Apostle Alex Oyewole Bamgbola, the God's Overseer of Zion the City of The Lord Ministry Incorporated, Lagos, Nigeria, is destined to always be at the
Apostle Alex Oyewole Bamgbola, the God’s Overseer of Zion the City of The Lord Ministry Incorporated, Lagos, Nigeria, is destined to always be at the top. He got to the pinnacle of his banking career before he was drafted by God from another top, a wizard in the occult, into the kingdom and light. He rose to become chairman of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, (Lagos chapter) after which he became the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigerian, Lagos chapter. Apostle Bamgbola was a Merchant Banker of repute with an illustrious career of over 20 years. He voluntarily retired into full service of God as a gospel minister in December 1993. Before his voluntary retirement, he served as the Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer of Victory Merchant Bank Limited. He has had an illustrious career in reputable institutions, including the Bank of Boston, USA and its Nigerian affiliate, Nigerian American Merchant Bank Limited. He is a Member of many prestigious organizations across Nigeria and the USA. He has served on national and state government committees in Nigeria over the years. He obtained a Bachelor of Science with distinction in Finance from the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA, in 1974. He later obtained another B.Sc in Marketing from the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. He thereafter completed an MBA in Finance and International Business from the Graduate School of Business, De Paul University, Chicago, USA. He has an AIB Diploma from the American Institute of Banking, USA and a Post Graduate Diploma in International Banking from Manchester University, United Kingdom. A man of these qualifications before venturing into the ministry certainly has excellent views to share. He was interviewed by Dr. Bola Adewara, Editor E-life. Excerpts.
* Celebrating his 70th Birthday.
What was your early life like? Where are you coming from?
I was born in my home town, Arandun, in a funny circumstance. My grandfather was the Oba and Chief priest of the Ifa and occultic people in Kwara then, while my dad and mum lived in Lagos in the 30s and 40s. They had three children before me, who all died. They were told that as long as they remained in Lagos, any child they gave birth to would die unless they returned to the village. So when my mother was pregnant with me, she moved to the town where I was born and lived. To them, Ifa was right. A lot of strange things happened to me as a child. I was warned never to leave the village or else I would die. At a stage, my parents had to leave the village for nowhere in particular. The vehicle they boarded developed a fault in Ibadan, where they stopped to rest. From a momentary rest, they ended up spending 65 years there. While there, I began my life gradually.
Though I came from a Muslim home, I attended a Christian school, had Christian friends, followed them to Church and joined the church choir. In one of the schools, Baptist Secondary school, precisely, I was baptized. At a stage, I left for Lagos, where my life changed. I had to live rascally because life in Lagos has always been challenging, especially for people like me with tribal marks. People would taunt us and call us names like Araoke, literarily meaning people from outside Lagos. But always said to connote you are stupid. Such people like me had our ways of responding, which toughened us. My parents did not object to whatever I wanted to do because they regarded me as a strange child, the first that would live after three children.
Here in Lagos, I finished my secondary education and joined Barclays bank, earlier known as Barclay’s bank DCO. Today, it’s the Union Bank. I soon had an opportunity to leave the shores of Nigeria in search of the Golden Fleece in America and ended up in Houston. There, I was lucky to get a banking job again with one of the biggest banks in the world. It was the sixth of the nine most significant. I was employed as an international officer, and in two years, I became an assistant vice president. In 1979, I returned to Nigeria as an expatriate to start a bank here.
What was life like as a banker?
The great experience was that I was living in my country as an expatriate, which made me enjoy many privileges. I was to rise to the position of Managing director in 1985, which I rejected because I was to start my own bank, but I was held back because I needed to raise the forty per cent equity of the bank of Houston. Every effort to do this proved abortive. I was with the Nigerian merchant bank, then Victory merchant bank, from where I left to answer the call of God after so many years of sojourn in darkness. When the Lord began to call me after I gave my life to him, I started getting tired of banking, a profession in my blood. When I was going to heed the call of God, my friends thought I was joking. My friends were top military men, brigadiers, generals with whom I lived a rough life, drinking, and women. They all thought it was a joke. Giving up that life was not as alarming as giving up the shares and other investments running into millions now worth billions.
You must have made significant wealth as a banker …
As a banker, I would not take a bribe or expect any gratification from anybody. I remember in 1983 when I went to the bank of Boston to defend Nigeria to get loans when austerity measure was killing the country. The country needed foreign exchange, which was scarce in coming. I went to see the President of the bank who, based on the trust he had for me, granted us $60 million. So many people came to give me gifts, presents which I refused. I looked stupid to so many people. If I was keen on taking bribes, I would be swimming in billions today. I would have so many buildings to my name. Nobody gets to the level of managing any bank in Nigeria that would not be materially high there. The principle had been in me.
I read somewhere that you were once in the occult. How did this happen with your Christian background?
When I returned to Nigeria in 1979, I joined the New Estate Baptist Church, where my senior cousin was. I was there until 1982 when a pastor of the Church was alleged to have had carnal knowledge of a choir member. It was a big scandal, and I was disappointed when the news filtered to the congregation. I wondered why a pastor could ever be trapped in such immorality. A man I respected so much. That disappointment led to quitting Church and stopped going to Church for about seven years which saw me in darkness.
How far did you go in the cult?
When I became born again, a pick-up lorry was loaded with juju and then left. Also, the booth of a Laurel 2.0, with which we carried the rest to the lagoon, was overfilled. Some juju were in my body. The reason I got bald. We don’t go bald in my family. I am bald because of the juju I put on this head from the occult. I was a wizard; there are 16 powers of wizardry. They were giving it to me in stages. I got eleven. When I got eleven power, I told them I couldn’t feel the power, and that was when they decided, I mean a gathering where Obas in Yoruba land gathered, to upgrade me to be a witch, which is rare. You won’t find a man that is a witch. One thousand and one incisions (gbere) were made on my head. I didn’t join only one occult. There was no cult in Yoruba land that I was not there. Even in the Benin Republic, where the head of the occult is a giant python. That time, I was the Deputy MD of a bank in 1985. Almost every week, I had to go to the UK for meetings. For nearly eleven months, this head smelled. That was when I began to wear agbada and a cap as the MD of the bank.
I had an interview with a pastor who told me of his sojourn in the university cult, Buccaneer Confraternity, where he rose to become the fifth person in Nigeria. When he left the cult, he began moving around, exposing the details of cults to parents concerning their children. Usually, when you get out of such cults, the devil and his agents fight back. Was there any reprisal against you when you got out?
The university cults you are talking about are social cults. You can’t compare that with the occults. Reprisal was death. I did not belong to one occult. I joined all cults in Yoruba land, even in the Benin Republic, where the head of the occult is a big python. Reprisal was death. Judgment was death. There was nothing they did not do to kill me, but it failed. They would arrange accidents along Ikire road, where they invited me to plead with me not to leave.
This intriguing! Just giving your life to Christ, what kind of confidence did you have to face them and insist you are through with their society?
I was going to enter one last cult, then. It was based in Iwo, but the shrine was between Ijebu Ode and Ibadan. We would physically enter into an iroko tree, which is still there. Somebody bought the land now and has a big fence around the land, and the Iroko tree is still there. I am not sure the person knows what he is doing. I was going to get this power that could destroy. I wanted it. Initiation time came, and there was an emergency meeting at the Bank of Boston, and I had to fly out, missing the initiation. I had to pay dearly for it because the penalty for missing such meetings was death. I was in Ibadan, and another meeting for initiation was fixed, and I missed it again. Looking back now, this is where I know God did not want me to move further. I was threatened with death, and all things started happening.
How did your conversion happen?
As the MD of the bank, if I opened any file in the bank, I would be seeing the face of Jesus. If customers come to speak with me, looking at them, their faces would turn to the face of Jesus, the popular picture we see over the place, and He would be smiling at me. If I lied down to sleep and look at the ceiling, I will see the face of Jesus. That initiation did not hold. That was the beginning of my conversion because some men of God then, like Olobayo, would come to my house to pray with my wife and i. The more they prayed, the worse I became.
At a time, we had a child, and my wife insisted we take the baby to the Church for dedication. I told her she could take her anywhere, but I was not going. At a stage, she called some pastor friends to prevail on me to follow her to Church. But you see, anywhere I went, the juju was heavy around me, in my car, everywhere. So that day in April 1989, I went to the Church for the child dedication. A white minister and his wife from Texas were hosted in the Church that same day of dedication. He was standing next to Rev. Oduyemi at his Church, then at Kofo Abayomi street, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria. He came to where I was standing and started speaking to me that ‘Man, you are going to preach the gospel. God said you will preach the gospel’. I looked at him and thought within me, ‘this small boy. You don’t even know who you are talking to’. As he spoke to me, there was a senior uncle around who quickly interjected and said ‘yes, the Lord had spoken it long ago, even when he was born’. He had a Bible with him and said …’ this is what I have, this Bible, I will give it to him’. The white preacher took the Bible from him and faced me again. ‘Will you preach the gospel? I said ‘Yeaaaaa,’ just for saying sake, not knowing that that was the truth. So when I began to see the face of Jesus, I now called my wife a woman I hardly spoke with then. The top brass in the military were my friends, and I was more of a military man than a banker. We were having parties all the time when any one of them was promoted. My house at Ikoyi was full of merriments while I was not on talking terms with my wife. For two months, we would not speak to one another, and no one would know. All my life was friends and girlfriends, just like the military men. So when this appearance began to happen after the Church encounter with the white man, I now called my ‘Grace, I am seeing the face of Jesus. I hope I am not going mad’. My wife just laughed and said, ‘I’ve been telling you, Alex, you will not only preach the gospel. You will wine and dine with Jesus. I was distraught. I thought she would sympathize with me.
The Bible given to me by my elder cousin, I remember on getting home that Sunday, I just dropped it under the bed. It had gathered a heap of dust. So when I began to see things, I thought it was because the Bible was under my bed. I took it and I didn’t even know where to read when I opened it. When I saw my wife coming, I would quickly close it because how could she see me reading the Bible? In that room, I had over 150 sponges with which I bathed. So much juju everywhere. So how could she see me read the Bible again?
So, I began to hear a voice telling me to return to Church. That happened on a Thursday. From that Thursday to Sunday was like an eternity, and I was asking myself which Church do I go to? I couldn’t go to the New Estate Baptist Church because I was ashamed of returning to a church that so many people have begged me to return to, and I refused. The other option was Bethel Ministries of Pastor Gabriel Oduyemi, a close friend. My military friends and I often made fun of him, telling his wife to tell his husband to make us his treasurers; after all, he was using a Rolex wristwatch, driving a limousine, etc. He was a devoted churchman, while we were devoted to our girls and the world. We had girlfriends all over the place, and sent some to schools abroad so that anytime we arrived there, they were our wives. We never knew we were destroying our lives.
When I got to Bethel Ministries, which was in front of his house, he saw me sitting at the back. He shouted, ‘Hey.. see who we have in the Church today, Brother Alex. Brother Bamgbola is here today’. He rushed at me, grabbed me and took me to the front seat. He never knew what was burning me. As he began to preach, he made an altar call which I responded. The prayer that day was another thing. It was like a thousand loads were lifted off me.
* As the CAN chairman, Lagos state.
I want you to speak to someone who is still there and want to get out. How bold should they be?
When I became born again by His Grace that was what brought me to know my spiritual father, Pastor Enoch Adeboye. To be an MD of a bank at that time, anywhere he was going, I would be there. My testimony was everywhere. He brought me into the full gospel ministry. I was the President of the Ikoyi branch and would give testimony. There was a time we gathered the entire Ogboni member at the Eko Hotel in 1992. They all came with their towel covering (shaki), surrendered their lives to God, and left the cult.
So I will tell those who are still there that you are only wasting your time in the occult, serving the devil. Anybody doing the occult is destroying his life, his today, his tomorrow and wasting heaven.
On the boldness to quit, the Bible says the righteous shall be bold as the lion. They tried to kill me so many times but left after failing in a few months. If you have Christ in you, it will take the devil to kill God the Father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit before they can kill you. The boldness should be more than the lion. I am the CAN chairman for Lagos State, where all manner of Churches congregate. At a time, one old father in the faith told me that I should be reading Psalm 20, adding that I should remember that I am now leading an organization different from the Pentecostal. I laughed and said anybody who tries me will die. They don’t really know me, where I am coming from and what has taken me to be where I am today. There is no power outside the power of God.
Is there anything you would like to amend if given a chance?
One thing I regret is not being in Christ early enough. I got born again when I was 46 years old though I have been a Christian since I was about to leave secondary school. I backslid, grew up and became a rascal, enjoying women and drinks. The money was there, working as an expatriate. If I have to live my life again I would do that in righteousness. I have no material regret. I gave the best to my children. One of the things that give a man of my age joy is what I did for my children in raising them in fear of the Lord. All my children were born in the United States except the last, who was born here. God has been faithful to His word concerning those who trust in Him. I am able to afford whatever I want, I eat and sleep well, and I have no one knocking at my door to make any claims, except you want to give your life to Christ.
Did you ever imagine that Nigerians would get to the stage where people would bomb one another, go into churches and kill?
Baring for the word of God that says we should not engage in vain imaginations, Jesus spoke at length about what we should expect in times like this. In the last days, He said, there shall be all manners of evil, wars, rumours of wars. All these are written. So if I say imagine it, it is within this framework. If you look back at the last 50 years or so, the foundations of these things were laid. Mainly we Christians, we took so many things for granted. When Christianity came into this nation, the foundation was peace, restoration, and growth, and they were well made, and the nation began to thrive on that. But for Christianity, there would be no nation called Nigeria. When Christianity came, we had the African religion, especially in the south. Christianity opened our eyes as southerners, and that was why we had education. So many of us went to school. But soon, the north and south dichotomy came, and problems began.
In the south, so many families were made up of Muslims and Christians. My parents’ generations were hard-core Muslims, even then, we didn’t have problems. There is hardly any part of Yorubaland where you don’t have families populated by both Christians and Muslims. This problem between Christians and Muslims began around the 1970s. It did not start in Nigeria but in places like Pakistan, where they began to preach some strange things from the Quran, which they claim were the original preaching of Prophet Muhammed.
Gradually they began to spread this, and it entered Nigeria in the early 1980s leading to the Maitatsine riots supported by the Gumi people. The rulers of Nigeria at that time were on alert. They were Muslims, and they didn’t want this to happen so they crushed it. But gradually, they lost track, and before we knew it, it had become part of the North. Nobody knew it would ever go to this point, but here we are. The Bible say
I keep wondering why the devil targets Nigeria and the Nigerian Church so much through Islamic insurgents, predications that this nation cannot remain one for too long, etc. Why is Nigeria, and the Nigerian Church on the agenda of the devil?
By the Grace of God, I have worked with some major international financial institutions in the 1970s. And by virtue of my position, I had responsibility for the African region. By the position, I knew many things about how the American banks were syndicating money to countries like Bahrain finding development and infrastructures in these countries. I knew much more about things in these nations. One thing we do in this country which is sad is we take things for granted too much. Nations that are big today don’t take things for granted. When predictions are made about our country, all we say as Christians is we reject it in Jesus’ name. But nations like America will sit down as a nation to examine everything. It gives America power over so many nations. We know how America started. It’s on God. God raised that country to support and fund evangelism all over the world, but they don’t joke with facts. If they hear anything, they will go back and examine it, but Nigerians will say we reject evil reports. I believe that God has a great plan for this country. I believe we will not break up.
What is happening is a strategic way of the jihadist to cripple Christianity because of its rise in the last 30 years. They find out that if they have to cripple Christianity, they have to break up or destroy Nigeria. They see the great advancement Nigerian Christians are making all over the world. Pastor Kumuyi, Adeboye, Adelaja having the biggest ministry in Europe, Ashimolowo, so many of them. Making exploits for Jesus around the world, Nigerian are all over raising the banner of Christ. They hate it. It is not a thing we should take lying low. Christian leaders must come together, but we are not prepared. We take things for granted to much by saying we are praying, we are praying. Jesus said faith without work is death. We just talk. We make noise. We want to be prominent; we want to be known instead of crying to the Lord. Look at the Church today; everyone is building his own empire, not building the kingdom; someone has this I need to have it too. It’s a sad case.
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