Embattled Pastor Chris Okafor, the Founder of Grace Nation Global, also known as Liberation City, is in deep pain. Apart from the accusations by some ladies that he abandoned them and married another lady, he bore for years the revelation that two out of his four children from his divorced first wife are not his biological children.
Worse still, allegations of sleeping with one of his daughters also surfaced. Today, he said he will certainly prove his innocence in court in all cases and stated that all the allegations started coming up when he had finally decided to marry a new wife after staying without a woman for many years. He spoke with a select team of editors in his church at Ojodu, Lagos. Excerpts
In the beginning
“I am Dr. Chris Okafor. By the grace of God, I am the senior pastor and Founder of Grace Nation Global, also known as Liberation City. The ministry started 22 years ago, and the grace of God brought us this far. I came to Lagos after graduating from Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma, Edo state. I was born and raised in Benin city, the then Bendel state. I had my kindergarten, primary and secondary schools there. Then, I went to Ambrose Alli University, where I obtained my first degree. I came to Lagos after that, because of the calling and the gift of God.
“I was born into a Christian family, and there were prophecies that came to my parents before I was born. I happen to be originally the sixth child of my parents, and I have three ladies directly ahead of me. So, I grew in the midst of more of my sisters, three of them directly ahead of me, before I was born. But because there were three ladies, my mom was praying for a male child, because there was some kind of pressure on her, you know the typical African setting and belief on male children.
“A prophecy came to my mother in one of the prayer gatherings they went to, that she was going to have a son and that son would be a prophet, and that he would be mightily used, and that the manifestation would begin from the age of seven. And the prophecy even went as far as telling them the name the Lord gave that child. As soon as that prophecy came to my mother, she became pregnant, and she did not bother going to the hospital to see if this would be a male or female, like the normal things that they go to do. She already believed the word of God from the story they told me, that this is going to be a son. She went to the market and got what they used to believe to be the portrait of Jesus. She would put it in her womb, when she’s sleeping chanting ‘your word says this, prophecy has come that you are going to use this boy, this boy in my womb, I want him to be like you.’
“So, when I was born, I was really very fair. They said I looked like Jesus, just like that portrait. After I was born, they didn’t look for names. They already knew my name. That’s why they called me my Igbo name, Ihechukwu, meaning the light of God, and Christian, meaning Christ-like. Those were the names my parents gave me, added to my surname, Okafor.
Gift of God at a tender age
“I started growing up, where we were all taught to fast and pray. As early as 5am, you hear my father ring the bell, and even if you are three months old, they must carry you, you must join that morning devotion. And after that morning devotion, the next thing is everyone goes to do their morning chores. That was the kind of home I grew up in. I was six years old when the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa of the blessed memory came to have a crusade in a primary school close to our house. As little as I was, I went to that crusade. They were calling those who would give their lives to God. I ran out to give my life to God. That was my first encounter with Jesus. I can’t forget that encounter. I recall when the bishop saw me, he said, “this little boy, ask them to bring you up to the stage”. He laid hands on me and said, “God is going to use you”, like a reconfirmation of what was earlier said. At the age of seven, there was a strong manifestation of the gift from that tender age, that, you know, all that manifestation, prophecies and things that were being revealed, were being confirmed and coming to pass.
“My parents knew from day one what I was going to do. I finished school, and then came to Lagos. Prior to that, nobody from my family or relatives had ever been to Lagos. I didn’t know where I was going. But I just had to go to Lagos. When I got to Lagos, I stopped at Ojota. I did not know where else to go. I saw a grammar school. I went to that school. I begged the security man to allow me to stay in the security post. That was where I lived and early in the morning, after praying I would go out for evangelism before the students woke up. When the students closed from school, I would go back. I was doing street evangelism, praying and ministering to people. Sometimes, I had nothing to eat. I slept in the same room where the security man was sleeping.
“One day, I met a man called Reverend Chucks Elezie, who was an Anglican priest. He was also a banker at the time. He loved the way I was ministering, doing the work of God. He then took me into his house. At that time he was living in a three bedroom flat with his wife and children. He is now in Canada doing his priestly duty. We are still in touch. In his house, God further continued to manifest and show Himself.
“I recall in those days, every Tuesday, people started coming saying “there’s a young man here that God is using”. So many people were coming to the compound and we were having fellowship and counseling in the compound, every Tuesday. One day, the landlord woke up to see people all over his compound waiting at the gate. He then gave us a quit notice saying we wanted to turn his house into a church. God used one or two people to rent a place for us. Then we moved to start Wednesday and Sunday services. That was how we started. At that Sunday service, we rented only the hall. And then, with what God was doing there, the hall could no longer contain us. We had to start putting a canopy downstairs. So the landlady would come most of the time, lock up the gate shouting, ‘Pastor, I did not give you the whole compound.
“The harassment continued until we got another place and before long we started putting canopies on the streets which became another problem because the people in the streets were also complaining that we were blocking everywhere. When we started the ministry, I was 22 years old and I got married at that age
Police arrest
So, everywhere, people were not happy with what God was doing in our ministry. There were times that they would get the police to come and arrest us, that we were disturbing them. So, that happened several times. It stopped only once when the policeman, a Muslim that was sent to arrest me, came to the Church while I was ministering on the altar. He broke through the security door, came into the church and said ‘Pastor, you are under arrest’. So, while he was saying that, God gave me a word. I said, ‘before you arrest me, God has a word for you.
Are you not the one that your wife is planning to go and do a fibroid operation because you have been married for nine years and there was no issue’? He now went back, he said, ‘who are you? How did you know this thing you are telling me?’ So, I said, ‘God is going to give your wife a baby boy, if you come here on Sunday with her, but first, you have to give your life to Jesus Christ. He said, ‘What kind of a man are you?’ I said, ‘Are you ready to give your life to Jesus?’ He stretched out his hand and I led him to Jesus. I said, ‘Do you still want to arrest me? He said, ‘no. Who will arrest this kind of man?’ He went back and they asked him ‘why did you not bring the pastor?’ He said ‘no, you can’t arrest that kind of man’. That was how God did that.
“The man truly brought his wife the following Sunday. A demon manifested in her crying, saying all sorts of things and the demon was driven out. The woman went home, she said she saw an angel come to remove something from her in a dream. She woke up in the morning to see something like a fibroid coming out of her. The woman became pregnant and that was how that man and his wife became our members.
Our ministry then grew, we were having testimonies, God was confirming His word and then we exploded. When we moved to this place, we had just one plot and we started building gradually. God helped us and we expanded until we bought everywhere. So, by the grace of God, we own 90% of the property on the streets here. By the grace of God, we have branches, both locally and internationally in different parts of the world.
Kidnap incident
“I recall an incident that happened that the devil wanted to use to slow down the church but God turned it for our good. Like Joseph said, ‘the devil meant it for evil, but God turned it for good’. The incident happened 13 or 14 years ago. I am more of a crusade person. God asked me to reach one billion people. We travelled both in Nigeria and different parts of the world, always having crusades. This time, I went to my state, Anambra. We had a crusade at the capital, Awka. Peter Obi was still the governor at that time. In the morning, we took off for Benin and it was not until 10 minutes after we left the hotel that gunmen opened fire on us. I was sleeping inside the car because I was tired. They were shooting sporadically. The driver was asking what he should do and I asked him to continue moving. I was asking God, is this how I would die? When these gunmen opened fire on us, the driver lost control, and the vehicle tumbled and fell into a ditch. They came there, they were still shooting. I was sitting at the back of the car, Tony, my personal assistant, was sitting beside me. We had a policeman sitting in the front. When they came, they removed the shirt I was wearing, and used our singlets to blindfold us. They put us in the boot of the SUV, and took us to where we didn’t know. That was how the journey of 58 days in captivity started. See More/Details