BETWEEN 2003 and 2004, a small group of inveterate spoilsports, parading themselves as publishers (of soft-sell magazines), journalists and phony clerics, ganged up against the person of Rev. Chris Oyakhilome, a quintessential man of God, and against the Believers’ Loveworld Inc. (aka Christ Embassy), a flourishing and powerful ecclesiastical ministry founded by him. That was when I wrote the article of the above title that was published on page 63 of the Wednesday, September 10, 2003 edition of The Live News Nigeria. The said article is now chapter 23 of my book, “The Way It Is” (Vol. 1).


Bewildered and frightened by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome’s giant strides in the spiritual realm, this group vigorously craved the support of the then Federal Government in its rabid crusade against Pastor Chris’ TV miracles and teaching programmes. The Federal Government was promptly enlisted in the web of the journalist-pentecostal-orthodox-cleric conspiracies and banned Pastor Chris Oyakhilome’s TV healing programmes on the envy-soaked ground that miracles had no place in Christianity in spite of the numerous scriptures, including, but not limited to Mark 16: 17-18, 1 Cor. 12: 9-10, which make Christianity incomplete without miracles that characterized the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ.

Following the unconstitutional and illegal ban, a group of concerned lawyers, including this writer, donned their wigs and gowns and moved to the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, to file an action against the banning authorities. Not unusually, that action was

effectively smothered by the court in deference to the Federal Government. In the event, Pastor Chris had to shift his base from Nigeria, his motherland, to South Africa, where he established a blossoming Healing School. The loss of Nigeria became the gain of South Africa! Today, the Christ Embassy Healing School, apart from being in South Africa, is in Canada, United States of America, United Kingdom, etc.

Now, this group of green-eyed Nigerians is at it again. It has again removed its evil sword from its scabbard by reason of some domestic hiccups in Pastor Chris Oyakhilome’s family. The reverend gentleman’s wife, Rev. Anita, has petitioned for divorce, asseverating some grounds (other than adultery) as the reasons thereof. A cursory reading of Rev. Anita’s stated grouse against her husband (as conveyed by the London court process) would show that she has taken umbrage at her husband’s alleged scant attention for her and her children. Although Rev. Anita is widely respected as the consort of Pastor Chris, the latter’s character is simply untarnished and unimpeachable. Like Caesar’s wife, Pastor Chris lives above board. In spite of his inimitably prepossessing looks, he is an uncommon moral exemplar, a role model, against whom no allegation of adultery can be levelled.

But perhaps it is pertinent at this juncture to state that a petitioner for divorce who alleges adultery against the defendant would have a Herculean task of proving it, unless the defendant was caught in flagrante delicto, in the act, or red-handed, as it were. No reasonable petitioner for divorce would allege adultery against his/her spouse without definitive proof thereof. And Rev. Anita is a reasonable lady. Did the social and the terrestrial media men, who are forever looking for anything to pillory the irrepressible Rev. Chris Oyakhilome, ever investigate their source(s) of information to establish the authenticity or otherwise of their claims, dripping, as they are, with malice, spite and improper motives? Never! But now that the statement of claim is published, it should be clear to this small group of inveterate malefactors, with abacinated eyes and defective auditory stimuli, that adultery is far from the reason Rev. Anita has petitioned for divorce. It is fatally easy, sadly enough, for some journalists, in and outside Nigeria, to forget that truth is sacred. I am of the opinion that every serious journalist should have more than a smattering knowledge of media law, including the law of libel. From all indications, many journalists, including those in the soft-sell magazines and some newspapers, do not even have a nodding acquaintance with the elementary principles of the law of libel. Or so it seems. They are doctrinaire journalists without doctrine!

Every generation produces a few notable and all-star prodigies, with sound spiritual and intellectual credentials. Rev. Chris Oyakhilome, PhD (Pneumatology), is easily and irrefutably one of the few such spiritual and intellectual giants our generation has produced. Acutely intelligent, devout, spirit-filled and firm-minded, Rev. Chris is a peerless exegete of the Bible and the very epitome of determination and will power. A qualified graduate architect-turned televangelist, his spiritual prowess dates back to his early childhood, when he exhibited a precocious talent for efficacious prayers. He had early given promise of distinction, and, with favourable parental influences, his mind rapidly developed. A retentive memory, a lively imagination, strong reasoning powers, untiring application, and, more importantly, a penchant for the Word, soon placed him in the foremost rank among his peers. Today, Rev. Chris Oyakhilome heals all sorts and conditions of ailments afflicting humankind, in the matchless Name of Jesus Christ. He is the embodiment of love and is possessed of a philanthropic bent of the mind. He is a busy man, shuttling between Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, etc., restoring hope to the hopeless and physical vitality to countless people with terminal medical conditions from every nook and cranny of the world.

For a long while, the devil drove a wedge of disunity between Evangelist Benny Hinn, that ebullient faith-healer, and his wife. Then the knee of the devil bowed at the mention of the Name of Jesus Christ, and Benny Hinn and his estranged wife came together again, for good. Praise God! There is nothing that is beyond God. Therefore, let no one gloat over the transient discomfort of any person. The Scripture warns against touching God’s anointed. One thing that should be clear to all those journalists and some ungodly clerics in the Pentecostal ministries and in some so-called orthodox churches is that Rev. Chris Oyakhilome did not take his wife to court; he did not file a petition for divorce from his wife; he knows the Bible too much to do that: it was his wife who did. The fact is that he had, for a long time, refused to defend the petition because he does not want the devil to impair their connubial harmony. Besides, it is clear now from the Statement of Claim published by the Principal Registry of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice in London, that adultery is not one of the stated grounds for divorce. Rev. Anita’s grouse is Rev. Chris’ “inadequate attention” to her and their children, an allegation which, if true, will not be unconnected with the hectic nature of the Pastor Chris’ life-saving vocation.

What baffles this writer is not the carping proclivities of careless reporters but the fact that Christians luxuriate in waging wars of attrition against fellow Christians rather than raise a finger against the Boko Haramites of the world. A retired senior cleric of one of the so-called orthodox churches was reported to have described the Christ Embassy ministry in unsavoury terms because of the said divorce case. It rankles when someone twits another with having a mote in his eye when he nurses a plank in his own! If the petition for divorce by the wife of a man of God is so “disturbing as it paints the Church of God in bad light”, what do we say about a church whose clerics have polluted themselves in promiscuous uncleanliness? Can we easily forget the case of a whole Pontiff (Pope) Alexander VI (Roderigo Borgia) (1492-1503), a bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ on earth, and an abominable rake, who, in spite of the sacred oaths of chastity and of celibacy, fathered four children, including Caesar Borgia, his lecherous first son? Should we contract amnesia and forget the case of a Rev. of Ekiti Diocese, who had four children through a woman he did not marry, and who was merely suspended from his ecclesiastical duties and not excommunicated? Did a whole archbishop of a church, Emmanuel Milingo of Zambia, who, in spite of the restraining oaths, led Maria Sung, a pretty Korean lady, to the Hymeneal altar, sully the image of the Church of God? Are the forgoing cases “disturbing and painting the Church of God in bad light”? No, they don’t! But a divorce case in another Church does!! And how about the rampant cases of paedophilia (sexual activity with children), which have engulfed the Church of Rome? Do these cases make the church “useless”? Why should the pitch-dark, dirty pot, call the clean kettle black?

The great man of God, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, should take consolation from the 9th Beatitude: “Blessed are you, when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Verbum sat sapienti est.

Akiri, a lawyer, lives in Lagos.

Rubbish

fake story trash and nonsens

South arfican make the best that he cannot make the healing miracles in this country because all his healings is a fake.

Nora544, when u need a miracle, u ll believe and u ll need 1 very soon- trust me

okojieamos82: Nora544, when u need a miracle, u ll believe and u ll need 1 very soon- trust me

sorry I didnot need any nigerian miracle!

@OP. Perhaps you're the writer of the article or share the sentiments and opinion of the writer. You need to be aware that it is wrong for a married man to neglect his family. If that is what pastor Chris did, it is wrong and unjustifiable. You seem to be justifying it and that is the impression i hope to correct.