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•On Ritual Allegation & Mass Exodus Story
•Says: “The Storm Will Soon Be Over”
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For some time now, news making the rounds about popular Lagos Prophet, Samson Ayorinde and his World Evangelical Bible Church, located in the Ogudu area of Lagos State has been unpalatable. At one point, Prophet Ayorinde was rated as one of Nigeria’s powerful Prophets and his church, one of the few around with congregation in excess of 10,000 at a service.
Ayorinde, a televangelist is said to have a special annointing to solve many problems, a reason why hordes flock to his church from far and near on a daily basis. For his powers, a lot have given testimonies. However, the many allegations against Ayorinde and his church has been on going lately. One serious unpalatable story about the church is that of a Pastor, Emmanuel Olayinka, who reportedly drowned a few years ago, while performing “Water Baptism” on a female church member, one Miss Anita Osakwe. Though the death of Pastor Olayinka generated a lot of controversy at the time, it did not stop people from attending the church, as it seems the church grew in leaps and bounds.
Next was the issue of his many miracles and the news that worshippers have deserted the church allegedly because of the series of negative stories coming in. A few years ago, Dr. Ayorinde was in high demand and rated as the most influential in terms of televangelism. He is said to have a special annointing to solve the problem of bareness, a reason he is called “Bareness Bulldozer.
At that time, his programme was on most major television network and his church was always a full house on service days with about 5-6 multiple service.
However, the current turn of events will seem to surprise not a few especially those who have followed all the negative stories about the church in the last few years. One of it is the story of a self confessed Evangelist, Festus Emmanuel who spoke to a Lagos-based Christian magazine, ENDTIME Journal International. Emmanuel whose real names are Olabode Balogun revealed that he was a retired Armed Robber who delighted in killing and drinking human blood and supplying human parts to many top pastors including Prophet Samson Ayorinde, late CAC Prophet, Elijah Akinade and late Ireti Ajanaku.
According to Festus, he had lost count of the people he had killed although he is now repented and preaching the gospel. On Prophet Ayorinde, he said: “The third person who is alive is Prophet Samson Ayorinde. If he says I am telling lies, let him come out and confront me. The crusade that was held at the National Stadium, Surulere that he invited men of God to come and sit on special seats. All those who sat on those seats were spiritually destroyed.
Based on these allegations, City People sought an audience with the General Overseer of the World Evangelism Bible Church, Prophet Ayorinde a few days back at his WEBIC headquarters in Ogudu, Lagos headquarters.. A calm Ayorinde, it was, who welcomed the Reporters into his office and we quickly got down to business. The Prophet inundated us with the reasons his church is coming under heavy attacks by those he called Faceless people.
Not one to shy away from controversies, the Prophet also reacted to the allegation by Evangelist Festus Emmanuel that he supplied him Human Skulls and Parts for Ritual purposes and also explained the roots of his staying power, despite all the negative news. Hear him: Anybody who knows me knows that my root is in fasting and prayers. By the grace of God, I’ve fasted for 40 days about 5 to 6 times; 45 days once and 50 days once and when I embark on this fasting, I’m flying from Lagos to London and engaging in multiple church service while I go on only water, then total dependence on the word of God, that is the key of the master.
I am the first nuclear Architect that Nigeria will produce, so I like to be very organized and thoroughly planned and make sure that the work of the Kingdom is enduring and continues to grow at a fast pace.
Asked to react to stories making the rounds that his church is witnessing mass exodus, Ayorinde says it is unfounded. “The secret of church generally is that when people travel 10-20 kilometers to their church, you can maintain them for a while, you can never maintain them for too long so church needs to be community-based, people do not need to travel a length of distance to worship God on a regularly basis. Normally when you start, you decentralize which is what we have done. Once in two months, we do a combined service here. On the allegation of ritual practice, Ayorinde says: “I believe that the attack is basically from the Pit of Hell by whatever faceless individual behind it, no address and somebody who does not do thorough investigative journalism and it’s only in a lawless country like Nigeria where you can just take up your pen and write but we shouldn’t be surprised that during the time of Jesus, they say he was casting out devils with Beelzebub (Mark 3:20-30) the Prince of the Demons. Normally every prophetic ministry has had such onslaught and the bigger the onslaught, the higher you go because normally when storm pounds on the wings of the Eagle, it takes the Eagle to a higher height So Prophets thrive on the wings of criticisms and use it to fly, for me, they are noise of the market, somebody who is selling human skulls should not be travelling freely, should not have a television station abroad. Who then is behind all these bad stories, he was asked, “I believe sincerely that there is a group that is behind these negative noise but they should do a thorough assignment otherwise if they are very sure, they should be able to come out and really say who they are and then we look into it because our records are very clear on what we do here, there are good results, miracles and healings, deliverance that is on every day that can be published if they are really looking for news, we are not part of these stories being peddled.
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