With 2023 polls around the corner, activities have stylishly taken off with the candidates’ supporters and fans expressing their preferences for them. However, one thing that has registered its presence is the plethora of prophecies by some prophets. How far can this go, TOPE SUNDAY asks in this report?
Nigeria is a peculiar country and its peculiarity makes it one of the best in the world. This has been a blessing and at the same time, a course. Also amidst political tension, there is some relief from some angles during the electioneering period. One of those is prophesy during the electioneering period. While some came to pass, some were unfulfilled till the date.
2019 in retrospect
In 2019, there were many prophecies as to who would emerge as Nigeria’s president between President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It was confusing at the time because prophecies were pouring in from different pastors with the two candidates emerging as the winners.
The prophecies of the founder and General Overseer of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), late Prophet TB Joshua, Father Ejike Mbaka, Prophet Omatsola and Bro. Joshua Iginla on the outcome of 2019 presidential election came to pass following Buhari’s victory.
The late TB Joshua had during one of his church services in Lagos prophesied victory for the candidate of the APC, President Buhari.
Also, Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, the then spiritual director, Adoration Ministry, Enugu, who had earlier criticised and predicted doom for the present administration, suddenly made a u-turn and endorsed President Buhari’s second term re-election bid.
Likewise, the prophet with Global Gospel Mandate, Bro. Joshua Iginla, in his 2019 prophecies, said the result of the presidential election would not be accepted by the opposition.
While prophecies of the aforementioned pastors came to pass, the ones by a pastor of the Christ Apostolic Church, Akure, Ondo state, Simeon Akorede, and Prophet John Ogundele of the Recreation Word Apostolic Church, Lagos, did not come to pass.
According to reports, Akorede had reportedly predicted Buhari’s defeat in the presidential election. Though Akorede said God didn’t tell him who would become the country’s next president, he noted that God showed him that Buhari had lost the opportunity and the grace to rule Nigeria again. Ogundele on his part ruled that neither Buhari nor Atiku would emerge winner of the election.
2023
Now, it is expected that many prophecies would be said ahead of the 2023 presidential elections as done in the past.
As a resemblance of some of the unfulfilled prophecies, Prophet Bisi Olujobi of Wisdom Church International in Lagos, had before the APC presidential primaries, said the National Leader of APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would lose his presidential bid.
“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will not clinch the APC presidential primary election that is slated for the end of this month, May,” adding that “…will be shocked as there are strong conspiracies waiting for him. I see Tinubu cheaply humbled and humiliated. His plan to shift the tent to another party will also not work, as it is not in the mind of God for him to rule this nation.”
However, his prophecy did not come to pass, as Tinubu won the APC presidential ticket with a very wide margin.
The Spiritual Leader, INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Lagos, Primate Elijah Ayodele, had on April 16 predicted that the south east will produce the president but he did not mention any name. This was before the PDP, APC and Labour Party conducted their presidential primaries.
But Ayodele, who released his annual book of prophecy ‘Warnings To The Nations’ on Saturday, July 9, 2022, prophesied against the ambition of Labour party candidate, Peter Obi ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
He said Obi isn’t ordained to become Nigeria’s next president and that he is only a noise maker who will not be victorious at the end of the day.
Another Prophet Emmanuel Chukwudi from Ebonyi had on June 13, insisted that the only way for an Igbo to become president is for Atiku Abubakar to win the 2023 presidential election.
According to the general overseer of King of Kings Deliverance Ministry Worldwide, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate will pave the way for an Igbo presidency. Going further, he claimed that he saw APC members working against the party which in turn will help Atiku win in 2023.
However, while hanging in the balance, Dr. Dele Sobowale, who addressed himself as a ‘small’ prophet, on June 11, predicted that the winner of the next year’s presidential election is between Tinubu and Atiku.
A journalist’s take
Talking generally, a Lagos-based journalist, Gbenga Shaba, who is also the founder of Omonaija blog, told Blueprint Weekend, that prophecies still work because there are genuine prophets around.
Shaba, who is a deacon in one of the Pentecostal churches in Lagos, said: “Indeed, prophecies do work. We still have genuine Prophets but few. Some are just permutations. Others are trend followers, while some just want to be heard.”
‘Prophecies for electoral victories, fallacies’
But another journalist, AbdurRahman Aliagan, the publisher of Time Nigeria Magazine, told this reporter that prophesy for an electoral victory is a fallacy, and asked how many prophecies for elections have come to pass?
Aliagan, who is also an Islamic cleric, said: “It is a fallacy and not a fact. There is nothing like prophecy when it comes to an election. In our naked eyes, how many prophets that had prophesied in the past and their prophets failed to come to pass? Even when it fails, they will turn it to the will of God. Saying that, “That is how God wanted it.”
“To me, prophecy doesn’t work, particularly in an election. The only thing that works in an election is a good manifesto, issue-based campaign and a right candidate. When you go back to records, you will clearly see that most prophesies don’t work.
“In Islam, only God can determine what happens, the time it will happen and to whom it will happen to. Inasmuch as we don’t know what will happen to us in another minute, we cannot prophesy.”
Political prophets
However, a Port Harcourt-based public affairs analyst, Comrade Alifia Sunday, said a true prophet will never speak on their authority but what God says, and lamented that there are now political prophets in the country, who according to him, do the biddings of their paymasters.
He said: “A prophet’s primary function in the Old Testament was to serve as God’s representative or ambassador by communicating God’s word to his people. True prophets never spoke on their own authority or shared their personal opinions, but rather delivered the message God himself gave them.
“Does prophecy work during an election? There is no doubt that prophecies don’t materialize, but today, we have several prophets with different motives all in the name of serving God, but in the other way round.
The religious houses are now polarized and commercialized for selfish gain. Many of them don’t serve the interest of the people rather their own personal interest.
“From the past antecedent, some of these political prophecies have not been working and I see the same thing being replicated come 2023. Reason is that we now have political prophets in the land who have interest in a particular politician and as such, his words of prophecies are tailored towards favouring such politicians and against those who he dislikes.
“People say he who pays the piper calls the tune to mean that the person who pays for something has the right to decide what it will be like. This is really happening and a good example of the scenario I painted was an incident of a prophet who recently said one politician is stingy and because he doesn’t give, he will fail in his presidential ambition. This is contrary to the mission of a prophet in the Bible.
“I expect more of this to come ahead of the 2023 general election but the reality is that only God knows his own messenger and it’s also becoming clearer to us as a people that fake prophets are here with us.”
