Margaret Izerbigie was a pretty young woman in her prime when they met. They had had a platonic friendship, one which had absolutely no chance of going anywhere, because they were as different from each other as chalk is from cheese. She was, in the words of a chronicler, “the daughter of a princess of juju, steeped in witchcraft and black magic”; he was an itinerant preacher. She had royal blood flowing in her veins; he had no claims to a comfortable childhood. Theirs was a most unlikely match, yet it happened!
One fateful day, Benson Andrew Idahosa, who having been fully persuaded that the dead could rise in the name of Jesus, and made raising the dead one of his life's works, arrived at the home of the Izerbigies. There was grief everywhere. One look at Margaret's face told him the story; something terrible had happened. On enquiry, Benson learnt that a young cousin of Margaret's had fallen ill and died. Sacrifices at the family's juju shrine had failed them! Benson asked for permission to pray for her, boldly declaring: “the God I serve can bring your baby back to life.” Now helpless, the family agreed. The young preacher emptied the room of all but his Christian companion, prayed for the child and suddenly, the little girl stirred back to life with a sneeze.
In the words of Rev Dr Elijah Akinwumi, of Missions Network Ministries International, Lagos, “Margaret was deeply moved by the event. Although previously sceptical, she could not deny the miracle working power of God. That night, on her own, Margaret asked Benson's God to forgive her sins and come into her life. Within a few months they were married and a partnership in the Gospel began.”
It is to that initially unlikely union consummated on June 4, 1969, between Benson, 35, and 26-year-old Margaret, that we owe the continuing story of Church of God Mission International Incorporated and the ascendancy of its current leader, Archbishop Margaret Benson-Idahosa. Now 66 and mother of seven children…this daughter of juju adherents was not just a faithful partner to her husband through 24 years of victorious ministry, she's been his effective successor over the past twelve years.
That story excerpted from, ‘Amazon in the Footsteps of a Giant’, is one of seven in the “Vanguards of the Faith” special section of the rebirth edition of KINGDOMPeople, currently in circulation. It sets out to celebrate those described as “icons of Christianity in Nigeria.” It’s a series everyone should read, not least of all because it will open our eyes to the depth of our Christian heritage and humble many of us who think our calling is more of God than those of others.
Take this other one titled, A Premier’s Pride:
“The year was 1962, and the result of the West African School Certificate Examination, as it then was, had just been released. It was a truly sub-continental affair and competition was therefore stiffer then than now. But that didn’t stop an 18 year-old boy from the so-called educationally disadvantaged part of Nigeria, the Northern Region, from winning all the laurels. It didn’t stop him from scoring the highest marks overall in the entire west coast of Africa and in the process, the highest in every subject he took.
“The nation must have been proud of him! But in the fierce, but relatively healthy, competitive environment of the days immediately after national independence, it was the North regional government that rose to celebrate little John. The premier of the region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto did not send him a letter of congratulations. He drove the 500-kilometer distance between “Kaduna, the seat of power to Aliade in the then Benue province, where this little gem was a student of Mount St. Michael Secondary School to personally congratulate him.
“As Adamu Adamu put it in a recent article, Boy John had “the world at his feet…with the Sardauna himself for a visiting patron-saint, little John could have become whatever he wanted to be in post-independence Northern Nigeria…” He could have asked for and received anything; from a choice of the best jobs to a scholarship to any corner of the world, but he chose neither. Instead, he chose the priesthood. In Adamu’s words, “…he turned his back on this material world just as he was on the verge of conquering it…and thereafter, little John dedicated all his physical strength and intellectual power to the cause of God”.
“That boy, as you might have guessed, is His Eminence, Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan the Archbishop of Abuja Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, former President of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria and until a July 2010, a single-term President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN…”
Nor was the story of Onaiyekan’s successor any less remarkable.
“Were the circumstances under which he was born the determining factor, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, would have been named Samuel, not Joseph. Like Samuel the prophet, his mother “asked him of the Lord.”
“The story goes like this. A young mother of one, a daughter, desperately wanted her next child to be a boy. So, she headed for a church in the city of Lagos, and like Hannah, placed her request before the Lord, and backed it up with a vow. As she related it to her son, many, many years later, she told God, “If you give me a male child, I will give him back to you. Just give me a male child”. A few months later, she got pregnant and at the fullness of time, her son came.
“But there was a problem. This child of covenant, healthy in every other way as he was, wouldn’t or couldn’t talk…Doctors couldn’t explain it; and so, there was no treatment. Then… soon after his fifth birthday, he opened up. He just began to talk normally like nothing ever happened. He didn’t learn to talk, or go through the mono-syllabic prattle stages of the growing child. Mrs Oritsejafor’s baby boy was whole and; ready to be given back to God, as she vowed. But, the young mother, in her joy, blissfully forgot her pledge, and simply set about mothering her beautiful bundle of joy.
“Familiar, isn’t it; that we make promises under pressure and then we forget – conveniently? But God is able to help us remember and to eventually pay our vows, somehow…That explains why in spite of a doting mother’s memory lapse, that son of promise is today…President, Christian Association of Nigeria…” Want more? Get the magazine.
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