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God sent a commercial sex worker to save my life Rev. Friday Okwey |
Background
“My gospel career began in the late 1970s but I made my first album in the early 1980s. I became a minister of God in 1997. I was conditioned to live my life for God because of what I went through especially during the Nigerian civil war. "Though I was born into a Christian family, I never bothered about God until the Biafra war when about five jet fighters invaded where I was residing and killed the persons beside and in front of me. Before me was a wall which I could not surmount so I ran into it and fell down. That was the day I promised God that if I survived the war, I would dedicate my life to Him. “But soon after the war, I forgot this vow because between 1972 and 1974, I went into a semi-banking business called Okwexco Savings Enterprises. The savings syndicate made me so prosperous. The business flourished such that in 1973 I bought a brand new Datsun Saloon Car. Many of my staff were riding on motorcycles while several others were on bicycles, collecting money from customers. You could imagine the kind of money I controlled at an age when nobody knew I had such money. "But in December 1973, the business collapsed when it was just about time to pay my customers. Some of my boys defrauded the company and ran away. I became so indebted. When I sold all I could sell to pay customers, I still had about 3,015 customers unpaid. That was when I was arrested, and re-arrested by the police. That was when I remembered the promise I made to God during the war. I immediately knew that that was the source of my problem. “Right there in the cell, I promised God again that if He could help me pay my debt, I would keep my vow of serving Him. The debt was intimidating enough. How could I raise such money to pay 3,015 people? Almost all the police officers in Aba knew me then because they had arrested me at one time or the other. A police officer told me to go and commit suicide because I would never be able to make refund. Suicide “The problem took a dangerous dimension when one of those I owed committed suicide in my house. When the man came to my house and saw a furnished apartment, he said I was living in opulence and I telling them lies about their money. He said he would put me into trouble by killing himself right in my house. I thought he was joking. I never knew that a man could do himself such harm all because of money. "The man who accompanied him cautioned him to take it easy with me, but he refused, vowing to put me into trouble by committing suicide in my house. He then ran out of my parlour, before we knew what was happening, he had run in with full speed and crashed his head on the wall such that the concrete wall broke. He collapsed, defecated, urinated and died! “Immediately, I ran to the police station to report the incident. I thought I was speaking to sane human beings, but rather than believe me, the police began to question me: “Is the man dead? “Is he still breathing? Is he still in my house? Can I hit my head against the wall like that and die. I said no to the last questions; they said that was the first evidence that I was deceitful about the man committing suicide. They said I killed the man because he came to demand for his money. Now that I have resorted into killing them, did I think killing my debtors would solve the problem? “When they took the corpse to the station, the police interrogated the friend who came with the man. He explained that he had cautioned the deceased against committing suicide, but he was surprised to see what he had done to himself. By this time, the whole of Aba town had gathered at the station. The police then said that the deceased friend and I had conspired and killed the man. They now put the two of us in the cell. " I began to cry unto the Lord to save me from the trouble. I told Him that only He could and if He did, I would serve Him all my life. The police then told all the people who had gathered, majority of whom I owed, that they should forget about me. They said there was no way I could pay the money having being involved in murder charge.
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