Archbishop Benson Andrew Idahosa
We are made for signs and wonders” I love the charisma with which Archbishop
Benson Andrew Idahosa would scream those words. He was always one to speak
with infectious conviction and he held the Western world spell bound by the sheer
authority of his words. One thing stood him out in his day – He was so believable.
He stood taller than most of his contemporaries – head, shoulders and all, towering
above his peers. He must have been 6 ft 3 in or there about. When he strode into a room,
everyone knew a man with substance just walked in. He walked so briskly you immediately
knew he was going somewhere to make things happen. He made statements without saying
a word. People took lessons from him without jotting with pen and paper. From his dressing
to his achievements in and for Black Africa, his life was a message. And for the fact that he
did
so much in the midst of socio political upheavals and financial lack, this nation, Nigeria should celebrate him. He unashamedly preached a message of opulence. Not just any kind of
opulence but an opulence that can come by righteousness. He was born without a silver
spoon, a poor child of poor parents in a remote part of the ancient Benin kingdom.
Though he would later claim after being born again, that he belonged to an unseen
Kingdom, Gods Kingdom. He was sickly as a child and was almost left for dead.
Yet He survived. He began to show signs of having exceptional faith and extraordinary
belief, when he acted on the word of God from his pastor, that the dead could be brought
back to life by the prayer of believers. He must have prayed for over a dozen dead
who never as much as winced before finally, he prayed for a presumed dead who against all physical indications sneezed with all signs of life restored. His Faith grew in leaps and
bounds and so did his followers. Soon people would throng to listen to this young
Charismatic itinerant, who accounts say never really had a plan to start a church at the
beginning. However, fate and events, some unsavory and some pleasant would conspire
to give birth to the Church Of God Mission International. Accounts speak of the huge
storms he weathered in his life to get the ministry moving including court cases won.
However, history will forever remember him as Africa’s foremost evangelist,
Africa’s first tele-evangelist, Africa’s most traveled preacher, one that featured in
the Guinness book of records, and the list never ends. To say that Archbishop Idahosa
was without a scandal or two would amount to Canonizing the man.
He never claimed to be a saint. No preacher should make such claim any way.
Neither did he lay any claims to being a sinner either. Followers of great preachers must remember that all great men are just that – great men. They are all made of clay.
To say that Archbishop Idahosa was as genuine as a Man of God could ever be would
amount to stating the obvious. Two months ago, His wife Margaret, was at one of the
properties acquired in Abuja when he was alive. “Benson had vision” She exclaimed
on seeing the sprawling expanse of land bearing the Faith Medical Center, along airport
road and spanning close to 10 hectares. It would later occur to me that perhaps
she knew the land existed but had never seen it!
That’s how ubiquitous Archbishop Idahosa’s presence was. And this exclamation
was even after the Federal Government had cut off large chunks of the land for
road construction, with due compensation running into millions. In saying these
things however, I do not wish to imply that he was a true man of God just because
he owned 20 hectares or more in another part of Abuja, where the Word Of Faith Group
of Schools sits. And that by the way that is the leading private school in Abuja nay in the
nation. It is an international group that gives quality education with moral values in a
couple of nations in the world. Being that I am not one to use material wealth as a
barometer to measure divine approval, and seeing that I think of Gods approval in
terms that go much deeper than physical possessions, I implore you to think along
with me nevertheless. Just imagine what it must have been like in the
Nigeria of 20 years ago, to have the kind of vision that could see prime estate amidst
overgrown trees. For these properties were bought at a time when much of
Abuja was a virgin land of forests. Today, these properties sit on prime estate.
I live on one of these properties and it baffles me every single day how this man,
Archbishop Benson Andrew Idahosa, came into an unexplored land and unwittingly
carved out the best parts for himself. If we were to estimate the value of these
properties today, which of course he must have acquired for pittance in those years,
the figures would be stupendous so much so that such venture is better left to the
imagination. Suffice it to say however, that there are very few single individuals that
can pay for such pieces of real estate in Abuja today, without feeling the bite.
And of course his personal relationship with Gen. Jeremiah Useni, the then
Federal Minister in charge of the capital territory helped in no small measure.
Another instance of his large heartedness was the ease with which he parted
with large chunks of these plots in the early years, as a way of supporting young
missionaries who started spreading the gospel here, long before Abuja became
anything like the city it is today. People like
Dr. Paul Enenche of Dunamis Gospel church one of the leading pentecostal
churches in the nation today, benefited from the Archbishops transcendent benevolence.
As we remember you today, permit me to say that I became a follower of your
life of Faith after your death, having being among the skeptics who paid more attention
to the few scandals we heard of you while you were alive, and for which reason
I’m truly sorry. Now that I know better, I salute a General of The Faith, Archbishop Benson Idahosa. Time would fail me to speak of the Benson Idahosa University you founded
through faith and the battles you fought in both the unseen and the physical realms.
Battles that saw you turn hectares of a hitherto avoided ‘evil forest’ into a citadel of learning. Through Faith you established the Faith Mediplex, a Health institution fast growing into
a teaching hospital of sorts, recognized in Nigeria, America, and around the globe.
If God wasn’t with you in real and manifold ways, these works wouldn’t have survived
till today. For when God is truly with a man, the works of his hands last longer than
the breath in his nostrils. “I don’t serve a small God…
I serve a BIG BIG God” you
would say.
Tell them!
For there goes another great African legend.
Obasi Ndubis
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