IN an interview published in the April 20, 2024 edition of Saturday Punch, Primate Elijah Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, claimed he prophesied to then-Lagos governor, Bola Tinubu, 23 years ago that he would rule Nigeria someday though the prophet wasn’t sure of the manifesting season or germinating manner of the “Thus saith the Lord”.
Hear him, “In 2001, I had a personal encounter with the sitting president who was then a governor at his office called Roundhouse and I told him that he would still become the president of Nigeria. One of his commissioners took me to the Roundhouse in Alausa Ikeja to go and pray for him and I told him, ‘sir, I dont know when it would come to pass but you will rule Nigeria and you will not understand how you will get there”.
In the build-up to the 2023 general election which eventually validated the prophet and his prophesy, culminating in the Tinubu presidency, the man of God was vehemently against the manifestation of the prophesy and openly campaigned against it, coming to pass. Strange? Maybe. But at least five months after the interview, nobody in the president’s orbit has denounced the prophet as a liar, despite the past attacks on him by Tinubu’s men who view him as an ecumenical hack and a pulpit partisan working for the opposition, though the controversial prophet has always claimed that he only speaks when God does. So, if taken as true that this mouthpiece of God prophesied Tinubu’s presidency when today’s Aso Rock chief tenant was just a first term governor, elected on the platform of an opposition regional party and with then-reigning ruling PDP raging in and ravaging the South West with then-President Olusegun Obasanjo leading the charge, why turning against his own prophesy at the point of manifestation.
In a viral video, obviously made before the election that confirmed his prophesy, Ayodele, in what would seem a counter-prophesy said God told him a Tinubu presidency would spell doom for Nigeria and Nigerians, warning literal Armageddon if the Lagos “boy” was elected. Well, the Lagos “boy” was elected and hell and its contents have emptied on the country and her people. Again, sadly, Ayodele was right, trying to right the initial right call (at least there is a Tinubu presidency as he predicted 23 years ago) which he now deemed wrong when the manifestation season came last year.
If the man of God was correct in 2001 and 2023 with a prophesy and a counter, what exactly happened between God and Tinubu within the years in-between that the chosen one has now become a reject. Maybe the man of God will tell us someday when God speaks again, but to his “anointing” credibility, he got the don’t-elect-Tinubu prophesy so disturbingly accurate that the only part yet to thankfully come to pass, in the Samaria-esque deprivation and depression ravaging the country on Tinubu’s watch, is the tragic cannibalism edge to it. Chillingly so, Nigeria appears to be on the infamy path.
This is how 2 Kings 6:25-28 render the account; “The soldiers would not let people bring food into the city, so there was a time of terrible hunger in Samaria. It was so bad in Samaria that a donkey’s head was sold for 80 pieces of silver and one pint of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver. The king of Israel was walking on the wall around the city. A woman shouted out to him. She said, “My lord and king, please help me!” The king of Israel said, “If the LORD does not help you, how can I help you? I cannot give you grain from the threshing floor or wine from the winepress.” Then he said to her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give me your son so that we can eat him today. Then we will eat my son tomorrow.’
The concluding part of the woman’s story is what should not happen to any abiyamo (a quintessential mother); “So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son”.
The tragic hunger-induced cannibalistic barter is what Ayodele said Nigerians risk if Tinubu was elected, in the viral prophetic warning before the election which is now being shared from Whatsapp platform to Whatsapp platform, to say, Nigerians were warned by God.
Code-mixing and code-switching Yoruba and English languages while speaking to his congregants, Prophet Ayodele painted a horrible time under a Tinubu presidency.
I quote him verbatim, “Mi o tile ni ki enikeni ma bumi, mi o tile beru eda kankan, leyin bi Olorun se wi niyi, ti Nigeria ba vote APC ni 2023, se hard, hardest le ri, e ri harder, harder, harder, hardest. a ri eniyan, a fe je eniyan bi eni jeun, bi Oluwa mi se wi, bi Olorun Eledumare se so fun mi, mi o tile ni ki enikeni ma wa hale abi so ohunkohun, mi o de ni pe boya o je omo egbe APC, pe boya o like mi, mi o ni so wipe ko lo fi owo e teka ibo. Mo so fun yi ni 2015 wipe wo nkan to wa nile bayi o. Iro le fe dibo fun ni 2023, ti e ba dibo fun egbe igbale, aanu church se mi (4x), ebi to ma pa yin (wry smile), e ni kilode. Mi o tako anybody. Emi o de ki ndibo, mo so bi Olorun se ran mi. Nigeria ma le koko, le koko, le koko (as if singing). ti baba e ba je chairman APC, mi i ni ki inu ma bi, mi o support PDP abi Labour, ohun to ma pay Nigeria, ni ki a lo fun true federalism, tabi ka pin, nka ti Olorun so fun awa niye. Te e ba teka, ti Tinubu ba ti wole, gbogbo yin ti wo inu ibu lo niyen. Oluwa lo so be , bi mo se nso yi naa ki ke se ju live. Je kin nso loyinbo kiwon le mo wipe mo mo nkan ti mo nso.
“If Nigerians vote for APC , Nigeria will sink , will be swimming in poverty and the economy will be in shambles. If the government of APC continues, Nigeria will suffer extraordinarily. I’m not in support of anybody. As a matter of fact, I dont vote and I will never vote. I am telling you that we have never seen hardship before, this is when we will now experience more hardship. We will be sick, the economy will be sick. I’m not saying anybody should like me. if I bring a letter to you tomorrow, if I bring appeal fund to you, dont give it to me. but that is what the Lord has said and I stand and that is why I make the pronouncement. This is a prophesy, ko ju yen lo, se amin (that’s all, say amen)”.
Let’s convert to English language the aspects not covered in his translation rendition. Firstly, he warned about imminent deprivation that could precipitate man eating fellow human in absence of food (I say God forbid when we are not in state of war like the Samarians or maybe we are, in the hands of bandits in forests and government houses), and then the “Te e ba teka, ti Tinubu ba ti wole, gbogbo yin ti wo inu ibu lo niyen” (if you cast your votes and Tinubu wins, all of you are damned, subsumed by raging oceanic storm).
Tinubu will not be the first anointed to be rejected by God if that is what actually happened in his case. Prophet Eli, King Saul, et al are documented examples of “Thus saith the Lord” and then a reversal. And it isn’t always a negative. King Hezekiah was appointed for death by God and a prophet, Isaiah, was sent to him. But there was a stunning reversal within minutes (2 Kings 20:1-11), with the one marked for death, receiving extra 15 years! My dear President can learn from both the positive and negative reversals, especially in the case of King Saul who lost his throne to pride-that-blinds, disobedience to divine instructions and desire to please a certain crowd. Instructively, he wasnt a blue-blood when God chose him, meaning those considered unworthy by men can be used of God.
I had a vision that God isn’t done with the President and if he can humble himself enough to listen to his Creator and the genuine men/women He would be sending to him, he can halt his skidding legacy.
No patriotic Nigerian should celebrate his failure. It is the country that is failing. When God rejected King Saul, Israel was bumbling from one defeat to the other. May it be well with the Commander-in-Chief.
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