Praise the Lord.
I have been an ordinary member of this church for five years. I used to work with Shell – a multinational company but had to resign abruptly because I was diagnosed with a sudden spinal cord injury. Due to the urgency of my problem, I left and it affected my gratuity and so, I wasn’t accrued any pension after twenty-two years of service. You can imagine what that means. I used to have sixteen book sale outlets within Nigeria, including Togo and Ghana but they all closed down when this sickness started. Then, I joined the church in 2015 with absolutely nothing – I was owing some banks and even my foreign publisher.
I want to thank God who healed me through patience and prayers because occasionally, the senior pastor would send one of the other pastors to pray for me at home. At those times, it seemed to me like nothing was happening but actually, something was happening which I didn’t know. Today, I am completely healed. Praise the Lord!
Also, after my healing, I began to think of what I could do. Then, the idea of a book fair came into my mind and after praying about everything, I mentioned it to the senior Pastor who said I could proceed and he prayed for me. Meanwhile, I hadn’t organised any programme nor done any business for seven years and so had no funds to carry it out. I decided to do a trial version by organising a programme for the men’s fellowship which turned out well. That gave me the courage to proceed with my personal Book Fair project in Abuja. I went back to pastor for counsel and some more prayers and God led him to make some prophetic utterances which came to play; I saw them happen live.
Firstly, there was a lot of opposition especially from the Book Sellers’ Association of Nigeria which threatened to blacklist me since I didn’t have a source, coming out of the blues after seven years of silence. They said I was creating waves without seeking permission from them. That was soon resolved to the glory of God.
Secondly, I had no money to start and although I arrived Abuja with zero-level Naira in my account, at the end of the event, the Book Sellers’ Association President came and congratulated me publicly.
Thirdly, l needed an office to operate from in Abuja, so a friend of mine met with me and told me about a space in Sheraton Hotel. He urged me to come and take the place but I told him I couldn’t afford it. He let me know that up to four persons were already negotiating for the same space but that if I could present N1,000,000 that same day, I would be given the place and I could pay the balance subsequently. I was able to give him N200,000 first and promised to balance up as soon as possible even though I knew I had no other source of income. Then, God gave me an idea to make a video clip advert of the place stating the possibilities and the benefits of securing the place. I sent this as a way of soliciting for assistance. Brethren, my students from twenty years ago, whom I had trained whilst I was an employee of Shell Petroleum, saw it and asked how they could be of help. That was how they raised N2,000,000 for me within 24 hours. I sent out the video at about 10:00am and by 9:30 am the following day, I had the money in my account and it was free of charge. What a miracle!
Then, I started organising the Abuja Book Fair with little or nothing left after the payment but God started connecting me to people in the House of Assembly, some dignitaries and at the end of the day, the programme was grand and successful with over N3,000,000 spent, thanks to kind donations. Even Professor Jerry Gana personally handed a cash donation of N200,000. Brethren, God’s grace and mercy gave me a breakthrough. Praise the Lord!
