would she be able to do well? But by the grace God, she not only survived, her legs were fully restored and has been able to walk normally again. The recovery of her ability to walk was however gradual. When she left the hospital, she did in a wheel chair for some months, graduated to crutches, and then started to manage on her own until she became fully restored. On the academic front, she eventually took her papers and graduated with an excellent result and at the time of this interview was studying for her master’s degree in a South African university."

In the midst of all of that, a transformation was going on in the heart of this young man. In penitence, he began to ask God the way forward for him. And the Lord spoke. As he remembers it, the Lord told him: “now are you done with running away from me; see what running away has gotten you into”. This got him thinking and questions began to pop up in his mind. Questions that he would have loved God to answer. But one day as he rode in the same car with his brother-in-law, God answered all the nagging questions through this man. He gave him scriptural and satisfying answers to all that was in his mind. Right there in the car he made up his mind to go back to God. The following Sunday he went to church and gave his life to God afresh. He became really born again. That was in 1985 and it marked new beginning in his life. After about two years without a job, respite came. He was employed as a trainee engineer in an engineering firm. He was promoted twice during his second year. All this while, the fire of God was burning in him. He virtually turned his home to a Bible school and after one year of intensive personal studies, he then decided to start a fellowship in his company and within a limited time the fellowship grew so big, with other people outside the company were coming to join. People suggested that the fellowship be turn to a church, but pastor Oshokoya said the Lord did not ask him to do that. The fellowship was to later produce members who are all over the world today, including the US, Europe, Canada etc; some of them running their own churches. Oshokoya’s life was now on a roll. He got jobs at will, with stints in a number of organisation, the last of which was founded by an expatriate. About one and a half years on the job, the so-called “June 12 crises” (occasioned by civil uprising against the annulment of the election of Chief MKO Abiola as President on that date in 1993) started, and people were forced to stay at home. When work resumed generally, Oshokoya and his colleagues were asked to remain at home without loss of income. After three months of getting paid without work, he had had enough. He decided to move on. In the process of trying to get something else to do, he met Mr (now Oba) Oladele Olashore, a former Managing Director of First Bank Nigeria PLC. Their path had crossed while with one the firms he had earlier worked. Then he would lead the company’s team to Olashore’s house to carry out some electrical repairs. This was a big house with a lot of valuables, sometimes with money lying around. He would ensure that nothing was missing. Olashore noticed and thus developed trust and likeness for him. It was such that he would specifically request of his boss that he be the team leader whenever there was any work to be done in his house. This earned him the nickname, Olashore’s son.

Upon telling Olashore that he had just quit his latest job with the white man, the man snap at him: “you this young man, can’t you start something on your own?” He then challenged him that if could muster the courage to start something of his own, he would give him business and contacts. He took Olashore up on his offer and Oshea Projects Ltd was born in 1993. True to his word, for the first 10 years, all the major accounts of the new company came from Olashore and Lead Bank of which he was Chairman. There was now no stopping this enterprising engineer, company chief executive and child of God, or so it seemed. Business was good and he was diligently serving the Lord, as best as he could. In this latter connection, he went on a missionary journey to Gambia, a nation 97% Muslim in 1999. By all accounts, it was a successful mission. There were deliverances, he gave out many Bibles and ministration tapes and compact discs, as well as, and helped other Christians financially. The journey opened his eyes to ministry opportunities in that nation and he couldn’t wait to return there. But, it was as if all the demons in Gambia got on the aircraft with him to Lagos. His business began to crumble almost immediately on arrival. One after the other, contracts were cancelled for diverse reasons. A Christian programme he had started on television became an excuse for some of the cancellations. His teachings were so radical that it made many uncomfortable. Among other things, he taught on the second coming of Christ and some controversial doctrinal issues. His teaching from the Book of Revelation and his understanding of the biblical position on the Catholic Church cost him friendship and business from among Catholics. He recalled the particular case of one of his big business associates, who called him to ask if he was the one he had seen on television. When he confirmed it, the man retorted: “I didn’t know you are such a fanatic; how come I have been doing business with you.” He promptly cut off all business links.

From that moment in 1999, right up to 2002, he went through hell. His business collapsed totally. It was a throw back to the dark gloomy days he experienced just after he got married. Things were so terribly bad that he had to let some staffs go, and hunger set in his family. His children where withdrawn from the relatively expensive although fees were far lower, he still could not pay. In the midst of all of that, however, the TV programme still managed to remain on air, and through it, he was getting invitation to minister at some church programmes. At a point beyond this, all he did was go to the office and sit down. With no clients, no phone calls and no money to move around for contacts, there was little else he could do. As it turned out, it was all he needed to connect to his restoration. Sometimes in 2002, he accepted an invitation from a church in Benin, Edo state of Nigeria to minister to their youths for three days. It took the help of his Senior Pastor who bought his ticket and a brother who gave him some money, to make the trip possible, as he had no money. On the day he was to travel, he arrived at the airport at 1pm for a 2pm flight, only to be told that he was late that the flight had left. He protested vehemently because the time stated on his ticket was 2pm. The Managing Director of the airline intervened and he was subsequently checked into the plane as the sole passenger that the plane flew to Benin. On the flight, the airline boss came out from the cockpit, formally apologised to him and gave him his card. On alighting from the aircraft in Benin, the man shook hands with him and apologised again. Pastor Oshokoya said, by this time, he knew in his spirit that something was in the offing. Three days of ministration over, he headed for the airport as scheduled, on Sunday. But, in what he later found out to be in answer to the prayer of his hosts, who wanted him to stay one more day, he missed his flight. So, he couldn’t return to Lagos until Monday morning. He headed straight for his office, only to find a letter lying on his table. It was an invitation to come and defend a tender he submitted for a job more than a year earlier. As it was scheduled for that same day, he hurried to the venue and met a crowd of other contractors. Some had been interviewed while others were awaiting their turn. He surveyed the room and with the calibre of people there, he felt he had no chance. But as he sat there, he heard himself telling God: “I have done your job for the past three days; it is now time for you to do my own”. He felt a supernatural surge of confidence. And with that confidence, he found himself clearing his throat and spoke loudly to everybody else in the room: “gentlemen you all better not bother yourselves; the contract is mine.” Of course, everybody laughed wondering what kind of joke that was. When he was finally invited in to defend his tender, he told the panel the same thing in words to this effect. “I have only come to collect the letter of award for the contract, not to defend anything as there was nobody else who can do the job but me.” The company chairman, an Indian looked at him, laughed and said “what kind of joker are you.” But, when eventually they invited the project’s main contractor to make his choice for the job, he chose him. That was how his company its first contract in three years, a very profitable contract that set his company on the road to recovery. God never calls upon his children to serve him in vain.

On the road to recovery, God revealed a potent truth to him: he was a spiritual orphan, with no father figure, no mentor, no guide. Every man needs a spiritual cover. That was what Apostle Paul emphasised when he said, “For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers” (1Corinthians 4:15). This, unknown to many Christians, is an important part of life. Not that the Holy Spirit was inadequate to guide us, but because we have blindsides, areas in our lives where we are so set in our positions that we find it hard to hear the voice of God. It was worse for Pastor Oshokoya because, he had lost his biological father in 1994. But God didn’t stop at revealing this state of affairs to him; He brought the men he required into his life. Among them was the Senior Pastor of Christian Brethren Church, Dr Oladimeji Oladele, an erstwhile top official of Nigeria’s national oil firm. He has not only been receiving his regular spiritual nurturing from this wonderful man of God, he it was who subsequently led him to the ministry of Dr Christopher Kolade, a top public and private sector player who, at that time was teaching seminars on biblical principles of wealth creation. That seminar series, which has transformed into an international ministry, Managing Business For Christ (MBFC), brought him under the wings of this mentor of mentors, it also brought him in contact with other brethren who have helped in shaping his business practices as a Christian. Through that ministry, he not only became acquainted with, he got under his wings. They include Dr David Abraham (popularly called father Abraham), Peter Abba and Biodun Akanbi-Oluwa. He had also become a Dominion partner with Later Rain Assembly, founded and run by Tunde Bakare in 1998. This gave him the opportunity of being close to the pastor, whom he cherishes as a father figure and has added a lot of value to his life and those of his children. Pastor Tokunbo Oshokoya’s family life and business has since moved out of the roller coaster of his early days. But that has not stopped the enemy from aiming shots at him. For instance, as recently as September 2007, his eldest daughter was run over by a car and her two legs completely broken two weeks before her final exams in University of Lagos. The daughter and her friend were walking in the median on one of the campus roads, when a car driven by cult member from one of the polytechnics in Ogun state lost control because he was using a mobile phone and driving recklessly. He ran over the girl, the car somersaulted and rested on her, the guy came out of the car and ran away. The girl was taken to the National Orthopedic Hospital, Igbobi on Lagos mainland, beginning another traumatic experience for the Oshokoya family. Three issues obviously agitated their minds as they began what turned out to be a 12-week stay in the hospital. Would she survive? If she did, would she be able to walk again? And was she going to be well early enough not to miss her examinations and if she did take them would she be able to do well? But by the grace God, she not only survived, her legs were fully restored and has been able to walk normally again. The recovery of her ability to walk was however gradual. When she left the hospital, she did in a wheel chair for some months, graduated to crutches, and then started to manage on her own until she became fully restored. On the academic front, she eventually took her papers and graduated with an excellent result and at the time of this interview was studying for her master’s degree in a South African university. Pastor Tokunbo Oshokoya’s experiences over time have elicited a variety of reactions from acquaintances, friends and associates. He suffered massive desertion. Those who stood by them had many kinds of counsel. Some said God, probably wanted him to go into full time ministry; some said his predicament was as a result of a particular sin in his life; while some concluded that it was satanic attack. This man of God, however was not distracted and still is not distracted by all that. His belief is that challenges are a part of life and that during crises, the glory and power of God manifest for those who trust in the Lord. He emphasised that he had continuously come out of his storms triumphantly and so, sees his life as a wonderful and glorious testimony from which lessons can be learnt and faith strengthened. For this reason, he said he and his household will continue to be committed to the service of God and mankind. Wondering how his family had coped in all of these? This man of God told KINGDOMPeople: I am blessed with a very good and strong wife. In the midst of the different challenges, she never lost her composure. She remained loving, not just to me and our children, but also to others. People would confidently come to the family for one need or the other, and she always found a way out.

WHERE WAS GOD WHEN THIS MAN…?

Today, he is one of the Associate Pastors of Christian Brethren Church in Iyana Ejigbo, a sprawling suburb of Lagos. He runs Photizo Ministries, an independent Christian organization with a commission to bring enlightenment and deliverance to the world through the media, electronic publication, online blogging, networking and seminars, among others. He hosts a weekly Christian programme “Moment of Refreshing” on a Lagos television network every Saturday. And he is an engineer whose Ikeja, Lagos based electrical, mechanical, building engineering and projects management company, Oshea Projects Ltd, proved immune to the so-called world economic downturn. But it hasn’t always been like that! Brother Toks, or “Liteman Toks”, as Pastor Olatokunbo Oshokoya prefers to be called, is indeed the kind the world would describe as a cat with nine lives. He is the irrepressible, quintessential victor, who exemplifies the truth of the Bible in Proverbs 24:16 that “…the righteous falls seven times and rises again” or as the Message translation puts it, “No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don't stay down long…

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Let’s begin this epic, novel-quality story from the beginning. Born on Monday, April 6, 1959 in Ibadan, to the family of Samuel Oladeinde Oshokoya, Olatokunbo started his primary school education in the year 1965 in Ijebu-Ode. Secondary education was at Baptist High School, Iwo, followed by a two-year stint at The Polytechnic, Ibadan for his General Certificate of Education (GCE) Advanced Levels. From there, he was admitted into University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) for a degree programme in Engineering. It was at Ife that he had his first experience with the twists and turns of life, the kind that was to characterise his latter years and make out of him, the celebrated victor that he is today. He had first become aware of the reality of God as a primary two pupil of seven, in the year 1966. He was told that Jesus was coming back again, and He would appear in the sky in His full glory, take those who believe in Him up with Him, leaving those who do not believe in Him behind to continue in suffering. This created fear in his young impressionable mind, but obviously, not enough to affect his choices for almost 20 years! He had enrolled at the University for a four-year programme, which should have seen him graduate in 1981, a year behind his peers who had gone for three-year courses. But he found himself graduating an extra year late, a development of almost tragic proportions in those days! Were he an average student, it wouldn’t have been anything to worry about. But, no; he was simply a victim of his campus lifestyle. He had plunged headlong into the social scene on campus, becoming a popular disc jockey (DJ), the toast of many a campus gig. As a result, he was sloppy with attendance at lectures. Against all expectations that he would be an academic front-runner, having come from the elite group of Higher School Certificate/GCE A-Level holders, he was a brilliant laggard! In the event, he had carry-overs that kept him in school for another year, graduating in 1982, along with many students two years his junior. Although, at this point, he was convinced that he might have overstretched the grace of God on his life, as it dawned on him that were his relationship with God right, He would not have allowed him to repeat a class, he still did nothing about it. The fresh engineering graduate had no difficulty getting a job, after the one-year mandatory service under the National Youth Service Corp scheme in 1983. With his life style on campus, it would have been a surprise if he didn’t have a girl friend. He not only did, there was a particular one who visited him regularly - with all its implications. By the time he started work, the young lady who had already graduated and was in her youth service year, got pregnant. His childhood fear of God always lurking in his heart, he and his girl friend decided against abortion. In his book, pregnancy outside of wedlock was sinful enough; to add abortion would be pushing the threshold! So, they both decided to inform their parents about the situation, and their proposal to get married. The disappointed parents, both devout Christians, had been handed a fait accompli. They soon agreed on a programme. A church wedding was out of the question, so it was decided the young couple would be married at a registry, hold a reception right after it, and a week later, go to church for blessing. On the appointed day, however, the bride was conspicuously absent. Probably because of the stress of preparing for the wedding, she went into forced labour overnight, and was rushed to hospital. When it became clear she wasn’t going to be available to sign on the dotted line at the marriage registry, family members and guests headed for the reception venue where everything was set to celebrate the latest couple in town.

And what a reception it turned out to be! While the couple was supposed to be lapping up all attention and be toasted at the reception, the bride was in hospital delivering her baby prematurely. So, the bridal chair was vacant; and the chief bridesmaid stood in for the bride at the cake-cutting. It was as all this melodrama was playing out that the news came. The bride had been delivered of a baby boy. Everybody was happy, or almost everybody. The newest father was not exactly ecstatic about the news. Deep inside him, he sensed that something wasn’t quite right. He had a strong feeling that something was bound to be wrong with the child, born under term as he was. It was a spiritual kind of knowing that he could not explain at the time. Anyway, reception over, he headed for the hospital and his feelings were confirmed; something was indeed wrong with the baby. As Brother Toks recalled it in an interview with KINGDOMPeople, recently, the doctors confirm that the baby had what they called “Cleft Palate.” This is defined as an opening in the roof of the mouth due to a failure of the palatal shelves to come fully together from either side of the mouth and fuse, during embryonic development, as they normally should. The doctors assured them that it could be corrected, but it would take three surgical procedures at ages three, nine and 12 months respectively. All these for a small baby, the young father thought to himself. He was alarmed. He decided he neither wanted to take the child through all of that nor go through it himself. There and then, he entered into an agreement with God. He prayed to God to please take the baby and “let him rest in your bosom”. He told God it would be too tough for him to start married life with a baby with complications they were not equipped to handle. He asked God to give them a chance to start afresh, a chance to start all over again. You might think God doesn’t answer such prayers, but from what followed, He did! In fact, as Pastor Tokunbo puts it at the interview, it’s proof that if you know how special you are to God, you could “negotiate” with Him. Anyway, later that evening, as the usual post-wedding party was going merrily on, a delegation from the wife’s family arrived and went straight to Pa Oshokoya with the news – the baby had passed on. His father broke the news to him as gently as he could, urging him to be a man and take heart. Of course, he had to put up appearances of grief and sorrow, but deep within him, he was happy that God had answered his prayer. The baby was immediately buried. Shaking his head, as he recalled it all to KINGDOMPeople, he said: “in one day I became a husband, a father, and I buried my first child, all in one day. What a way to start life. But we had to move on”. Move on they did. Within two weeks his wife had recovered well enough for them to go back to the marriage registry to fulfil their legal obligations. They followed it with another reception complete with the traditional cutting of cake, thanks to the fact that two members of the family gave them a wedding cake each. In the circumstance, the Oshokoyas had two sets of wedding photographs – one with the unoccupied bridal seat and of course, the other with the wife fully in place. Meanwhile things seemed to be looking up at work. As young engineer gainfully employed in a consulting firm, he was due for a car loan of N9,000. Like most young men at that time his choice of car was Volkswagen Passat TS. He had gone to price it at the real ultimate car for young men as at that time, he had gone to John Holt Motors and all that remained was for his employers to hand him the cheque. They were willing, but there was a little challenge; they were yet to receive payment due for certain projects they did for some federal government establishments, including the Federal Ministry of Works. Necessary contacts had been made and the cheque for this sizeable amount was to be picked up before the Christmas break. The officer in charge at the firm, however, decided there was no hurry about it. He’ll collect it as soon as work resumed early in the new year, he told himself. Unfortunately, in the early hours of December 31, 1984, Brigadier General Sani Abacha announced the return of the military to governance in a coup. The advent of a new government led by Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon enthroned a strange new order: everybody was guilty till proven innocent. So, government contactors or consultants who dared to show up in any ministry, for the purpose of collecting money, risked being arrested and detained. They were seen as collaborators with the just overthrown corrupt politicians. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Oshikoya’s employer went underground. As a result, not only did his dream of a brand new car evaporated, he did not receive any salary for the next three months. To compound matters, he finally received a letter, not for the long awaited car loan, but of termination of appointment – without a severance payment of any kind; not even the three-month arrears of pay due to him. With his wife and their new baby to cater for and no job, Engr Tokunbo was back in the midst of a storm. All efforts, including tapping into his father’s contacts failed to yield a new job. He converted his Mazda 323 to kabukabu (unregistered taxi) to at least put some food on the table but after some time the car packed up. Life became so tough for his family that with nothing to eat, they would sometimes resort to fasting. TO BE CONTINUED