An hurricane of sorrow and grief swept through Nigeria, indeed, the African continent, on Saturday, December 10, 2005, when a Sosoliso DC 10 aircraft slammed its belly on the runway of the Port Harcourt International Airport, yielding more than 100 deaths, including many holidaying students of the prestigious Loyola Jesuit School, Abuja. There was even more wailing when news filtered that sultry Pastor Bimbo Odukoya, Nigeria’s leading female televangelist at the time, and the charismatic wife of the Rev. Taiwo Odukoya, senior pastor of the Fountain of Life Church, Ilupeju, Lagos, had died in the crash.

Christendom mourned. Even the heavens shed hot tears of agony over the huge calamity that had befallen the church and country. Devastating as it was, Pastor Taiwo Odukoya bore his pains with the strength of Christ on the way to Golgotha and continued the great work that the Lord committed into his hands.

However, four years down the line, God, whom he has faithfully served, wiped away his tears, and he found love again. By some divine arrangement, he met a South African beauty, former Miss. Rosemary Simangele Zulu and the two lovebirds hit it off in a whirlwind romance that culminated in marriage on January 5, 2010. The marriage had the unalloyed blessing of his three children with the late Pastor Bimbo.

If the news that filtered into the press last week is to be held sacrosanct, then, Pastor Taiwo Odukoya, a petroleum engineer, will soon become a father again. His wife, we reliably learnt, is pregnant.

Recently, Pastor Odukoya sat down with me for about two hours in his Ikeja GRA residence and granted The Spectator his most comprehensive and most revealing interview ever, see interview at http://questionmarkmag.com/2010/06/pastor-taiwo-odukoya-speaks-on-late-wife-pastor-bimbo-new-wife-and-new-life/

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