You once said some of your colleagues never thought you could become a priest. How do you mean?
I think it was in 1993 during the political change from military to civilian when we had a function involving some of my old school mates. At the function many of them got to know that I'm a clergy and they were wondering how I became a priest. Many of them wondered because they could recall easily that I was a rascal while in school. They were not surprised that I'm an architect but they were more shocked to realise that I could turn out to be a priest.
It was normal for them to thank God for me. But there own way of thanking God is that if I could be a priest then they would be a bishop. What they were saying in essence was that if I could become a changed person, then they could have become one too.
Was it that you were too bad that they were now surprised that you had become a priest?
Knowing Christ definitely makes a difference. Almost everybody knows that there is a God. The problem is being able to get to him. There are various forms of approaches. And I was brought up to be religious. I was involved in church activities. But as you grow up, it is possible to want to find some dimensions to life. So, by the time I left primary school for secondary school, I felt I needed to be on my own. So, throughout that period of time, it was rascality. It could be in-born, it could have been that I was being influenced. But it was not that I was bad to the point of committing heinous crimes and doing some terrible things. But I was quite stubborn and I would just refuse to do some of the chores for our school masters. Some of us were a bit blessed materially and so that made us to be unruly and sometimes disrespectful.
But what now led to your salvation?
I left secondary school in 1965 and I had always had a plan for my life. We drew plans for ourselves in those days. But then, when God has a better plan for you, your own plan will have to give way. I became ill at the time I left secondary school and the sickness went on for almost two years. All the doctors were saying that they could not do anything about the sickness. The sickness was like a stomach ailment which could not be diagnosed. It was so bad that I did not enjoy myself for those two years. I missed my admission to read medicine in U.I. I had to take up a national diploma in architecture.
By 1968 after I had tried all to get healed but nothing happened my friend who is now late kept telling me about knowing God and I wouldn't just give him audience. Eventually, on March 10 1968 I was laying in bed. I thought I was going to die and a question came to me: If you die tonight where will you go? Then I said to the voice, who cares. Then the voice came the second time and again the third time. That got me worried. I used to have my bible under my pillow and I took it and began to wonder. Then I said, "If I die I don't know where I'm going" and then the voice said, if you want to go to heaven, kneel down and pray. By that time I had no idea how to pray apart from the religious prayers we prayed at the prompting of my parents. Then I said, Lord, I don't know what to pray about, but if I die I want to go heaven. Then the voice said I should give my life to Christ. I told myself, if I don't give it to him what business do I have with the life. I said, Lord, I'm giving my life to you and whatever you want to do with it do it.
After that prayer there was a bright light in the room and a finger came and touched my head and I felt some strength within me. I woke up everybody at home that night. And I felt a pang of hunger. My mum quickly prepared food for me and after that I became so strong. That was how I made up my mind to serve God.
I had left school for home because of the sickness. That was when I was still doing the national diploma course. The surprising thing is that I made good grades in my examination despite the fact that I did not prepare for the exams. By the time I returned back to school the sickness had disappeared.
How did you now become a priest?
My encounter with Christ in 1968 made me want to always be with Christians. I never joked with bible studies. The root of my Christian growth was at the University of Lagos. We were practical Christians. By the time I finished my university programme in Architecture I was living at Isolo. I was attending St. Paul's Anglican Church and
