Why My Enemies Are After Me..Embattled Pastor Chris Okafor 

 

Embattled Pastor Chris Okafor, the Founder of Grace Nation Global, also known as Liberation City, is in deep pain. Apart from the accusations by some ladies that he abandoned them and married another lady, he bore for years the revelation that two out of his four children from his divorced first wife are not his biological children. 

Worse still, allegations of sleeping with one of his daughters also surfaced. Today, he said he will certainly prove his innocence in court in all cases and stated that all the allegations started coming up when he had finally decided to marry a new wife after staying without a woman for many years. He spoke with a select team of editors in his church at Ojodu, Lagos. Excerpts

In the beginning

“I am Dr. Chris Okafor. By the grace of God, I am the senior pastor and Founder of Grace Nation Global, also known as Liberation City. The ministry started 22 years ago, and the grace of God brought us this far. I came to Lagos after graduating from Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma, Edo state. I was born and raised in Benin city, the then Bendel state. I had my kindergarten, primary and secondary schools there. Then, I went to Ambrose Alli University, where I obtained my first degree. I came to Lagos after that, because of the calling and the gift of God.

“I was born into a Christian family, and there were prophecies that came to my parents before I was born. I happen to be originally the sixth child of my parents, and I have three ladies directly ahead of me. So, I grew in the midst of more of my sisters, three of them directly ahead of me, before I was born. But because there were three ladies, my mom was praying for a male child, because there was some kind of pressure on her, you know the typical African setting and belief on male children.

“A prophecy came to my mother in one of the prayer gatherings they went to, that she was going to have a son and that son would be a prophet, and that he would be mightily used, and that the manifestation would begin from the age of seven. And the prophecy even went as far as telling them the name the Lord gave that child. As soon as that prophecy came to my mother, she became pregnant, and she did not bother going to the hospital to see if this would be a male or female, like the normal things that they go to do. She already believed the word of God from the story they told me, that this is going to be a son. She went to the market and got what they used to believe to be the portrait of Jesus. She would put it in her womb, when she’s sleeping chanting ‘your word says this, prophecy has come that you are going to use this boy, this boy in my womb, I want him to be like you.’

“So, when I was born, I was really very fair. They said I looked like Jesus, just like that portrait. After I was born, they didn’t look for names. They already knew my name. That’s why they called me my Igbo name, Ihechukwu, meaning the light of God, and Christian, meaning Christ-like. Those were the names my parents gave me, added to my surname, Okafor.

Gift of God at a tender age

“I started growing up, where we were all taught to fast and pray. As early as 5am, you hear my father ring the bell, and even if you are three months old, they must carry you, you must join that morning devotion. And after that morning devotion, the next thing is everyone goes to do their morning chores. That was the kind of home I grew up in. I was six years old when the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa of the blessed memory came to have a crusade in a primary school close to our house. As little as I was, I went to that crusade. They were calling those who would give their lives to God. I ran out to give my life to God. That was my first encounter with Jesus. I can’t forget that encounter. I recall when the bishop saw me, he said, “this little boy, ask them to bring you up to the stage”. He laid hands on me and said, “God is going to use you”, like a reconfirmation of what was earlier said. At the age of seven, there was a strong manifestation of the gift from that tender age, that, you know, all that manifestation, prophecies and things that were being revealed, were being confirmed and coming to pass.

“My parents knew from day one what I was going to do. I finished school, and then came to Lagos. Prior to that, nobody from my family or relatives had ever been to Lagos. I didn’t know where I was going. But I just had to go to Lagos. When I got to Lagos, I stopped at Ojota. I did not know where else to go. I saw a grammar school. I went to that school. I begged the security man to allow me to stay in the security post. That was where I lived and early in the morning, after praying I would go out for evangelism before the students woke up. When the students closed from school, I would go back. I was doing street evangelism, praying and ministering to people. Sometimes, I had nothing to eat. I slept in the same room where the security man was sleeping.

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“One day, I met a man called Reverend Chucks Elezie, who was an Anglican priest. He was also a banker at the time. He loved the way I was ministering, doing the work of God. He then took me into his house. At that time he was living in a three bedroom flat with his wife and children. He is now in Canada doing his priestly duty. We are still in touch. In his house, God further continued to manifest and show Himself.

“I recall in those days, every Tuesday, people started coming saying “there’s a young man here that God is using”. So many people were coming to the compound and we were having fellowship and counseling in the compound, every Tuesday. One day, the landlord woke up to see people all over his compound waiting at the gate. He then gave us a quit notice saying we wanted to turn his house into a church. God used one or two people to rent a place for us. Then we moved to start Wednesday and Sunday services. That was how we started. At that Sunday service, we rented only the hall. And then, with what God was doing there, the hall could no longer contain us. We had to start putting a canopy downstairs. So the landlady would come most of the time, lock up the gate shouting, ‘Pastor, I did not give you the whole compound.

“The harassment continued until we got another place and before long we started putting canopies on the streets which became another problem because the people in the streets were also complaining that we were blocking everywhere. When we started the ministry, I was 22 years old and I got married at that age

Police arrest

So, everywhere, people were not happy with what God was doing in our ministry. There were times that they would get the police to come and arrest us, that we were disturbing them. So, that happened several times. It stopped only once when the policeman, a Muslim that was sent to arrest me, came to the Church while I was ministering on the altar. He broke through the security door, came into the church and said ‘Pastor, you are under arrest’. So, while he was saying that, God gave me a word. I said, ‘before you arrest me, God has a word for you. 

Are you not the one that your wife is planning to go and do a fibroid operation because you have been married for nine years and there was no issue’? He now went back, he said, ‘who are you? How did you know this thing you are telling me?’ So, I said, ‘God is going to give your wife a baby boy, if you come here on Sunday with her, but first, you have to give your life to Jesus Christ. He said, ‘What kind of a man are you?’ I said, ‘Are you ready to give your life to Jesus?’ He stretched out his hand and I led him to Jesus. I said, ‘Do you still want to arrest me? He said, ‘no. Who will arrest this kind of man?’ He went back and they asked him ‘why did you not bring the pastor?’ He said ‘no, you can’t arrest that kind of man’. That was how God did that.

“The man truly brought his wife the following Sunday. A demon manifested in her crying, saying all sorts of things and the demon was driven out. The woman went home, she said she saw an angel come to remove something from her in a dream. She woke up in the morning to see something like a fibroid coming out of her. The woman became pregnant and that was how that man and his wife became our members.

Our ministry then grew, we were having testimonies, God was confirming His word and then we exploded. When we moved to this place, we had just one plot and we started building gradually. God helped us and we expanded until we bought everywhere. So, by the grace of God, we own 90% of the property on the streets here. By the grace of God, we have branches, both locally and internationally in different parts of the world.

Kidnap incident

“I recall an incident that happened that the devil wanted to use to slow down the church but God turned it for our good. Like Joseph said, ‘the devil meant it for evil, but God turned it for good’. The incident happened 13 or 14 years ago. I am more of a crusade person. God asked me to reach one billion people. We travelled both in Nigeria and different parts of the world, always having crusades. This time, I went to my state, Anambra. We had a crusade at the capital, Awka. Peter Obi was still the governor at that time. In the morning, we took off for Benin and it was not until 10 minutes after we left the hotel that gunmen opened fire on us. I was sleeping inside the car because I was tired. They were shooting sporadically. The driver was asking what he should do and I asked him to continue moving. I was asking God, is this how I would die? When these gunmen opened fire on us, the driver lost control, and the vehicle tumbled and fell into a ditch. They came there, they were still shooting. I was sitting at the back of the car, Tony, my personal assistant, was sitting beside me. We had a policeman sitting in the front. When they came, they removed the shirt I was wearing, and used our singlets to blindfold us. They put us in the boot of the SUV, and took us to where we didn’t know. That was how the journey of 58 days in captivity started.

When I came out, I was told that our friends, members and some people raised N20 million which they gave to the kidnappers, yet they didn’t release us. It showed the kidnap was beyond just money. God greatly helped preserve me. That was where I met a former Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly. We were both blindfolded. There were about 16 people sleeping on the floor in the same room with only boxers. Everyone must urinate inside the buckets in the room where we are all lying down. It was meant for me to die but we were encouraging each other. We had chains both in our hands and legs throughout those 58 days. On one occasion, they put two of us in the booth where there were lots of arms and ammunition. They went to attack a police station, opened fire on them, they were shooting, and police were shooting back at them. And one thing that came to my mind was, how did we survive? It happened three times. And I saw these guys kill policemen. Whenever we were going, we could hear them communicating and saying ‘we are getting close.’ Those police guys were not aware that these guys were criminals. So, as soon as they were getting close to them, they would open fire on the policemen. They would then go down to take their guns. I recall these guys would come in during the week and would leave by weekend to go and have fun. Some of them were living in South Africa, outside of the East, where they would come back during the week to do their operation.

Kidnappers’ encounter with Jesus

“One of the kidnappers had an encounter with Jesus. He said he saw a man wearing white robe coming to disturb him, to let me go. Three of them had the same encounter. The kidnappers used to carry us in the middle of the night to a far place so that we could speak to our relations on phone. The journey was like from Ojodu to a place as far as Epe, right inside the bush. They would now put on the phone that was taken from us. We would use our own phone to make calls and they would begin to beat us with the back of a cutlass for our people to hear us crying. So, one day around 3am, they woke us up and said, ‘Come, where is your village? I mentioned my village. They said, ‘Okay, today we are releasing you’. They took me to my village and released me. We later paid money for my assistant to be released. While I was there, the story everywhere was that I died in captivity.

“When I came back, I was heavily bearded, I was slim like someone that was malnourished. You could see marks all over my back. My skin was white. I managed to shave and they took me to the hospital, St. Nicholas Hospital. The first person that came to hold a programme there was Bishop Isaac Idahosa. He saw me and he cried. By the time we came out, the entire congregation of the church had scattered. But as soon as we got back, God began to make way for us. It was a near death experience. I saw death face to face but God helped me, kept me and preserved my life. At least, I have gone beyond the age when other boys died in my family. God used me to break those chains and to break that curse. I have passed that age and the biological brother that I have is my younger brother and he has also passed that age, so we thank God.

My case with Doris

“It is all what is going on in Nigeria in terms of regulating the media. There was a time a call came up to regulate the internet. We can all see bloggers are doing and what is going on with the so called influencers. A lot of Nigerians are now suffering for things they do not know about. The elite have money to go to court, but there are lots of people who cannot and before you know it, their image has been tarnished. I will write a review on that matter. If possible, Nigeria can make a law to block the internet. They should enact a law because the bible says ‘God created man in his own image and likeness.’ If somebody destroys your image, you don’t have anything else to do. People cannot just come out and say something without evidence.

Police invitation

Police came out to make their own and said they were looking for me. I am a known person. I come to this church every day. I have never committed a crime since I was born. I have traveled to more than 46 nations on earth. I have never committed crime anywhere. I have no criminal record anywhere and I will not have time to come. Is it not shameful that the police invited me and we gathered information that the Monday I was to go, they had over 50 journalists waiting? On what basis? When that information came, that was why I didn’t go on that Monday. I went on Tuesday when they were not expecting me. That was why they quickly came out to say they invited me, I did not come, and they were just making silly statements. I went there, met with the Deputy Commissioner of Police. He welcomed me. I asked why I was there, whether there was any petition against me? They said I was invited because of the things they saw online. 

What kind of madness is that for God sake? Why can’t you arrest those people, do your investigation, get your evidence, then come and arrest me. What is their interest in this case by publicizing it and saying what they don’t know. That is nonsense. It is madness. What are they looking for? You didn’t get anything. Later you came up to say you have suspended the case because there is no evidence because nobody came forward. There are cases of armed robberies and kidnapping every day in the news. Why have you not gone to look for those people? Why all this rubbish. Then, I concluded there were people behind all of this. I must be the most powerful man in Nigeria to commit this kind of crime and still be walking free. I asked, have you invited those people that made those allegations, and they said no. If you have not invited them, why are you calling me? Maybe it was just to show that you invited the popular man of God or what is all of that for?

What I think was playing out

I always say to people, when the mango is ripe, it will receive stones. Little boys will go and be throwing stones at it. When the mango is ripe, it will attract stone and don’t forget, we will fight against the kingdom of darkness. In this church, God has delivered families, delivered people all around the world. So, we are not ignorant of the devices of the enemy. There is no way the kingdom of darkness will not fight back. If they say all these things about Jesus the master, what do you think will happen to you that are his servants? There are battles that are battles of necessity that must come not because you did right or you did wrong. If you have not heard about me before, if this didn’t happen, you forget about it. People will come to know the truth.

My first wife

I divorced my first wife because I caught her with a man in my house and it was because of my mother that was saying, oh my son, forgive. We were duly divorced. If the allegation about my daughter was true, it would have been in the divorce proceedings. The divorce was carried out in the customary court of Lagos on 18th September, 2014, in suit number ikjcc0172014.

My children

My children will tell you that I have never raised my hand to do anything to them for once. Regarding the allegation of molesting the children, she would have put it out in public domain even when she was making false publications against me. But, she did not. I have never been a molester of my first wife, a Cameroonian, and my children. There are things I cannot say publicly because I want to protect the children. For example, you have four children and you now discovered through DNA that two of them were not your children and you kept it for years. These are the pains I have to bear for many years. I am saying all this for the very first time. Come to think that I, Christ Okafor, would molest my daughter. If any such thing has ever happened, let God kill me and let everything about me be destroyed. It is senseless. There was no way if such a thing happened, she would not say it in court. That shows you where these whole things are coming from. I don’t make noise. I have two degrees. I have a Masters. I have a PhD. So, we are that intelligent. We can’t make noise while others are making noise.

Inheritance

“Do you know that my son was told, ‘now that your father is married, I hope you know that your inheritance will be troubled? Do you see this; you are telling a 17- year -old boy that his inheritance will be troubled. The boy began to keep malice with my new wife. I picked that up by the spirit. I said, come, is it because they told you about inheritance? Let me make it clear to you, you don’t have inheritance. Where we come from, we don’t believe in inheritance. Every child rises up to walk, that I did not get a single inheritance from my father. The only thing I got from my father was that he blessed me the day I was leaving for Lagos saying that it shall be well with me. My father is still alive at 105. My mother is 81.

“Let me go a bit further. I have a record where I spoke with the one in Canada. I said, Chinyere, this thing your sister went to say, did it ever happen? She said no sir. I asked, “Have I molested you before, have I touched you in any way before? She said, ‘no’. I asked again, “what of your sister? She said:”I am just tired. I don’t understand.” I said that your sister, the one that called Very Dark Man,VDM, the one that had her face blurred, put her on the phone. You know the whole thing, if you watch; this is a woman who has told me consistently, I will pull you down. I will destroy the ministry”.

“From the beginning, the whole thing was that, if I tell people this, they will not go to his church again. The church will scatter. As soon as she gave the phone to Amarachi, the one that went to VDM, I asked her, “Amarachi, you went to verydarkman and told him ‘what my father used to do to us before he climbed the altar’. I always get to the church before them. I also asked her, have I ever molested you? She said, ‘no’. I asked her, ‘have I ever touched you? She said, ‘no, let’s forget about this. It is past tense.” I then said, you have to tell the people the truth. She said no, she can’t do it. She also said

that she was fighting for her sibling. I asked which of your sibling” Did such a thing ever happen to Chinyere who is still in my house? She said no. She further said she was fighting for Precious, the one that spoke on audio. I asked what happened to her. She said when we were living together, she came to my room one day, I touched her and that she started shaking and when she started shaking, I left her. What sense does that make? When my pastors asked her why she was lying, she said she was not happy because I did the wedding but did not invite her. I have the records of these conversations. We will present them in court.

“Now let me show you something. This whole thing was to collect money from me. I stood my ground. Did you know later, the one they call Verydarkman sent a message on my whatsaapp making monetary demands which he itemized as money meant for the school fees and upkeep of my children? Look at the message he sent on the 25th December, 2025 demanding the remaining school fees for my daughters. They were demanding N3.7 million for the remaining school years, the so-called Precious school fees, N3.7 million, accommodation N1.4 million. How can the one molested be demanding school fees from a molester? Something is not adding up. Then he said I should pay school fees of $10,000 for the one in Canada, pay $47,000 for accommodation, $10,000 allowance and $500 bringing the whole demand to $57,500. The one that VDM blurred her face demanded N6.4 million accommodation. By the time we put this entire thing together, both the value of the dollar in naira, we are having almost N70 to N80 million naira. Why did somebody that did all these not go to police to report the case as a social crusader to bring me to justice? But, you are sending this thing for me to pay money. Does the world know this? That’s why we are taking them to court. The whole thing is to collect money. These demands were not made all this while until I got married.

“I will advise people, don’t marry by submission. If you want to marry, as a man, you must be up to 30 years old because you don’t really know what you are doing as a man. When you are marrying, remember that the bible said, ‘for this reason, the man should leave his father and mother and live together with his wife. The two shall become one.” Now, I am a man. I am enjoying my marriage because I married a good wife. I married a woman that the Lord has actually made for me. In this whole thing, she was even the one encouraging me more and stood by me.