Says Bishop (Dr.) Dele Oladipupo
*Speaks on the role of the Church
Bishop (Dr.) Dele Oladipupo, who leads the Delta arm of the Resurrection Praise Ministries International (aka Jehovah Sharp Sharp) is a delight to listen to. A firebrand preacher of the Word of God, and a Prophet, Bishop (Dr.) Oladipupo, who was an activist in his student days, started ministering in the Vineyard of the Lord in 1986. He joined the Resurrection Praise Ministries International in February 1993 and has served in various arms and branches of the Church, including its Headquarters in Lagos. An indigene of Osun State, the highly detribalised and youthful Cleric and father, who is also known as the African Prophet, also has in his kitty academic and theological qualifications from reputable institutions, including the United States of America. In this interview held at the Delta branch headquarters of Church at Resurrection Close, off PTI Road, by Sunny Eru Motors, Effurun, Delta State, the affable Prophet speaks on witchcraft, the Church, and youths, among others
Excerpts.
Sir, why is Africa, and Africans seemingly battling more with wicked powers than other Continents? Why is there so much wickedness in Nigeria?
In Africa, this phenomenon dates back several centuries ago. In the olden days, the kind of government that operated was feudalism. Feudalism in the sense that in the quest to expand the Kingdom, someone would just rise, conquer a place and make it a tributary to his kingdom. At that period when feudalism was practiced, it was working but a time came when it was extended down to the family, and it no longer worked. For instance, a man has three wives and no matter how hard he tries, he must love one more than the others. Now, the one that is least loved, like the case of Leah and Rachael, in seeking how to make the children better, would approach a cult. It is like we have today on campuses, where we have different cult groups. In the next few years, these campus cults would turn into very evil cults like witchcraft. That’s how witchcraft started. It started like a Cult of Justice where people who were deprived of anything, or cheated go to when the existing legal system could not give them justice. One could belong to a family where they dont take responsibility, and when it is known that you now belong to a witchcraft cult they would give you respect, like the present day where if you belong to a certain cult, you tend to earn the fear and dread of the people.
he just opened the door to the bedroom of a friend’s mother, and on opening it, he saw the woman standing with her head on the ground while her two legs were on the wall. Soldier ants were coming in and out of her mouth
So that’s how witchcraft started, and it spiralled over the years into what it is today. As I said earlier, in the next few years, even these normal cults would turn out to be like witchcraft. Again, you know that Polygamy is enshrined in Africa. Given the tussles in the polygamous setting, like the tussle for attention, for ‘my children should do better than yours,’ tussle for inheritance when the man is gone so that one side may not be cheated, people go to join a cult. So, it was like a social cult, a justice cult in the olden days, to give you an edge over any other thing and to prevent oppression by others. But you know people would hijack anything in this world and use it terribly. So as people kept joining, it turned bad.
So, one can’t say it has a spiritual dimension?
No, it has. And that’s why I said it turned bad. It became so diabolic, extremely diabolic that you have to go flying. There is something about human beings. Anybody that eats the normal food that we eat and moves around lives among humans. But anybody who can charge or transform their chamber into cats or any other thing is not supposed to live with humans. Even God, in His words, says, “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.” God knew that this kind of cult of witchcraft was not good. It is one terrible thing; it will not give a very good impression, and it will not produce any good results. In the days of the Bible, when a witch was caught, it was ordered that the witch be stoned to death. Imagine having a witch in the family, the glory of everyone that is a Star there will be threatened. Witchcraft later became so terrible that they started shortchanging people. However, there are different kinds of witchcraft. There are Red Witches, Black Witches and White Witches. Black witchcraft disseminates serious poverty; poverty becomes one of their weapons, and they waste people’s lives. They can inflict poverty on a compound.
The Red witchcraft loves blood. They take delight in causing terrible accidents where a lot of people die. Some years back, a man who was Police personnel working at Ilorin, Kwara State, met me; somebody brought him to me. He explained that he had ceased gaining promotion for almost 10 years before he met me. I said, okay, let me do the checking. Now, do this, and do that. We started prayers, and the man went back. But one day, he came to me again and started crying. He held my two legs and started begging that I should not kill. One of the children confessed that of all the eight children he has, it is only the one with a mental health challenge and chained down that is free of witchcraft. So, the mother and seven children had witchcraft. The man said, If we finish these prayers, and they die, he gets money, what will people say? How will the society look at him? There is a man now that they took his eyes. We started the prayer, and one person in the family had already dropped dead.
So, witchcraft is prevalent in Africa because they transfer it from generation to generation. If somebody’s mother is into it, she would give it and can even give the friends of the children. I remember the story of this popular man, Balogun, the Occult Grandmaster. How did he become involved? I listened to him one-on-one, not that somebody told me. According to him, one holiday during his secondary school days, he went with a friend to their family compound. They slept at night, and being children, they were very inquisitive, so he could enter the friend’s house at any time, any day. That night, he just opened the door to the bedroom of a friend’s mother, and on opening it, he saw the woman standing with her head on the ground while her two legs were on the wall. Soldier ants were coming in and out of her mouth. On seeing the terrible sight, fear gripped him and he ran out. As he ran out, the woman came and asked who opened the door. He raised his hand. She asked, what did you see? He told her, I didn’t see anything. So the woman said, open your mouth. As he opened his mouth, the woman vomited an egg and transferred it to him, and that was the beginning. So you can see that witchcraft can be gotten through sweets, biscuits, anything. They can put it in anything, and once it is eaten, it starts growing inside, like a bird. The will to do evil will come upon the person, and the person starts to hear strange voices. There are some cases that I am handling now. For those who were given things like that and have not fully served their souls, they are not complete witches. They just have witchcraft spirits. There is a difference between a witch and somebody who has a witchcraft spirit. A witch is a confirmed person who attends the meeting. He or she can summon and can do anything. But somebody who has a witchcraft spirit will be acting under the influence; the spirit will be influencing the person to do things that would make you ask, are you a witch? Somebody might not be a certified drunkard, but each time he tastes a drink, he starts misbehaving. So it is the same for people who have witchcraft spirits. They are not a witch. They don’t go to meetings, but they send them on errands. The witchcraft spirit that is passed on to them may have come through what they gave them and will be using them to do serious damage. Imagine a girl who goes to her mother where she is sleeping and marking her breast because something is telling her, “Give your mother breast cancer, give your mother breast cancer.” She will be doing things to ruin the life of the mother. People would say she’s a witch, yet she’s not a witch, but just under the influence of witchcraft spirits.
One of the children confessed that of all the eight children he has, it is only the one with a mental health challenge and chained down that is free of witchcraft
So, there are people who can be influenced, and there are people who are witches. I don’t know if you understand that distinction. The fact that somebody has a witchcraft spirit does not mean he or she is a witch. You know, somebody under the influence of witchcraft must do wickedness. The witches are already wicked. They are wickedness personified. Of the three kinds of witchcraft, the White Ones wear and always appear in. white; all they do is help their family. They can take the glory of every child in the area and give it to their child. Those don’t do evil, but they can steal from this, and give to this. That’s their job. But imagine that they stole somebody’s glory, and the person now prays, “God, restore my glory.” That means the person who stole the glory must fall and must die before the glory can be released. So, the white witches use their witchcraft to protect their children and to enrich their children. Their children would be rich and could be the only rich children in a family, while the rest would be poor. However, at the end of the day, before they die, the children will spend the money on the sickness of the mother. They will spend, spend, spend and borrow before she dies. At times, it can even happen that the children will start selling whatever they have acquired to eat. Because by the time they (White witch) die, all the people they have taken their glories will have it back. The glory will return to the owner. The Bible in the Book of Ecclesiastes, says, “I see servants riding horse and princes trekking.” That means the horse belongs to the prince, and the trekking belongs to the servant, but the servant has a higher power who took the horse away from the prince and gave it to the servant. That’s what the white witches do. They don’t kill. They only protect their own and those they love.
Nigeria is reputed to be a Praying Nation. However, despite the presence of many tested and anointed Christian ‘Generals’, a larger population of Christians, with some of the biggest congregations headquartered in the country, we are still battling extreme socio-economic, political and security challenges: What could be responsible for this? Is God angry with Nigeria and no longer listening to the cries of the faithful?
If you Google Nigeria, it is referred to as an Islamic country. However, It is the general failure of the Christians in politics, business, education, in every area, and the politicians that led us to this. My father in the Lord (His Eminence Archbishop Samson Mustapha Benjamin) taught me many years ago that when man prays, God will give you the blocks, the cement, the gravel, the sand—He will give you everything to build with. It’s now left for you to have the wisdom to decide whether to build a skyscraper, a storey building, or just a room and parlour.
The way Nigeria is today, we should have people that think ahead. Now, what is the policy? Do we have any policy that we hold on to? Do we have the projection or permutation that in the next 10 years this is going to be the population of this country? All the roads we have now are majorly old roads. Even the roads that were in the master plan initiated then, are yet to be constructed. The mapping and other geographical things that were carried out then were done as a result of the population at the time. We have not even completely provided those amenities that were projected then. We did not prepare for this kind of spiralling population. And when you don’t prepare, what do you expect?
If we had good planning, we would have people who could think and project that in the next 20 to 50 years, Nigeria would grow to this population.
God is not angry with Nigeria. God gave us enough solid minerals and natural resources. No state in this country does not have solid mineral resources with a commercial value
But we were not prepared as a nation. If we were, there should be roads leading to even places where there are no houses. Today, some places that were forests before are now densely populated, but with no single road. To this day, there are places they call Water Board in local governments or states. But where is the Water Board? We have failed to think. We have failed to prepare. We don’t plan. So it has come upon us. Some facilities that we have now are from ages ago. We don’t prioritize things. We are just painting a mud house with expensive paint. That’s what we are doing now. We only plan to win elections. And when we get there and see the mess, how do we fix it?
So, God is not angry with Nigeria. God gave us enough solid minerals and natural resources. No state in this country does not have solid mineral resources with a commercial value. The last state would have possibly four mineral resources, or three, in commercial value such that whatever you spend in exploring it, you will get back. Every state has what can turn that state around. God has given us all these. These are things to better the lives of the people. God has given us enough. He is not angry with Nigeria. What do we expect from God? To come down and mine the resources for us? Or to come and be the MD of the Refinery; to come and repair the Refinery? This country is extremely blessed. With all these things happening, you would see the Whites coming in to do business and go, and they make money. We are not under a curse, our problem is management. Wisdom is all about management. We don’t have people who are in the position of administration that has the required wisdom. It is not only to gather wisdom to talk to people but wisdom to do something beneficial to all. When you put the right people in the right places, they will be able to make the right policies and be able to gather think tanks that would better things.
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Watch out for Part Two
Culled from The Urhobo Voice Newspaper
