“Few days after he was born, some Prophets came from
Warri to Benin (the place of his birth) with a message from God. When his
parents desired to know what the message was, they said God told them “a
prophet who would minister in God’s presence has been born.” His parents
refused to listen further because they were Muslims and did not see the
possibility of their son leaving their fold.” From Apostle Suleman’s website
biography.
Just like Prophet T.B. Joshua and other self-styled
church leaders of their kind, little is known about the life of Apostle
Suleman. The biography on his church's website simply proclaimed how he was
born in a Muslim household and some prophets came and declared that the child
would be a prophet. As he grew up, he battled with the prophesy; he read the
Bible three times and one day he read Acts of Apostle 10: 38 and his eyes were
opened, and he saw his mandate.
There is no record of where he went to school and what
he studied. And there is no record of where he worked before he joined the
vineyard. Like Jesus, he disappeared at a certain age and reemerged a preacher.
Apostle Suleman founded Omega Fire Ministry in 2004 in
Auchi, Edo State and today it has over 40 branches across the world. The church
is currently building an auditorium that can take 70,000 people. It also has a
vibrant television station, Celebration TV, from where his message is heard
across the world. He would've had his own private jet if not that he rejected
one that was given to him as a gift.
These are classic steps in the making of modern day
prosperity preachers. To break out of the multitude of them, Apostle Suleman
used his yearly prophecies to make himself famous. He dished them out at the
beginning of each year, and because nobody goes back to check their accuracies
at the end of the year, the more brazen the prophecies were, the bigger the
newspaper headlines. And the more newspaper front page he gets, the better it
is for his church and his bottom line. Apostle Suleman was good at reading the
trends and predicting what might happen. He was daring, like predicting someone’s
death. Why not, when there are no consequences for failure.
Apostle Suleman also stood out for the way he embraced
Nollywood actors and actresses in his acts. He brought them to his church and gave
out gifts to these big screens and big ego characters. They, in return, helped
to cast him as a hip preacher who relates well across all classes of the
society. Systematically, he blurred the lines between entertainment and
religion. While his competitors only modeled their church after business
franchises, he had an edge by integrating entertainment and Nollywood glitz to
his repertoire.
And how could we forget, he performs miracles, too. He
does not perform small miracles like driving his car from Ore to Lagos with an
empty fuel tank. He makes the cripple ‘walk’ and raises the ‘dead’ - classic
miracles of Jesus days. And that is all you need to become anointed in Nigeria.
And Apostle Suleman was anointed.
Being anointed is like being a governor or a president
in Nigeria -it grants you immunity against prosecution. Nobody can hold you
accountable for your actions. It doesn’t matter how egregious the action is.
For governors and presidents, the immunity ends when they leave office. For
prophets, apostles and pastors, it is a lifetime privilege.
All was well. Apostle Suleman was living his dream life,
doing whatever he liked without any worry of potential consequences until he
stepped into the political arena.
His first adventure into politics occurred when Kaduna
state government floated a bill that would demand registration of religious
organizations in the state. Apostle Suleman fumed. He predicted that
Gov. El-Rufai would die if he went ahead to sign the bill. He immediately got
the attention of the nation. And as the Fulani herdsmen killings escalated, the
Apostle jumped in. He spoke out in support of Christians, boasting that he had
ordered his people to kill any Fulani Herdsman who mistakenly comes near his
church.
That was all that was needed for the internal demons
that he has been dealing with to come out in the open. In his own words, “the
marine spirits” came after him.
It was not that the married Apostle Suleman was having
affairs with other women that was his undoing. Men do that every day. It’s not
that he was denying it; men who do such thing deny it every day. It was not
that he preached against such behavior yet partook in it; that is the stock in
trade of self-righteous preachers all over time. It was not that he was
throwing stones when he lived in a glass house. Apostle Suleman’s
undoing was that he was throwing stones and hoping that his hands would not
show.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, something is wrong with
a country that has more churches, mosques, and shrines than it has schools.
Something is wrong with a country that has more pastors,
imams, and chief priests than doctors and nurses.
Something is wrong with a country that quotes more scriptures
than science; embraces more superstition than rational thinking, and profess a
better understanding of angels in heaven than the species of plants and animals
in the forest next door.
Something is wrong with a country where it is easier to
hold a petty thief accountable than it is to hold a politician or a self-styled
prophet or apostle accountable.
Something is wrong with a country where the prophets and
the politicians own more private jets than performers in business and in the
arts.
That is the world where the Founder and General Overseer
of Omega Fire Church, Apostle Johnson Suleman comes from. It is a world that
must pass away for a more useful nation to emerge.
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo is the author of “This American Life
Sef!”
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