Here is an account of Prophet Owour miserable tour of Nigeria as told by Vanessa Obioha.
Many Nigerians surged at him as he stepped out of the arrival hall of
the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, accompanied by
Senator Helen Esuene, her daughter, Mrs. Eme Udom and Rev. Israel N.
Israel, the man many know as his anchor in Nigeria.
Israel lives in and runs a church called Glorious Covenant Church in
Port Harcourt, Rivers State. It was through this small congregation in
the Niger Delta that controversial Kenyan preacher David Owuor who goes
by the title ‘prophet’ crept into Nigeria; paying uncelebrated visits in
2011 and 2012.
“God bless you,” he spoke softly and motioned in that famed manner of
revered religious personalities as he received a bouquet of flowers from
a little girl.
These persons rushing forward to have Owuor lay hands on and pray for
them had previously listened as he fielded questions from a small party
of journalists. Hitherto, Owuor’s mat of heavy, tangled beard reaching
down to his chest masked his identity. Was he an artiste? His features
conveyed the image of a sage. His conversation with the journalists
revealed his personality.
As he was gently urged by Esuene and Israel to approach the car
conveying him to his hotel, a few security men joined the rush for
Owuor’s touch. He looked at a middle-aged man and insisted that he
remove the rosary on his neck before he could touch him.
It took four years to plan what was supposed to be a heroic return to
Nigeria, a country which is in Owuor strategic scheme. His desire to
make a lasting impression could be discerned from his insistence that
his coming must be organised by a pool of influential Nigerian churches
and personalities. Welcome, Repent Now Nigeria, an inter-denominational
platform “to plan for his reception in order that many Nigerians from
denominations can be reached.”
The group which also had Mrs. Usen Bassey, Miss Ese Ekiugbo and Iniobong
Esuene planned a three-day event. The first two days were fixed for
meeting with church heads at the MUSON Centre, Onikan-Lagos and the last
day scheduled a ‘healing service’ at the Tafawa Balewa Square in the
same vicinity. Owuor was quartered at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria
Island.
Senator Esuene was the arrow head, although she modestly referred to it
as team work. But she was the interface at many meetings concerning
Owuor’s 2016 visit to Nigeria. Commuter buses carried the message of his
visit to Nigeria and a private television network was contracted to
record and transmit his activities in the country.
Owuor carries the stigma of a fake preacher, even in his home country.
And many decent and self-respecting clergy keep their distance from him.
Try as they did, the Repent Now Nigeria group was not able to get a
buy-in from the organised body of Christians like the Christian
Association of Nigeria and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. Therefore,
they were not officially represented at any of Owuor’s meetings.
In a veiled attack on another controversial Nigerian cleric in
particular and many Nigerian preachers in general, Owuor said his coming
to Nigeria signals an “end to ‘gospel of money’ where you have people
come from South Africa and all these countries and you sell water and
all kinds of things to them. I come to rise up against the gospel of
money that is in this city. The gospel of buy your morning water,
whichever water, gather people from Southern Africa, carry money to
greet the men of God.”
A former research scientist at various universities in the US before his
spiritual calling, Owuor claimed to have heard from God who has spoken
with him about the coming of the Messiah.
He would repeat various versions of this message throughout his
meetings, moderating it sometimes with a direct charge to church
leaders.
“Nigeria is a God-fearing nation, but now if they are really
God-fearing, then this is the moment to return to the true gospel of
cross and the blood – the holy salvation and the gospel that is not
connected to money- that we may prepare the hearts of the people and the
nation for the coming of the Messiah and then everything else will
follow.
“I really bring the message of holiness of repentance and to prepare for
the coming of the King. So the kingdom of the church you see in Nigeria
now, the building of universities, the money and private aircraft
acquired with big money and all of that is going to come down. That is
why I have come. I come with tremendous power and there is no question
about that.”
Instead of the demonstration of ‘tremendous power’, all the meetings
barely attracted a handful of people. The most obvious was the last
assembly at the car park of the TBS which attracted little less than 400
persons. It was supposed to be a ‘healing service’ and Owuor whose
strong taste for the miraculous in Nigeria could be seen by his
invitation to inmates of two popular blind institutions in Lagos.
Even though he kept saying that the blind will see, at the end of the
day, no blind eye was opened. No lame person abandoned his crutches.
Owuor struggled to have a confirmation of his healing prowess in
Nigeria, but it was as if God had taken leave of him!
The few persons who came forward claiming relief from pain, stuttered
with the ‘testimony’, while Owuor kept asking if there was a doctor to
confirm the magnitude of reprieve enjoyed by this people.
A near mishap towards the end of the TBS assembly would have marred
Owuor’s reputation irredeemably. As wind storm heralding rainfall
started the railing which held floodlights on stage collapsed on a
little boy. Owuor who was still talking when this happened, started
announcing that people should step away from electricity cables.
With worry written all over his face as it began to rain, he refused to
heed Esuene’s request to enter a car. He continued to talk, as if to
himself, “so this is the rain I saw in my dream.”
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