Egbe Ogo Oluwa: The Glory of God Fellowship

The religiously motivated migration of Josiah finally took him to the fastest growing city in Nigeria and the commercial and industrial nerve centre of the country, Lagos. According to Josiah’s son, his father chose strategically to reposition himself from the relative obscurity of a prophet’s life in Ondo town or in Ile-Ife to one that was once headed by the founder of the movement: Sacred Order of the Mount Zion branch of C&S, located at Ibadan Street, Ebute-Metta.⁵² According to the account of Adekola (1989: 57f), while working at the C&S church, Josiah lived at house number 34 along Oloto Street with his newly wedded bride. He worked

51 Pa Awofisan was the son of one Chief Lowa of Ile-Ife, Osun State. This shows that Josiah Akindayomi married into a family with some royal background. (See Wale Adeduro, “Requiem for a Fruitful Mother”, Redemption Light, Vol. 6. no. 1, Feb. 2001, p. 34; Courage and the Christian Woman, March–May, 2001, p. 13).

52Interview with Ifeoluwa Akindayomi, op. cit.

full time at the church as a “roving evangelist”, going from house to house, in his white flowing garment characteristic of members of the C&S, preaching and praying for people.

As a preacher who had renounced a ready source of legitimate income from his church, Josiah relied solely on what meagre resource his young bride could eke out. Ajayi (1997:35) provides details that she initially worked as a market-porter (alabaru), and then a petty trader, selling firewood for cooking fuel purchased from a nearly saw mill at Oko Baba in Ebute-Metta.⁵³ However, as a person, Josiah's material needs were indeed minimal: a meal a day and some money for house rent. His austere and frugal lifestyle was demonstrated through his eating habit; his dinner at five O'clock in the evening was his breakfast and only meal for the day, except on Sundays when he would indulge an extra meal of pounded yam (iyan).⁵⁴ Fasting and self-imposed austerity in the use of material things became a way of shaping and defining his religious identity and office as a prophet and healer. In addition, self-abnegation or mortification was a quest for spiritual powers and potency necessary for attracting and sustaining clients who seek answers to their daily problems and anxiety.

Adekola (1989: 61) records that in the same compound where Josiah and his young bride lived, another prophet, called Taylor also lived. Moreover, just directly opposite Josiah's apartment was yet another prophet’s house. This indicates the state of affairs at the time whereby a band of prophets dominated the Oloto Street of Ebute-Metta at this period and circulated freely in the neighbourhood. The religious competition which this situation engendered made Lagos a

“not too friendly” environment in the early 1940s for Josiah and his young bride.⁵⁵

As Josiah had worked under the tutelage of Apostle Onanuga to define his prophetic lifestyle, Adekola (1989: 57) writes that he laboured assiduously to define his religious and prophetic portfolio. He prayed for people and “miracles of healing, deliverance from satanic powers were allegedly performed” (p. 57). Josiah soon established his independent identity as a prophet who spoke the mind of God, healer of diseases and deliverer from satanic oppression, and seer of visions (Adekola 1989: 64). His clients consulted him before embarking on important journeys or commencing on huge economic project such as investment in new or risky business. His opinion was also sought in more mundane, domesticate matters. In his person, he successfully combined the responsibility of ritual and symbolic authority as well as an inspired

53 RCCG at 50, p. 9.

54 Interview with the founder’s son, Ifeoluwa Akindayomi, op. cit.

55 RCCG at 50, p. 9.

political leadership that accompanies prophetic office and authority. Adekola (1989: 57f) recounts that he would usually go to the church for prayers before embarking on his preaching schedule. However, sometimes he would also choose to spend the period between 9 O’clock in the morning and 4 O’clock in the evening in prayers in his house or at the church compound. It was not long before his reputation would spread by word of mouth throughout the neighbourhood, attracting a veritable pool of admirers, clients and followers or subordinates who thronged the church to seek his moral and spiritual guidance.

According to Ajayi (1997: 35), “the anointing on the life of Prophet Josiah also began to manifest in their church in Lagos especially [in] the ministry to barren women”. It was in the context of those who came to seek solutions to practical problems of life that Josiah’s authority as a charismatic leader first emerged. It was through the ministry to women, especially, that Josiah’s reputation and religious authority were first established and disseminated. Praying for women, particularly those in search of children became the springboard upon which Josiah launched his ministry and through which his reputation spread to the neighbourhood of Yaba and Ebute-Metta. According to Adekola (1989: 61-62), “[a]fter his clients had received answers to their problems, he would then invite them for more prayers and bible study in the evening prayer meetings”.

A second strand of those who sought Josiah’s services was pregnant women awaiting delivery of their babies. These women needed spiritual fortification in order to avoid birth complications or spiritual attacks during pregnancy. A third strand concerned the health and well-being of the newly born and children. According to Helen Callaway (1980: 327) who researched the C&S movement in Ibadan, the spiritual and medical attention which was given to pregnant women and children in Yoruba society has in many instances been transferred to the C&S. A prophet functions as a mediator between humans and divine power in the management of life’s exigencies.

For the first group of women, he regularly prayed for them and with them for the fruits of the womb, that which primarily raised the value of a woman in patriarchal society. Reports indicate that Josiah was especially successful in this sphere as many of those who came to him for this reason had their desires met.⁵⁶The achievement of this result was only a first step that

56 Interview with Mother-in-Israel, Esther Akindayomi, widow of Josiah Akindayomi, Redemption Light magazine, vol. 6, No. 1, Feb. 2001, pp. 6-9. This interview was first published in November 2000 edition of the magazine. Mrs. Esther A. Akindayomi died on 10 January 2001, at the age of c.85 years.

naturally leads to a second: the spiritual care for pregnant women. The church soon became a place where expectant women had deliveries of their babies. In addition to ensuring and securing the total health of mother and child, the practice of giving birth in church premises served and still serves as a strategy of escaping the high cost of visiting formal health facilities like clinics, maternity centres and hospitals. There are, however, some cases which western-trained medical practitioners consider as “hopeless” and are directly referred to prayer homes.

The initial followers of Josiah were the very poor people who often lived in the back-streets of Ebute-Metta like Josiah himself, who would ordinarily prefer the services of a prophet and other church-helpers to the formal and unfamiliar settings and procedures of cosmopolitan health facility (Callaway 1980).

Josiah’s overriding interest in women and children, aside from being deeply rooted in Yoruba culture and value system as well as C&S praxis, is also anchored on his personal experience and travails. Ajayi (1997: 36) records that for four years after his wedding, Josiah and his wife did not have any child. Confirming this history of Josiah, RCCG at 50 (p. 9) writes that it was

“a case of physician heal thyself”. This was a personal encounter of the agonies of being childless in a society that places huge premium on children. However, this state of barrenness ended when the wife bore a male child. Disaster struck thirty days later when the child mysteriously died, bringing to mind the case of an abiku, children born only to die later.⁵⁷ The second birth was a male child who developed a strange illness at the age of four and died when he was twenty-five years old.⁵⁸ These experiences formed a personal encounter with a core aspect life’s difficulties, shaping his ministerial response and interest in women’s welfare. He was said to have performed many “miracles particularly as it concerned barreness (sic). Many barren women had children after being ministered to by Papa [Josiah]”.⁵⁹ This facet of the church’s social face has remained a formidable aspect of the RCCG’s cultural identity even to the present moment.

57 Abiku is the spirit of children with spiritual pact to torment their parents with a cycle of birth and early death.

The Igbo of Nigeria call these spirits ogbanje. As Ulli Beier (2001: 88) points out, the Yoruba cultural belief about abiku children is that they usually die before the age of seven; those who survive this age normally grow to adulthood. There are elaborate traditional medical procedures by herbalists and other oseguns to bind these children to the earth in order to end the cycle of birth and death. Sometimes “the corpse of an abiku may be beaten, so that when it returns it will remember the pain and be afraid to die (early again) [Beier 2001: 88).

Among pentecostals, abikus are regarded as the “rulers of darkness” (Kalu 2000: 123).

58 RCCG at 50, pp. 9-10, 20. In his life time, Josiah lost six children in all, the last of which was just a few months before his own death in 1980.

59 RCCG at 50, p. 18.

In addition to this ministry to women, Prophet Josiah established himself by doing what most prophets of the C&S church were noted for: prognostication. In this respect, C&S prophets search the will of the divine in order to guide and order human actions in the present.

Omoyajowo (1982: 136) sums it up succinctly thus:

As long as man’s search for security lasts, and as long as the craving for knowledge of the future endures, the phenomenon of prophesying shall be a common feature in the C&S Society; and the prophet, whatever his weaknesses, shall remain a popular man -- the more so if he also possesses the gift of speaking in tongues.

Peering into the future brought Josiah much renown. He soon became much sought after, for it is said that he made accurate predictions for people in areas such as daily business, human relations, family relations, economic and social undertakings (Adekola 1989: 57). His charismatic qualities not only consolidated his spiritual authority, he became a social and political figure in the neighbourhood, often called upon to offer spiritual insights into mundane affairs of his circle of friends and clients.

Josiah’s charisma as one who could accurately prognosticate introduced some tension in his ministry at this time. Those who sought his services now started visiting his residence instead of the C&S church premises. Since he was not the only prophet in the C&S church then, the amount of attention he was receiving started raising some level of concern from some members of the church, a concern Adekola (1989: 66f) out-rightly interprets as emanating from jealousy, envy or suspicion. According to RCCG at 50 (p. 10) “the envy of other prophets who felt too many people were going to Prophet Josiah asking him to pray for them” was at the root of the complaints.

The success that Josiah achieved in this ministry may not be unconnected with the popularity of such prominent C&S leaders (such as Moses Orimolade Tunolase and Abraham William Onanuga) who once headed the Mount Zion C&S church where Josiah worked. Ajayi (1997:

40-41) makes the claim the Onanuga “loved Prophet Josiah” and often sent the latter as his emissary to reconcile some factions within the church. Under Onanuga, Josiah became famous and had a constant stream of people around him. In order not lose his clients to other competitors, he constituted them into a quasi-formal group with routinised rituals of prayers,

bible study, deliverance services, etc. This group he called Daily Prayer Band.⁶⁰ This was in 1947, about six years of full time ministry in Lagos. This prayer band was essentially a “house fellowship group”. Members of the amorphous group were not necessarily all from the C&S;

there were also those who patronised the services of the prophet as a religious functionary and authority but belonged to different religious bodies and orientations. The activities of this group comprised praying, keeping night vigils, spiritual healing, prophetic guidance and bible study.

Ajayi (1997: 40f) further reports that soon after the death of Prophet Abraham Onanuga, the head prophet at the C&S church now was one Prophet Amodu who received many complaints against the activities of Josiah. Amodu ignored most of the negative reports and complaints brought to him. The main suspicion was that Josiah was nurturing the group around him to secede from the C&S, a church that had already witnessed a proliferation of secessions before this time (Ayegboyin and Ishola 1997: 81-90).

Adekola (1989:59) records that about 10 July 1948, the Daily Prayer Group had its name changed to Egbe Ogo Oluwa, “the Glory of God Fellowship”. This date is taken to be the formal inauguration of the society which was done with the consent and support of the C&S leadership. As a fellowship, it attracted people who needed prayers: “People with different problems ranging from barrenness, joblessness” lack of progress in business and troubled home “had their problems solved in prayers” by Josiah (RCCG at 50, p.11). As the fellowship grew, so also Josiah’s influence in the C&S and in the fellowship of which he was leader.

A variant story appears in Babatunde (1999: 20) who gives the impression that the group emerged after Josiah had left the C&S with nine persons. According to this account, after Josiah was no longer a member of C&S, “[h]e started a house fellowship...with his wife and two others who had left the C&S. The fellowship was called ‘Ijo Ogo Oluwa’...Initially there were nine members [...].” Babatunde designs his account to show the emergence of RCCG as an independent religious movement without any connection with the C&S church rather than as a breakaway faction, excommunicated from the C&S church.⁶¹ Our principal sources for this part of Josiah’s ministry (Adekola 1989:62-73; Ajayi 1997: 40-44; RCCG at 50: 9-14) maintain that the prayer group was formed while Josiah was still a prophet of C&S. For

60 There are parallels of this sort in the history of Christian religious movements in Nigeria. A good example is the Precious Diamond society that broke away from CMS in Lagos (see Ayegboyin and Ishola 1997: 65-69).

61 Pastor Kolawole Babatunde was the administrative secretary of RCCG during the author’s field research for this study.

example, RCCG at 50 (p. 13) writes “J. O. Akindayomi had given the name Ogo Oluwa society to the daily prayer group shortly before the body was excommunicated by the cherubim and Seraphim church”.

The adoption of formal name came after a suggestion from a member of the group (cf.Ajayi 1997: 42-43; Bankole 1999: 20). The acceptance of this suggestion signalled the effective leadership and control of Josiah who, according to Adekola (1989: 59f) gave the inauguration address in his capacity as “Apostle” and “Prophet-in-Charge” of the group. The core members of this society were: J.A. Fakunoju; Matiloko; Adefunwa, Ilenusi, Mabun, J.A. Adekoya, Fadiora, Okuwobi, Fetuga, Adefeso, S.A. Olonode and S.K. Padonu. This list of names is contained in the Funeral Programme of Rev. Josiah Akindayomi (1980). There is also a corresponding list in Tijani (1985), Adekola (1989: 60), Ajayi (1997: 53), as well as the most recent church document, RCCG at 50 (2002: 13-14).

2.3 From "Fellowship" to "Church"