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I have followed with enthusiasm, the sporadic interviews Pastor Chris Okotie has been granting to all media outfits in the country, since the break-out of hostilities between him and Pastor Chris Oyakhilome over the visitation of the later to Pastor T. B. Joshua who Okotie has branded a Satan and an embodiment of evil. Interestingly, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria headed by Bishop Mike Okonkwo came into the scene and made pronouncements outrightly condemning T.B. Joshua as the Satan that everybody should run from and by implication denouncing Oyakhilome for having anything to do with Satan T.B. Joshua.

What has left me aghast has been the confidence and authority at which Okotie unleashes his 'spiritual' venom and vituperations. Hear him "I shall do everything by networking with PFN to ensure that the Aba crusade planned by Oyakhilome shall be a failure". This statement no doubt points at the bigger picture and the underlying reasons for this hostility, which was ignited by Okotie. Could the problem be more in-depth than what the public is being told? Is it really Pastor T.B. Joshua that is causing the problem or that the visitation by Oyakhilome provided the much-needed pad to launch the conspiratory missile not only at him but at his Ministry?

Lets examine all that Pastor Okotie has been dishing out to the unsuspecting public against T.B. Joshua. He (Okotie) says that T.B. Joshua is evil, he is a magician of the highest order, the miracles that are recorded in the synagogue are flukes, that he does not acknowledge Christ nor preach in the name of Christ, that he lives in a swamp with sea mammals from where he gets his power from etc etc.

These allegations attracts more questions for Okotie to answer. Has Okotie ever visited Joshua? Has he ever partaken in the synagogue worship? Has he ever been to T.B's house? Deductions from the referred interviews give an emphatic No. How come he knew all these about T. B. Joshua. Perhaps through rumour, or hear say or imagination or usual revelation. Should a Pastor dwell on rumour' hear say, imagination or unsubstantiated revelation and unleash veracious attack without reservation?

It beats me, that most of these so called Pentecostal Pastors preach and act God on the foundation of falsehood. If Okotie has never been a magician, how did he understand one and even the order they progress, that reminds me of the whirled testimonies you hear in 'Pentecostal churches' where people exaggerate and apportion unlimited power to Lucifer. They claim to have been his second in command before they got saved or that they belong to an evil order' (unhard off and was next to Satan. One Emmanuel Eni wrote of all kinds of imaginative societies in his book which when probed was untrue.

Okoties as a lawyer was economical with truth and do not have any shred of evidence to substantiate all he alleges against T. B. Joshua, instead he has been playing the spiritual cover card. I was one of those that never liked T.B. Joshua having seen him on television severally. My dislike for him arose from the fact that I saw him as a person who did not have the indepth knowledge of the word of God, his preaching was so mechanical that I never believed in the miracles that were recorded in that place. I have never visited the place, I do not know him and have never wanted to know him. My personal observation no matter the spiritual conotion is not enough to say with emphatism that T.B. Joshua is not a man of God - NO.

An issue like this arose in the scripture where the Jews of the Pharisee stock questioned the Ministry of Peter because the teaching, the liturgy, the worship was different from what was known to them, but Gamiel made a wonderful pronouncement that if Peter's Ministry was from God it would sustain, if not, it would fissle out as had been seen in the past. Act 5: 3-39.

Such cannot be understood in the present play - God dispensation, where fellow pastors are outrightly condemned out of anything than spiritual. If T.B Joshua has been manifesting miracles that are attested to all over the world through magic, then he is a super magician that should be studied and understood. The much I know about magic, everything magical is temporary and does not sustain for long. Why is this lasting and prevailing?

I am even confused about the actual intention of these 'Pentecostal' men of God who exert synergy in crusading against T.B., and not because of what has been truly observed, seen or known but because of what somebody somewhere has said. Take the case of one David Ozi who said he started T.B's Ministry with him and therefrom has 'revealed' a lot of things they were doing in the synagogue. All soft selling magazines carried the 'revelation'. All that have been said against T.B. by Okoite and his Pentecostal Board came from the revelation of this man, which was never investigated and proven. Alias, the Father of the said 'reveler' came out and rubbished all the son was saying by calling him a liar. Nobody has cared to follow up the issue from this perspective and finding out the truth and why what seemed like a mother of all revelations was discredited by the revelators' father of all persons on earth. Now if we should follow the scriptural standard of finding out a false prophet, is T.B Joshua by all biblical standard fake? Or is he false because his style, his system does not conform to our human standard? I do hope that a lot of these pastors are not suffering from the sin of inhibition. If man preaches in Christ name, he is accused of preaching a different Christ, he raises his hands to acknowledge God, he is accused of pointing a magical finger, he lives a humble life style, he is accused of living with animals, he chooses to leave his mustache he is accused of being the Christian Bin Laden. All because he is not loved, liked and accepted. Even in the Bible some preached Christ out of strife such people were not extricated because in all Christ is preached. Philippians 1: 1-18.

Let Pastors be circumspect in things they say, how they say it, from where they get what they say. I must confess that there are three wonderful Pastors whose television programme mean much to me. Infact, it has become a routine for me not to miss their programme, why? Because they preach the Word, they have indepth knowledge of it. They are Pastors Oyakhilome, Bakare and Okotie. Whatever concerns these men equally concerns me and of course their teeming admirers out there. Therefore, when the hostility broke out I was concerned, I needed to know the truth, unfortunately, Pastor Okotie was not only inconsiderate but was reckless in his utterances. Interestingly, except the response Pastor Oyakhilome gave when Okotie wrote him a public letter, surprisingly, nothing more has been heard from Oyakhilome's end. He has been quiet ever since and never granted any interview rebutting all the vituperations of Okotie. I guess he understood that further pronouncements on the issue was not healthy for the body of Christ, hence he has faced what God had called him to do best. The work of the Ministry, such is a spiritual maturity.

I do not need the services of a soothsayer to know that all the allegations Okotie leveled against Oyakhilome were tissues of lies. How did Okotie come about the initiation of Oyakhilome into the cult?, how did he know of the quantum of money given to Oyakhilome in Airport hotel?, how did he know that T.B. Iaid hands on Oyakhilome? All these questions have been answered in the past. That a Pastor should become so imaginary in his disposition that he says things that are untrue is condemnable. Perhaps, Okotie had been harbouring these imaginations and only wanted an opportunity to unleash it on the target. I never knew that a Pastor can take the path of dishonesty to achieve destruction of another.

Dr. Iroakazi Ephiraim