Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye turned 80 yesterday. Let somebody shout Alleluia! The then doctor of applied mathematics has come a long way. Born in the rustic village of Ifewara, or shall I say town instead of village in case Ifewara people may object. I am familiar with the way the Ijesha people of Ifewara will react to a man from Okemesi calling their city a village! I don’t want to digress too much. But I must pose a question about when did the Ife founders of Ifewara become Ijesha speaking? The answer lies in antiquity. But it seems the Ijesha people overwhelmed the original Ife people over time and now the Ifewara people speak the Ijesha dialect, the same dialect my people in Okemesi speak even though we are in Ekiti State.
Adeboye’s early life did not indicate the present trajectory of his life. He was the only son of his mother and as a boy, as soon as he could walk, he went to the farm with his father who was engaged in peasant farming. It was by his personal willpower, even as a child, that he forced his father to send him to school because the poor father saw his future on the farm while the young Adejare thought differently. While in primary school in the village, an Anglican Bishop visited the village and young pupils, including Adejare, were made to line the street to welcome the Bishop to the town. This made a great impression on the young child who whispered to himself that one day he will be like this shoe-wearing Bishop riding in a car! He did not know what kind of job Bishops did then, but he wished to be like this august visitor to his hometown. The Almighty God must have said Amen. The young lad later went to Ilesha Grammar School where despite the impecuniousness of his family, distinguished himself in all subjects, particularly in English and Mathematics. His father unfortunately died while he was still in school and he had to plead with the principal of the school, the Reverend Cannon Akinyemi, a distinguished Ifewara son, that he would pay the outstanding fees which his father could not pay before his demise. After his school certificate examinations in which he came out with flying colours, he got a job teaching in a secondary school and fulfilled his obligation to Ilesha Grammar School. His word was his bond even at such a young age.
He later went to University of Nigeria at Nsukka on scholarship of the school where he taught, to study mathematics and was bonded to return to the school to teach mathematics because mathematics teachers were very few in those days. At Nsukka, he was a sportsman and represented the university in boxing which must have meant he was physically strong as young man. He once confessed that even though he had always found mathematics easy, he would have wanted to study English which was one of his favorite subjects. If anybody has doubts about the veracity of this statement, one should just look at his poetic compositions of songs in English and Yoruba which would challenge quite a few English experts. He had to leave Nsukka in 1966 because of the impending civil war in Nigeria. He eventually finished his undergraduate education in the then University of Ife. He went straight back to the school that sponsored him to Nsukka and Ife to serve out the years of his bond. This was another promise kept.
He wanted to pursue mathematics to a doctorate level. so, he applied for Commonwealth scholarship. He was disappointed when at the interview he was asked about such geographical questions about the capital of Uganda and other countries and he had to blurt out that he applied for mathematics and not geography. In retrospect, God was somehow telling him all the places he would in future go to preach the word of God. He eventually settled to study for his advanced degrees in mathematics in Nigeria with the famous mathematician Professor Chike Obi supervising his doctoral dissertation in applied mathematics at the University of Lagos. He then taught mathematics in the University of Lagos. It was while in Lagos that he got introduced to Pastor Akindayomi, the founder of the small spiritual church in Cemetery Road, Ebute Metta. What began as almost an impossible journey of an Anglican boy into the world of crude spiritual church has metamorphosed into the global church of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
Adeboye was ordained a pastor and later moved to assume the headship of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Ilorin from where he withdrew to become a full pastor under the tutelage of an illiterate spiritual father, the Reverend Akindayomi. The transition from the relative material comfort of a university senior lecturer to the poor life of mendicant pastor eking out existence from pennies the church could afford to pay him. This was not only a leap in the dark but also a leap of faith which very few people can take. It is a credit to his long-suffering wife who bore this transition with equanimity. It was when the founder of the church was about to die that he handpicked Adeboye as his successor. Of course this choice was met with hostility by the largely unlettered clerics of the church at that time. Adeboye not only weathered the storm of opposition but even saw to the education of the old clergy he found on the ground through some kind of crash program in adult education. He has completely transformed a small church to a global phenomenon.
This preamble is necessary to whet the appetite of the reader to find out what I am going to write about this iconic man who even though born in Nigeria now belongs to the whole world as a prophet in the present global dispensation. He was once asked by the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York to lead an invocation declaring open the United Nations General Assembly. He was once adjudged to be one of the most influential 100 people in the world. There is no other Nigerian who has been so recognized. Yet, this humble man overwhelms whoever he comes in contact with tremendous humility. Who would have believed that God would use a mathematician who works by Cartesian logic to preach the word of God, the existence of who cannot be proved logically or empirically in the scientific way but whose existence by faith constitutes the reality of our being? Adeboye to some is an enigma wrapped in a puzzle to use the words of Winston Churchill but to those who know him, Adeboye is a man of absolute faith in the Almighty God who lives his life simply according to the book, that is, the word of God. The potency of the word of God has been manifested in his life in a demonstrable way in how he has risen from poor beginnings to the pinnacle of spiritual power and once he has given and surrendered his life to God, the good Lord who is the owner of the cattle upon a thousand hills has provided all he needs to continue to serve Him and to lead a huge flock to Him in their onward March to eternity.
Adeboye’s sermons are laced not only with biblical examples but by lived experience and life stories including his own and how God can intervene in the lives of ordinary men positively. Even though Adeboye did not go to any school of divinity but like Paul the Apostle who was transformed from Paul of Tarsus to one of the greatest exponents of the Christian creed, Adeboye can without being immodest, claim the Pauline discipleship of our Lord Jesus. Adeboye has prophetic insight into the word of God. He can take just a word of God like say the “Redeemer “or a phrase like “still small voice” and for weeks hold the church spellbound seeing in these straightforward word or phrase only what can only be revealed divinely through the Holy Spirit. His understanding of the Christian religion and the Holy Script is not ordinary but only through divine inspiration which only few men of God have. He belongs in recent times to the class of Christian Divines such as Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas of Aquinas and the Reformation leader, Martin Luther of Germany. To his flock who may be tempted to worship him, Adeboye preaches to them a variation of Lutheran “priesthood of all believers”. He always tells his audience that if they believe they should be able to wake up the dead, lay hands on the sick who will be healed by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Of course, nothing comes easily to man but by prayers and fasting by all those who truly believe and have surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. Religion depends absolutely on what the person who professes it believes. It is not something that can be proved. Adeboye knows this and his task is made easier by those believers who want to be assured by someone who knows all about their faith and who can demonstrate that they are on the right path to salvation.
I have had the honour and the privilege to worship God under Adeboye’s ministration and I totally believe that I am better for it. This is the testimony of millions of the people in the RCCG who have seen their lives transformed through the spiritual leadership and fatherhood of Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye. In all this, he has remained a humble and faithful servant of the Almighty. This is wishing him more grace and years of service in God’s vineyard.