How God saved me from hired killers -Bishop Adol Paul Obinwaogu

Bishop Adol Paul Obinwaogu (Photo: By ADA DIKE)

The General Overseer of the Redeemed Pillar of Fire Praying Mission Incorporated, Worldwide, Bishop Adol Paul Obinwaogu, is a servant of God who is not afraid to preach the gospel, no matter whose ox is gored. He has been threatened and attacked by hired assassins but survived it. The former professional boxer and shrewd international business man shares his experience and issues affecting the Christendom in Nigeria in an encounter with ADA DIKE.

The news about the hired assassins that attacked you in January 2011 spread like a wild fire and people were amazed by the miraculous way God saved you. Can you tell us what you encountered in that attack?

I know that a clear conscience fears no accusation. It was not the first time I have had encounter with hired assassins. They have come several times in my office and home.

Recently, some people were sent to come and kill me in my office in Lagos, though I am not God who protects my life, they entered my office and dropped their guns on the table, told them who sent them and asked me to pray for them. Anytime you said the truth where people don’t want to hear the truth, your life would be in danger. The problem I am passing through today with the high and mighty is because I don’t compromise my faith. I say it as it is.

On January 7, 2011, at five minutes past seven in the evening, I returned from a crusade in Imo State and was going for another crusade in Anambra State, a voice told me that they would shoot me, so I called my wife and told her the news that I heard. I sent my escorts to request for more policemen at Nnewi Police Headquarters and they came. If God does not watch a house, watchman watches in vain. But my joy and happiness since I was born till now is that I have never handle a trigger to shoot anyone before. I am not afraid of the bullet because I have never shot any animal, not to talk of human beings. I cannot die by bullets because I have never shot anyone with a bullet. What I committed will take my life away because the world now is about garbage in, garbage out.

Immediately we were approaching the crusade ground, a voice came and advised us to be vigilant because there is a problem. Few minutes later, 12 people were raining bullets on me for two hours. They used Bazooka guns to shoot me and I told my driver not to be afraid because the bullet would touch him if he’s afraid. I also told my escorts not be afraid. So they shot me until they destroyed the wind shields of the vehicle I was in with bullets but I didn’t die. They shot the engine of the vehicle so that the vehicle would catch fire, but the fuel was pouring down and God did not want the vehicle to catch fire. They shot all the vehicle tyres, came back and shot me for more than 45 minutes. The bullets opened my heart, but I was there giving praises to God because I knew where I was going was better than this place. They asked me: “So you don’t want to die?” I told them they don’t own my life. They shot my head but the bullet didn’t touch me, it hit a policeman that was with me and cut his two legs jump out and killed someone that was running.

They brought me down from the vehicle and shot my legs. (There is no bone from my knee to my waist as I am speaking to you).  When they later put me in their vehicle booth, their leader began to shout that he is blind and asked them to take me out of their vehicle. Their leader begged me to forgive them, saying they gave them money to kill me because I destroyed their gods which they are using for business anytime I come to the east and they spent a lot of money to renew that gods. That is why they paid them money to kill me.

One of them tried to remove my ring, thinking it’s was where my power lied. They shot several times on my private part when they could not remove the ring. So the one that was begging me slapped him and they all begged me to forgive them. I told them that I have forgiven them. They thanked me and left. The three vehicles they came with were two sports utility vehicles (Pathfinder) and one Toyota Sienna bearing Rivers State numbers.

 I asked people to take me to a general hospital so that they would give me blood. The doctor thought I could not survive because my heart was open, but I assured them that I would survive because I have not finished my work on earth. They removed four bullets from my chest but it still remains one there. They removed 16 bullets from my leg but it remains four. They removed eight on my thigh but it remains two.

After that encounter, on November 30, 2012, another set of people entered my church to assassinate, but God arrested them. They confessed and mentioned churches that paid them N80 million to kill me because I am disturbing them by telling people the truth. They brought out six AK 47, five pistols and five bombs from the Range Rover Sports they came with. Their leader told me that inside the gun he was carrying were bullets he would shoot for five hours non-stop, claiming he has never failed in any operation. That is why I no longer sit in my office. I sit outside and asked the security to always open the gate. Let them come and take my life if I am guilty. I don’t have any skeleton in my cupboard, that is why I sit outside. Formerly, my vehicles were bullet proofed, but now I am using Toyota Sienna without bullet proof so that they can get me easily if God does not tarry.

I cannot change my topic until I leave this earth and go back to my creator. My advice for everyone is: don’t be afraid of death because we are going back to God.  Everyone in Lagos must go back home one day.

What inspired you to set up the Redeemed Pillar of Fire Praying Mission Incorporated, Worldwide?

I did not want to be a servant of God, but God forced me to be His servant. By God’s grace, I am not a hungry man, He has blessed with everything I need to survive in life. I know my capability and what I have produced for this country when I was a sportsman from amateur to a professional boxer. I know how God used me to lift this country when I was answering Young Adonis.

Bishop Adol Paul Obinwaogu (Photo: By ADA DIKE)

I stopped boxing due to stroke which I had in 1983, along third mainland bridge, before I set out to defend my title with a boxer in Ghana. This stroke led me to mortuary and I lay in mortuary for three days and came back to life. I wedded on a wheelchair.  I stopped boxing and set up automobile spare parts business with my clutches.

I later began international business. Initially, I did not want to heed God’s call till He arrested me in prison in 1989 in Italy. An Italian mafia, Guy Roberto involved himself in my case and effected my release. I was released and returned to this country with a chattered Alitalia aircraft. When I repented in the prison, I told God things He should take away from me namely: “I am money conscious, I am proud and I love women.” God instructed me to go all my girlfriends and told them that I am a changed person, go to my native doctors and told them that I will no longer patronise them and returned things from people that I took their things and I did as He instructed me.

Archbishop Ezeugo Ekenwuba of Overcomers Church, Owerri, Imo State, led me to Christ at a crusade. God used him to direct me and used me to deliver Him. I went to his hometown and did deliverance.

Our General Overseer then was Reverend Okoro when our ministry began and the name of the church then was Pillar of Fire Redeemed Church at Okota, Lagos. That time, God instructed me not to go near the altar because I was not a minister but a servant. So I sat at the back of church counselling people. One day, Okoro sent two policemen to arrest me, claiming that I want to influence church members through counselling. He asked me to leave the church but I refused. One day at Isolo, I was with Amina, wife of a brother to General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), who came for counselling when hired assassin they sent came to kill. God was with me, so they started shouting and asked me how I knew they were coming and got prepared with knives. Then, I was with my Bible, so I took them to Okota Police Station where they surrendered their weapons and I asked the police to leave them so, all of them became pastors.

I asked Ezeugo to move to Owerri and start his church, that is how he relocated and set up his own church at the back of the stadium.

There was a time Reverend Okoro also sent policemen to arrest me, but God gave me a message for the one called Tunde. When I told him the message, they confessed to me that they were paid to arrest me and asked me to pray for them. After that incident, God asked me to leave that church since they did not want me any longer. I went home and started a church in my house called “Pillar of Fire Praying Ministry.” Reverend Okoro’s church closed and he died shortly after I started my own church. I helped his family to take his corpse to their village.

From my house we started fully at Ile-Ewe Meta Grammar School, Isolo. I employed a pastor called Christopher Okwuoha who became our pastor while I prayed with people.

We later moved to the Holy Saviour before we relocated the permanent site at Mechanic Village, Aswani, Lagos. God later asked me to be entering the pulpit to preach because He said “Now, I have redeemed my church.” That is why we changed the name to the Redeemed Pillar of Fire Praying Mission Incorporated, Worldwide.

Congratulations on the award of Excellent Christian Leader Award you received recently from Patriotic Pastors Fellowship of Nigeria.

Man does not receive award but God. We give God thanks because dust and sand cannot receive an award. Awards belong to God.

The team from Patriotic Pastors Fellowship of Nigeria revealed that a man of God in Lagos tried to bribe them with N5 million for them to give him the same award, but they rejected that offer. Why are some pastors involved in different vices in our society?

Some people go to obscure places to acquire power and later become slave to such power, but power that acquires you becomes your slave because you will give account to the owner of the power. Many pastors these days are not called by God but they called themselves and whoever calls himself will advertise for people to know him.

Jesus Christ didn’t call Himself, His father called Him. He made Himself available when God asked: “Whom shall I send?” and He answered: “Send me.” He also worked under His master, even when He made a mistake in John 2 verse 4 to 8, when He was at wedding at Cana in Galilee, His mother went to Him to tell Him that the wine has finished. Due to pressure, He turned the water to wine when the time was not ripe, and many pastors these days are turning water to wine due to pressure from the people of the world. They have led many pastors into sin.

In Mark 15 verse 30, Jesus cleared the debt of what He did. He felt abandoned on the cross and He asked His father why He forsook Him. The people that stood by heard Him when He was shouting and thought He was calling Elijah. They gave Him a dirty wine to drink and after drinking, He shouted: “It is finished!” He gave them sweet wine when He began His ministry but they gave Him a dirty wine.

Are you the one that confirmed yourself for you to request for awards? Any man that confirms Himself is false. People around you should confirm you. Many pastors today, make noise on television and claim what they are not. Jesus healed a leper and asked him to go and show himself, not you telling people that you are a man of God. If you are a mother, your children would call you ‘mama’ but when you are not a mother to a child, he or she may likely call you aunt. Aaron tried to answer man of God and died in the wilderness, but Joshua preferred to be called the servant of God. Anyone who wants to be a servant must do the work correctly and will not beg for an award.

What can be done to sanitise Christendom so that fake pastors won’t spoil the image of real men of God?

I have said this in earlier in newspapers and television, that what is happening is as a result of bad leadership in the country. The Christendom needs to have a task force that should investigate how a pastor started his church, who he serves and the power behind his miracles.

Many pastors today, left their masters to start their own churches without their masters blessing. They carry curse and anybody who follows him is also cursed because mango cannot produce orange. You can only produce what you have. The church cannot be in order when the leadership of the country is not in order. I don’t condemn churches, but I am against the spirits that are behind some churches.  They don’t operate with Holy Spirit but anointing. Many are operating with the power of native doctors and evil charms and call it anointing. 

But many pastors are silent about the affairs of the country. Why?

Are the people who are involved in politics to rebuke a politician? Many pastors today are politicians. Many pastors today are rulers not leaders. You cannot tell someone who does not know how to put his house in order to talk to another person to put his house in order. The pastor you want to rebuke a politician is expecting tithe from him. If he rebukes a politician, he won’t give him an envelope any longer. That is why everybody is silent. I am not interested in any politician’s envelope because even if I die in hunger, heaven will surely bear me witness. Pastors are no longer interested in heaven; it is about the material thing. Do you know that some criminals normally ask some pastors to pray for them before they go and rob people? Even the politicians always give them money to remember them in prayer. Many pastors cannot rebuke erring politicians because they have bought their prayers.

I knew when I started entering Aso Rock, but my joy today is that no government official or politician can say that I have entered his house and drink water. I go there to do what God tells me to do and I go. Hold your money so that I can be able to tell the truth. A policeman that rejects bribe can stop and demand to know what is in the booth of your vehicle. Many pastors are no longer pastors of the kingdom but pastors of the earth. They are pasturing their stomach, not about heaven. My joy is that everybody must give account of their stewardship on the last day.

Can you predict what will happen in Nigeria in the next five years?

You cannot predict about this country because things happening here are unpredictable. There was a time some journalists were sent to interview me from government house and I told them that God loves this country and everything we need to make everyone comfortable is here, but the people who supposed to manage our resources are doing it wrongly.

Let us live the way God created us and not imitate the whites. We left our culture to imitate the western culture. For us to predict the future of this country, Nigerians must first go back to our lineage.

When you allow outsiders to advise you on how to manage your affairs, they will be advising you based on their own culture. Initially, every region in Nigeria knew what they were producing. The Northerners normally produce groundnut, yam, cucumber, carrot, tomatoes and rear cattle. But they are living their culture to work in office while the uneducated ones are riding motor cycle and having accidents which have sent many people to early grave. The west produced cocoa while the east was known for coal production. The Southerners are known for fishing. Today, a teacher who is supposed to be in a classroom is a politician. An engineer who is supposed to be repairing vehicles is now a politician. Bankers are now politicians including farmers. What do you expect them to produce there? He cannot produce what he does not know anything about. Every state in Nigeria has what God has blessed them with, so we must go back to our culture.

In my own town, Utu in Nnewi, Anambra State, we were known for carpentry works in the past. But now, many of them are traders, doing what they are not supposed to be doing. In the midst of carpenters, God can bring somebody out as a Joseph of our time. You must interpret the dream well before you become a Joseph of our time.

Bishop Adol Paul Obinwaogu (Photo: By ADA DIKE)

What preparations are making to ensure that your church continues to grow when you leave this world?

Because I always tell them the truth, if they continue with the truth, the church will continue. Life always expires, so my problem is that anytime I correct some pastors, they leave and form their own church.  I will always ask God to train the people that will serve Him genuinely, not for material gains. It is important for one to position himself and serve God genuinely. My prayer is that those under me will continue to follow the steps of Jesus Christ like Simon Peter did after He asked him to keep His flock. The church of God I set up will continue because God will surely raise people after me to propagate His gospel.

Bishop Adol Paul Obinwaogu (Photo: By ADA DIKE)