I can claim to have known G D Numbere quite well even though I never physically met him. I am equally certain that I speak for legions because when a man lives with a clear sense of purpose, his influence surmounts the limitations imposed by space and time.
My conversion experience sometime in 1978 was akin to an earthquake whose epicentre was the aggregated godly influences of certain students of Federal Government College Kaduna.
Stephen Bariture Kpuinen was a year my senior but we were both of Niger and later Volta House. I had the privilege of watching his life up-close and it became quite clear to me that becoming an exemplary student in character consistency would require much more than personal resolve.
Kagbarenen Zoranen, Lugbe Biranwin and Barinyima Koate Girigiri were my classmates. The way a white background helps accentuate a black object is how their stellar character and performance made me look every bit the recalcitrant rascal I was.
Then there was Israel Vurebel whose vast and robust grasp of the Bible exposed me constantly as a bumbling, spiritual ignoramus. The fact that he was a junior who wasn’t exceptionally academically endowed made it even worse. Israel it was who assumed that his state of personal holiness was under threat when he first encountered the mathematical concept of “sine” usually abbreviated as “sin!”
This five, all of Ogoni extraction, were already practising Christians before coming to Kaduna. Additionally, they had all been massively influenced by the fiery evangelistic ministry of someone they all fondly called Apostle Numbere. From them, I first became acquainted with Greater Evangelism World Crusade: the ministerial platform that Numbere employed in his pioneering evangelistic initiative in the economically, environmentally and spiritually challenged Niger Delta region. Anyone fairly conversant with the dire conditions of this treacherously endowed enclave will agree it is no place for the lily-livered.
In September 1980, Africa’s most beautiful campus spread its captivating arms to welcome me into its addictively warm embrace. It took only a few weeks for me to discover that this same privilege had been extended, a little over a decade earlier, to the one and only Geoffrey Numbere.
The circumstances around a person’s parturition reveal quite a lot about the person’s pedigree. Ile-Ife is the cradle of Yoruba civilization much the same way the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) has been the divine crucible for firing up and launching many ministries that have effectively impacted the nations.
It was in response to the preaching of Rev Mike Oye that Numbere submitted to the lordship of Jesus. Tutored and mentored by Pa Sidney Granville Elton, he was enabled to robustly assent to a call to ministry that was destined to surpass all imagination. Between the ministries of Mike Oye and S G Elton can be found all the missing ingredients the Church in Nigeria desperately needs to plough herself back to relevance and significance. I have a dossier on the duo based on personal experience and here is what I can state without equivocation about these genuine generals and missionary statesmen: there’s no record of them birthing anything but giants and champions.
Like the true fruit that does not fall far from the tree, Numbere turned out the success he was fitted and destined to be. For over forty fruitful years, he stuck with stubborn tenacity to the focal motto of GEWC: To know Jesus and to make Jesus known. He could well have exclaimed like the inimitable Saint Paul, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
On Wednesday October 15 2014, the curtains fell on the eventful life and ministry of this remarkable gospel gentleman. He takes a deserved seat in the celestial gallery awaiting the very imminent Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
We cannot speak of the mansions and edifices he erected because they were never part of his mandate. For a man who was commanded to make disciples for Jesus, it will be ludicrous attempting to enumerate the millionaires he made. The revelation of his bank account balance will be utterly useless in determining whether he truly fought a good fight.
“And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” This scripture activates my longing to be present at that final judgment and I will certainly be looking forward to hearing the citation of an undisputed avatar of apostolic evangelism, Geoffrey Dabibi Numbere as he is admitted to the ranks of persevering overcomers.

That is one event you should not miss for anything.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.