Embattled founder of Genesis Global parish of Celestial Church of Christ, Prophet Oladele Ogundipe has given a rundown of his trajectory in the Christian faith. He recalled his early years and how he became a member of Celestial Church of Christ.
He also talked about the recent alleged fraudulent dealings with the UK based Mrs Olaide Williams-Oni.
Ogundipe bared his mind in a zoom interview on Saturday, April 17 monitored by Church Times.
The interview was conducted by Mr. Ifedayo Olarinde also known as Daddy Freeze.
Prophet Ogundipe: I was born a Muslim
Prophet Ogundipe was born to Muslim parents and was named Wasiu at birth. He said he became a Christian when his parents got converted and joined Christ Gospel Apostolic Church.
It was in the CGAC that he experienced being a Christian for the first time. But it became difficult for his parents to continue going to the church when they moved to Alakuko, an outskirt of Lagos from Oshodi.
His parents were extremely poor. The poverty situation according to him was so bad that his mother was once mocked for wearing just one cloth for four years. “Somebody in fact said to my mum in pidgin English that Na she dey pray pass, na she poor pass. That statement touched me,” he recalled.
He said one day however that he stumbled on one Prophet Femi Soyoye a Shepherd in the Paradise Parish of the CCC. Soyoye showed him so much love and affection.
“Since this man showed me, love, I decided to start attending the church and was also playing instrument for them. I also reasoned that it’s better to be part of the church because there won’t be any concern about cloth. They only wear one cloth on Sunday. Everybody is the same. Nobody will know who could not afford to change clothes,” he said.
That was the beginning of his sojourn in the Celestial Church. “Initially I was sceptical of the church because of the stories I have heard. But I later found out that this particular parish of CCC was not doing the rituals some CCC churches were known for.
“They were not going to bath in the stream and many other things common with some other Cele Churches. That encouraged me to stay with them. The only difference is the way they pray. So, when they pray in a celestial way, I would pray in the Christ Gospel Apostolic way that I have been used to.”
He recalled how Prophet Soyoye would bless him with a sum of N10 then after church every Sunday. It was in that CCC that he gave himself to fasting, prayer and reading of Christian materials saying however that he never prayed to be a shepherd.
My friends mocked me
Ogundipe recalled how he was mocked by his friends years back because many of them got admission. But he was the only one around in the neighbourhood.
He had no option but to give himself to fasting and prayers. It was in the course of his regular spiritual exercise that he began to manifest healing and prophetic gifts. He soon became a blessing to people around him.
With time, he had the leading to start his own ministry around the Year 2000. It was not long that he began his ministry that he started having issues with the authorities of the CCC. “I started having issues with the CCC around 2004 because I would not do what many of them do.
I value humanity more than religion
“I believe the money of the church is not mine. I value humanity more than religion. I don’t go to the stream for a bath as is common in some CCC churches and I have had cause to preach against some of the rituals that are done in some CCC. I guess that is why some of them don’t like me.”
He said he once turned down a car gift worth N18million because he found out that the owner said he was led to give him against his earlier wish to sell the car and bless members of his extended family.
“I discovered that the initial intention of the man was to sell the car which he brought from the US and use the money to settle some members of his family. Since he could not get a buyer, he decided to give me saying he was led by the holy spirit to do so. I rejected the gift. I told him the holy spirit could not have led him to do that.
“I had to pray for him to get a buyer and he got a buyer a few days after and he used the proceed to settle his family members as he had intended. When the family members heard what I did, they all came to our church. Many of them still attend our church till date,” he said.
Ogundipe and Mrs Olaide Williams-Oni
The CCC prophet who was recently released from the Correctional Centre having been found guilty of an alleged case of fraud against one Mrs Williams-Oni said he met Williams in 2000.
That was around the time he began Genesis Global.
“She was my friend. We had a relationship. She was a blessing to my life. I was the one who encouraged her to buy properties because she was always staying in a hotel when she used to come to Nigeria.
“She came when I had no one to bless me. She was known around me. But I never knew she was in a relationship already in the UK. It was somebody who gave me the hint. I had to find a way of breaking the relationship with her when I learnt she was in a relationship already.”
While insisting that her erstwhile lover was never a bad person, Ogundipe said it was the vulnerable situation he found himself then that made him gravitate towards her. He added however that his spiritual mentor also counselled him not to continue the relationship.
“I was advised to marry another woman and that she will leave me if she sees that I am married. Which I did. Before I married, she kept denying that she had a relationship saying how could she be in a relationship and I would be talking to her in the night almost every day. I did not know her husband was on a permanent night in the UK. That was why she had the opportunity to call and talk with me.”
Ogundipe said further that Williams-Oni who desperately wanted to marry him was planning a divorce of her husband urging him to wait for the process to be through. But then, Ogundipe would not take the gamble.
He said the war started when it was clear they were not going to marry.
“I began to receive threats from police and was invited severally to the police station. There was a time I was taken to court right after the church service. I have not denied that I bought the properties for her with her money.
“All the landed properties I bought for her are still intact. They have all appreciated in value. The one I bought for N400k is worth N15million now. The land is still there and many others. I have been protecting the land. Unfortunately, things have turned the way it is now.”
Ogundipe: I was in prison in 2009
The CCC prophet said he once spent one month in prison on this matter in 2009. He said however that the recent prison experience was God’s making.
“When I first spent one month in prison, then I was not known like this. I told God that I would do prison ministry if he delivered me. He delivered me, but I forgot to carry out what I promised.
“So, this time around, I believe God made it possible so I could fulfil my purpose. My going to the prison was a blessing in disguise,” he said.
While disclosing that he never went to any university or polytechnic, he said, “I have only been to the university of adversity. God has not promised us that that we will not go through fire; He has only said He will be with us when we pass through the fire. I have learnt from experience in life”
Williams-Oni according to him, “came to cover my nakedness before the table turned. She was a blessing to me in several ways. She was the one who roofed my father’s house, though I built another one for him before he died. She was known to me. But I was surprised when she said in court that she never met my mother before until we started showing pictures.”
Prophet Ogundipe said his family name was initially Sanyaolu before it was changed to Ogundipe his father’s own name. He was released from prison on April 1.
Case, now in Court of Appeal
The fraud case is now in the Court of Appeal, He stated however that God has been good to him.
He said he had thought Mrs Williams-Oni would be the one to facilitate his overseas travels in early 2000 noting however that the letters of invitation she wrote then were never honoured at the embassy.
“Now I travel to the US and UK and the people inviting me, pay for a first-class ticket for me. I look at myself sometimes in the plane and wonder at the mercy of God and the grace of God upon my life. What I thought I could not achieve now fall on my lap.”
Read also: My battle in Celestial Church of Christ-Bukola Adejinmi :https://churchtimesnigeria.net/celestial-church-bukola-adejinmi/