Pinning down Pastor Ayo Orisejafor for a chat can be tedious and frustrating, especially when you are meeting him for the first time. Several phone calls were made before this Interview could hold. But even at that, one had to wait for several minutes as I was made to understand there are several people fighting to have his attention.

It was during the church's annual jubilee convention, a programme which brought renowned pastors and gospel musicians from within and outside the country to the church's headquarter in Warri. So, it was with a sigh of relief that I was ushered into his office which I think is comparable to offices of many bank chief executives.

He motioned me to seat and we exchanged pleasantries. His voice was very low unlike his high preaching voice on the pulpit many minutes back. While the ministration lasted, he was everywhere, in the church, sweating profusely.

In fact, it got to a time that he had to pull his shoes off and continued the ministration bare-footed. I told him that there was a great difference between the pastor that preached earlier and the man in front of me. Rather than answer the question, he smiled, looked at me and looked at the television in front of him. "It is not my doing. I cannot explain my self” he said, after seconds of silence. He continued: "I do some crazy things at times on the pulpit that I cannot really explain myself, I guess that is one of them you saw me exhibit. When you are controlled by the Holy Ghost, there is no way you can control it. You just allow the Holy Ghost to do whatever He wants to do with you. Or can you control the Holy Ghost?", he asked.

Ayo is the founder and senior pastor of Word of Life Bible Church, Warri. He, no doubt, is an accomplished, celebrated preacher. But it might interest you to know that before he gave his life to Christ in 1972. He was a drug addict: 'There was nothing he did not smoke, from cigarette to marijuana and cocaine. There were no vices, he claimed, apart from thievery that he did not get into while growing up.

What led him into doing those horrible things? "I think when God wants to use you, He picks you from somewhere. He does not pick those who do not nave a past. I think. I got involved in those vices through peer groups. It started just through smoking before I graduated into hard drugs. It became a normal thing for me to smoke. I was no more interested in the ordinary cigarette. I preferred to be in company, of those smoking marijuana and I thought it was fun doing it at that time. All the money I had, I preferred to smoke wit it than eat or buy clothes. That was how bad I was, he explained.

For someone who basically lived for the devil, as it were, how did he come out of the bondage and even setting people free now?
The very day .I gave my life was very dramatic. I had gone to buy Indian hemp when a Christian gave me a handbill to attend a crusade and I cursed him for giving me such a gift but the man was just smiling until I collected the tract from him. Some weeks later, I still had the tract on me and so it happened that I was at the Crusade.

I thank God that I was a fool and I think I prefer to remain a fool. If this is what He does to fools, I better remain one.

For the first time in my life, I heard the word of God preached and it touched me. There and then, I decided to give my life to Christ. My friend and I were half drunk that day but he later told me that I was crazy for my action. He could not believe I did that because I taught him how to smoke. After the alter call, as we were going home, he called me “Ayo, I did not know you are a big fool like this'.

The next day, I started preaching people. My friend who called me a fool died some months after that conversation. If being a fool is being alive, I better remain a fool. He was wise and died. I was a fool and I lived and still living. I thank God that I was a fool and I think I prefer to remain a fool. If this is what He does to fools, I better remain one. Honestly, I don't think I would have lasted up till now if not for His intervention. I was one of the very few people, until that time, who hated anything that had to do with Christendom. It never interested me. I never saw anything interesting and good in Christendom", he said.

Based on his antecedents, would he ever imagine that he would become a preacher and even be saving souls for Christ?
"Most people, I think, have choice in the selection of their careers. In my case, I didn't have a choice other than to be a preacher of the word. So, I knew I would end up being this based on the covenant my mother had with God", he replied.

What Covenant?
My mother, in search of a male child told God that she was going to dedicate the child, if given, to Him. After my birth, she forgot her part of the agreement. It was in 1979 when was making my first trip to the United States of America (USA) that she suddenly remembered the promise made to God and she broke down in tears.

So, I now understood why I had that urge, the pull to do something for God. God was just claiming what belongs to Him. So there was no way I could have become anything else other than preacher of the word. In fact, I had a significant birth. For the first five years, I could not talk. I was told that there was nothing wrong with me, I just could not talk. But at the age of five, I was told that I just started talking, not that I was learning to talk but I was just talking normally. I was one of those few people who had a call even before they were born", he stated.

One would have expected that the growing number of churches will reduce, if not stop the various vices in the society. On the contrary, it is on the increase. What is the role of the church in nation ­building?

I had a significant birth. For the first five years, I could not talk. I was told that there was nothing wrong with me, I just could not talk. But at the age of five, I was told that I just started talking, not that I was learning to talk but I was just talking normally.

His response: “Try to imagine what the society would have been without Church. If the society is like this with the church sit, down and imagine what it would have been without If you were married and your wife makes good-soup for you and she always put salt in the soup which you always take for granted, The day she forgets, you scream, my God, what is this?

What you did not know is that there is something she has been putting in that soup that you have been taking, It is so little. So is the church. The church is so much in the society that the society has taken it for granted: If not for the church, imagine where we would have been now if we are like this with the church. You should also understand that the population is increasing everyday because its end time, evil is also multiplying every day; People are creating new ways to do the wrong thing. The way the society was 25 years, ago is not the way it is today. People are now more sophisticated in doing evil".

One of the sorrowful days in the life of this Wafi preacher was in 1996 when he lost his first wife, Stella. She died of diabetes. It was indeed a very sad day for me. Her death was strange to me because she was actually recovering. She just collapsed. She spent twenty years of her life with me. She was a very interesting personality. Her death touched me just like the death of my father who died when I was very Young. She was somebody, until her death I could not do without.” he revealed. He continued “ I discovered at that point that God does not commit greatness to, untested soldiers, He commits greatness to people who have been tested and are being tested.

“When you look at Ayo' Orisejafor, don't look at what I wear. I like to look nice, most of the things I wear are cheap materials but because of my personality, people think they are expensive. I naturally know how to combine colours. Most people do not understand that when you look at Ayo, you need to ask and find out who he really is.

Where am I coming from?Most people don't know how I got to where I am today. A lot of people talk of success without sweat. It sounds good. l can tell you, if you find success without sweat, you are going to sweat to keep- that success. From Genesis to Revelation, God will not commit greatness to an untested soldier.

Helen, my wife.
What he lost in the deceased heartthrob, he got in Helen, his present wife. How did he meet her? “Well, that is along story now. I met her a year after the death of my first wife. God gave her to me so she could wipe away my sorrows. And tears and that was exactly what she did. She was a member of the church.

She used to own an engineering company. She actually studied mass communication but she owned a company here in Lagos . She knows a lot about build so that by the time we got married, she helps me a lot in the finishing of the building. Till tomorrow, she helps me because I am not very good at many things. I am very grateful to God for giving her to me because she i a rare gem.

Ayo presides over 30,000 members of the church every week. But don't ask him the monetary value of the church because he doesn't know. Does that answer surprise you? So I was. But how can he say he doesn't have the figure of the financial worth of his church with him? He explains: “Because most of the work was done by the members. They are the ones, in most cases who finished the church. If not for the members do not think we would come this far. It is mostly by direct labour.

Can you quantify that, the time and energy expended on the church?
I am sure it will be difficult to do and that is why I am saying I cannot really say how much we spent on the church. Besides, we are still working on it. The ground floor was just completed by the members few days to our annual golden jubilee and that is how we have been carrying on.

Some people do ask why I decided to have such a gigantic church. But the answer to them is that in l987, I was going through a transition in my life and ministry. I made up my mind that I was going to leave Warri to come to Lagos because when I gave my life to Christ, the Lord told me that He was returning me to my root and I thought it was Lagos because that was where I was born. But in the process of the thought, two things happened: God gave me a vision where be show me thousands of souls and a building, a very huge building that would seat over 30,000 people.

There was nothing like it any where in this country when I started building the church. It was there He told me that from this place (Warri), you will take my word to the world. I just described what I saw in the vision to the architects, the rest is history. If God is not with you, there is no way you can build such a Place and build it in Warri. The church is in the middle of where the crisis is. I have realized why He allowed me to build it. It is because bf the crisis. Every body is a member of the church irrespective of your dialect; the church is a rallying point. The Bible does not discriminate and the Scripture has taught not to discriminate because it is not in the Bible. * Culled from Vanguard

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