If you meet her for the first time you probably find it hard to believe she is the type that would mix with the downtrodden. But her ministry is to young people who live on the street.
Welcome to the world of Dupe Singerr. By age 19, she was through with her first degree at the then University of Ife; did her youth service in Borno State. She subsequently undertook a master’s degree in Mass Communication at the University of Lagos and was among the first set of post-graduate mass communication students of the university.
She lectured at the Nigeria Institute of Journalism and from there moved to Vanguard newspapers where she was a member of the editorial board. She took up several roles in the newspaper house which culminated in editing the famous Mr. and Mrs. Magazine. She then resigned and went into furniture business. She was a furniture maker from 1992 to 2001 when the Lord called her to full-time ministry. She shares her story with Church Times Nigeria.
Tell us about your background?
I was born into a Christian home. My mother, Apostle Prophetess Johanna Omolola Oluranti formerly Ogunranti was a great influence on my life. We were six in the family. My mother was a church planter. She was a mentor to many academicians. She was running a ministry which is still on. It’s an offshoot of the Christ Apostolic Church but it has a lot of university people and educated people as members. My mother was working as a nurse and midwife at the University of Ibadan Health Centre when she started the ministry.
My mother was fashionable and loved the Lord. She knew how to divide the word of truth and was a sincere woman. She preached on television in those days. She was 83 when she died. This is just to tell you the kind of solid faith background that I had.
So when exactly did you come to know the Lord?
Having been born into a strong Christian family it was easy to know the Lord. I knew the Lord while I was in secondary school. I was so zealous for God that I brought many to His kingdom. There were miracles in the school through me and many people said I would be a minister of God. But at a point, I got tired of Church. I decided to go my own way. My solid background as a believer did not matter to me again.
Despite the wonderful spiritual experiences you had?
Yes. I got fed up with Church and decided to run my programme. I got so tired of the church that I had to pray for three days for a husband that will not go to church. The first time I went to a party was when I met my husband. I used to warn my husband after we got married that if he ever became a pastor I would leave him. The devil was targeting me and targeting other children in the family.
So how did you find your way back to God?
I crawled back to the Lord. After I graduated from university I saw the world as my jurisdiction. I lived for myself. Many of my mates were far older than me. When I was 40 my husband gave me a good birthday bash. After everybody had gone I felt lonely and empty. That was when I knelt and traced my way back to the Lord. I saw God’s promises in the book of Isaiah. That spurred me to pray for 40 days, praying for five hours every day. At that time I was going through a big challenge. People left me. I was like a plague and I knew I was on my own. I had to go back to God. God used the challenge to bring me back to Himself. And he accepted me. It was a remarkable experience in my life.
But some people believe Christians can’t backslide?
That is not true. People can get to a state of apostasy where they deny God. But God has a way of continuing His work in a family. It is His mercy that keeps us. Salvation could be a generational thing. Abraham gave birth to Isaac and Isaac gave birth to Jacob. They all continued in the family tradition of faith. So God has a way of keeping his children. Those who have a root in Christ may derail but God has a way of bringing them back to Himself.
So how did you come about ministry work?
I once attended Word of Faith Bible Institute WOFBI and we were taught about the Holy Spirit. I had a dream in the process of this teaching and I was told in the dream that I should take my wares to the street and sell.
By the next day, I obeyed the instruction. The Lord told me I should go inside the bush and create a prayer altar. I would dress flamboyantly and go into the bush and would be praying. The bush was somewhere in Alausa, Lagos in those days. But for the way I was dressed, people thought I was mad. It was during that experience that the Lord told me to rehabilitate youths that are on the street. So usually, I would go to meet them on the street to minister to them and pray with them. We used to meet in unlikely places not necessarily in a church building.
In the course of meeting for prayers in these unlikely places, a young man came to meet us and said he would like to join us. He came, listened to the message and decided to surrender to Jesus. He said he was a bad boy and he came back the next day and said he was a leader of about six armed robbers’ gangs in Nigeria. That was around 2006. He went to bring about 25 others the following day. So I used to have meetings with those boys preaching the gospel to them. But many who saw us around the Alausa area were wondering what prompted me to interact with such boys. There was a police station around the place and I think it’s still there. They investigated our activities and found that we were just a fellowship group. We come to pray and study the word.
You said you prayed for a husband that would not go to Church not to talk of being a pastor. Now, you are the one doing Church. How did you convince your husband to flow with you on this?
I won his heart by submitting to him. That was the key that the Lord gave me to my husband. I told the Lord that he should give me the courage to talk to him. So when I spoke with him concerning the vision of reaching out to youths on the streets he simply said if I was sure that the Lord was the one sending me I could go ahead.
And indeed God proved himself. I did not know the boys I was dealing with had heavy ammunition and were quite notorious. But one of them came to me one day and said the Lord who sent me was real. He said a caterpillar man came to work on the site where they hid the ammunition and that was how their ammunition was destroyed. That was what made them leave what they were doing to join me. Wonderful testimonies came from the boys. One of them who was part of the fellowship has become a lawyer He is now doing very well as a lawyer and has the vision of becoming the governor of his state.
So how did you operate the ministry then?
I was always with those boys all days of the week. The Lord said I should not beg or borrow. I was instructed not to take offerings in our meetings. But I would feed them twice a day. Most of the time the money I got then came from the tithe my children were paying. Whatever they got they would tithe and give it to me. That was how we were running then.
But it sounds odd for somebody of your calibre and more so that you are a lady to mingle with street boys. What was the reaction of people to what you were doing?
People thought I was mad. People said I would be killed, raped and molested. But all that did not happen. I never had a problem with the boys even in the obscure places of Alausa where we had the prayer altar and fellowship.
Perhaps there are testimonies you will like to share?
There was one of those boys called Timothy. They called him Eje meaning blood. There was one day he misbehaved and I slapped him several times. As his boys were trying to hold me from beating him, he said they should leave me. Immediately I was through dealing with him, he prostrated and said to me, “if somebody had slapped me the way you slapped me, I would not have become a bad boy”. He now left a law that day, telling his colleagues, “if I hear that you lay your hands on her, I will kill you.”
Then, we were using an abandoned building for our meeting. There was a time a 25-feet long snake was killed in the apartment. But the snake did not hurt us until it was killed. We were in that building until the owner said he wanted to build it up. So we had to leave.
So how do you operate now?
We operate under trees. We use the Alausa gardens. There was a time we moved to the gardens around ShopRite. We also meet under a tree on Mobolaji Bank Anthony road. We operate basically on the streets. We have had occasions where the rain would fall on us but that has not stopped us from the meeting. The goal is to meet them where they are. I feed the boys during our meetings on Sundays. The number of those who come for the meeting oscillates depending on where we are meeting.
So what are your plans now?
I don’t have plans as it were. I wait on God for direction. When I left the uncompleted building where we were meeting God asked me to go and preach at Iyana Ipaja market. And I preached at the market for six years. That was apart from the meetings under the tree in some parts of Lagos. So, apart from going to church to minister to people, I preach on the streets.
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