Personality in Focus
Food for Living: The Man, Ebuka Obi
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
The man, Ebuka Obi, means several things to different people. To some, he is an evangelist, prophet and man of God, while to others, he is the controversial prophet. Some others see him as the Elijah of our time, just as many others call him our daddy in the Lord. But because he is regarded as a prophet, he is called so many names with many of the names reflecting the numerous anointing gifts and talent God has bestowed on him. Again, some of his ardent followers see him as the son of Omecharafancha, Okworuhancha and Ohuruhancha. What these three different names suggest is that the prophet is the son of the God that does everything, says everything and sees everything.
Evangelist Ebuka Obi is an uncommon man of God, who has transformed many lives, families and businesses. A man, whose humility speaks volumes. A man, who will for no reason at all ascribe honour to himself, but consistently honours God through whose power he affects people. And of course, no one has ever had an encounter with Evangelist Ebuka Obi and remains the same.
In a society littered with many ‘fake’ prosperity-pastors, who also wear the fake toga of anointing, and claiming many names such as healing ministers, prophets, trained and ordained pastors and men of God, the interesting thing about Evangelist Ebuka Obi is that he was called and ordained to be a prophet right from his mother’s womb. He would always say, he never attended Bible School, and that he was not trained to be a pastor, evangelist or minister by anybody. According to him, whatever he is doing started when he was eight years old.
The big question therefore, is who is Evangelist Ebuka Obi? Evangelist Ebuka Obi, is a Nigerian Catholic preacher, prophet and the Founder and Spiritual Director of Zion Prayer Movement Outreach (ZPMO), a non-denominational prayer ministry, located at Ago-Okota, Lagos, Nigeria.
His ministry is said to have grown to 170 branches worldwide. He is also the founder of Seraphic Home Foundation which caters for poor people and widows, and facilitates payment of school fees for indigent students.
In 2009, Obi founded the Zion Prayer Movement Outreach in Lagos. Not intending it as a church, he refuses to collect tithes, perform baptisms, weddings, or bazaars. He also welcomes everyone of any religion to the prayer ground.
A little background story about Evangelist Ebuka Obi. According to Evangelist Ebuka, his mother was barren for eleven years, and she cried to God like Hannah did begging God if he gives him a son, she will dedicate him to God and as God will have it, God blessed her with twins (two boys). According to Evangelist Ebuka Obi’s mother, when she was pregnant, she was in a trance and she heard a voice telling her she will give birth to two boys and the second child will be called Chukwuebuka, which means God is great. She was also told God will use him to deliver his people who have been held in bondage.
Truth to the message she received, when Evangelist Ebuka was born, there was no single hair on his hair. As a matter of fact, he started hearing from God when he was eight years old. According to Evangelist Ebuka Obi, when he was a little boy pregnant women would ask him what about the gender of their child and his response would be unmistaken true. Even in primary school, he always tells his teachers what will happen, and his answer is always accurate. In some cases, they do consult him, and his response was unmistaken.
According to Evangelist Ebuka Obi, he always preaches the word of God in his village until one day his father felt uncomfortable with this preaching because he felt he was doing too much. He tried to stop, but Reverend Fr. Luke Odinkemere advised me not to discourage Evangelist Ebuka Obi from preaching the word of God. He further told him, God will use Ebuka Obi to set free his people and families who have been held in bondage.
Revered Father Luke Odinkamere was seen as the spiritual leader who groomed Evangelist Ebuka Obi to be the man of God he is today. Rev. Father Luke Odinkemere normally takes Evangelist Ebuka Obi to do deliverance on families and perform exorcisms, because even as a little boy, Ebuka Obi has an uncommon ability by the grace of God to locate buried diabolical objects, which Father Odinkemere verified through digging.
At the age of 12, Reverend Fr. Luke Odinkamere took Evangelist Ebuka Obi to the altar to make a vow. These vows included commitments to remain chaste until marriage, stay within the Catholic Church, and avoid being driven by materialism. As a result, Ebuka Obi was careful to uphold this vow, even avoiding interactions with women, including his sisters. These three covenants according to Evangelist Obi he has kept them.
There’s no doubt no matter how good someone is, he must surely have detractors who would like to see his downfall, and this is where the enemies of progress converge to discuss Evangelist Ebuka Obi. of course, what do you expect, it is the man with the ball everyone is attacking. If you are nothing, nobody will talk about you. According to Bill Cosby, “the only way to avoid criticism is to say nothing, do nothing and be nothing”. It’s not possible for anyone to be in this world without saying anything, doing anything and being nothing.
Even Jeus Christ was not accepted in his town. It’s said, a prophet is not honored in his home. These ungrateful people won’t see the great work this great man is doing; they will look for any slight opportunity to paint him black. Some say he’s a making up prophecy, some say all his preaching is centered on sex, some say he’s not polished and civil the way he preaches and speaks to people.
Even Catholic Priests, Pastors and other ministers of the gospel are not left out. This set of preachers are personally pained because of the anointing on Ebuka Obi, while some Catholic congregations are not happy simply because they don’t know where his powers come from. For instance, some catholic priests and the laity would like the ministry to be managed by the church. Some of them are not happy with his style of preaching, but Evangelist Ebuka Obi has always said he’s a radical preacher. He described himself as an end time preacher, who preaches what other men of God are afraid to preach because they feel they will lose members.
But on the contrary, in Zion Ministry, the more Evangelist Ebuka Obi preaches against social vices and immorality, the more he attracts members to his ministry. Evangelist Obi always says the reason why people come to Zion is simply because of the anointing. After all, he’s not the most educated, but because he has what many people don’t have, they are attracted by the anointing on his head.
In our society, it’s easy to see people accusing and criticizing people, but they find it hard to appreciate or acknowledge the good work of the person. Anyone who has encountered Evangelist Obi can testify he’s indeed a gifted prophet who was ordained from the womb. His prophecies are 100% correct. He will always say, I don’t say what I don’t hear from God. indeed he’s blessed with the gift of healing, singing, preaching, vision and prophecy.
I have personally experienced his blessings spiritually and physically. I had the opportunity of presenting my two books and proposal to him and he prayed for it. I saw the hand of God upon the book and the program when my proposal was accepted by one of the New York City Department of Correction in New York. It may interest you to know that I have been working on this program for the last 5years, and have experiences of near success syndrome, but it took Evangelist Ebuka Obi one minute to lay his hand on the proposal, and the rest is history.
One may be wondering how he has been able to maintain and grow big like an institution, he always says he lives a life of sacrifice. According to Evangelist Obi, he barely sleeps two hours every night, rarely eats nor takes alcohol. He lives a life of sacrifice because according to him, it takes sacrifice to get to the top, but it takes a greater service to remain at the top.
I don’t really know if there’s any negative part of Ebuka Obi, if at all there’s any, it’s the fact that he’s too kind to a fault. Here’s a man who has built orphanage homes, Seraphic hospitals, sponsored hundreds and thousands of pupils and students in High School (secondary schools) and colleges. Here’s a man who has reconciled families and supported the less privileged. Where are we going to start from? Evangelist Ebuka Obi is a selfless man of God. He derives joy seeing people and being converted to God. There are numerous testimonies of his philanthropic gifts to those in need. Sometimes, I wonder if some of his haters don’t see how he’s restoring marriages and restoring families that have been held in bondage.
Just to let you know how authentic Evangelist Ebuka is, when he gives a prophecy, he’s so specific that he’ll call the subject’s name, date of birth, and an unmistaken specific incident that will give one a clear example of the case being mentioned.
What I don’t really understand is why some people will say he’s a ‘fake’ man of God; but each time I hear such ridiculous statements, the statement by Abraham Lincoln always comes to my mind, “you can deceive some people sometime, but you can’t deceive everyone at the same time”. The healing of Professor Arinze Chinwuba of the Anambra State University in which he threw away the double crutches which aided him to walk and the testimony of a former member of the National Assembly (Nigeria), Hon. Dr. Uche Nwole, endorsing the validity of Obi’s miracles, oppose accusations that some miracles performed at the Zion ministry may be faux. These are verifiable information.
How can one man make people travel all over the world on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis just to attend his programs. I have been privileged to attend some of his programs in Nigeria and Ireland, and I can personally testify to the goodness of God upon his life. I saw people healed instantly.
I can go on and on to speak about this great man of God, but as a sage would say, ‘a word is enough for the wise’.
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the founder of Gloemi. He’s a Transformative Human Capacity and Mindset coach. He is also a public speaker, youth advocate, creative writer and author of Design Your Destiny Design and Unleash Your Destiny . He can be reached via info@gloemi.com
Japanese stage and film actor Tatsuya Nakadai, who starred in a string of Akira Kurosawa classics, including the lead role in Ran, has died at the age of 92, his acting school announced on Tuesday.
Nakadai first rose to fame in Japan and internationally under director Masaki Kobayashi, who cast him in his epic anti-war trilogy The Human Condition in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
His acting school, Mumeijuku, did not disclose when Nakadai died or provide further details.
Nakadai had a walk-on role in Kurosawa’s 1954 classic Seven Samurai, but later effectively replaced Toshiro Mifune as the famed director’s leading man after Mifune went his own way.
He played the main protagonist in Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980), which won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Nakadai also portrayed the doomed warlord who divides his kingdom among his sons in Ran (1985), Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear.
One of his former students, Koji Yakusho, won Best Actor at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival for his role in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days.
Nakadai continued performing until recently, appearing this year at a theatre in the Noto region, which was still recovering from a deadly earthquake that struck on New Year’s Day last year.
AFP
American scientist, James Watson, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), has died at the age of 97.
Watson, alongside Francis Crick, identified the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, a discovery that transformed biology and medicine. Their work, which revealed how genetic information is stored and transmitted, earned them and Maurice Wilkins the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
“We have discovered the secret of life,” they said at the time.
His death was confirmed by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York, where he spent much of his career. Watson led the institution for decades before stepping down as chancellor following controversy over his remarks on race and sex.
Watson’s reputation declined sharply after comments he made suggesting genetic differences in intelligence between races. In a 2007 interview with The Times, he said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa”, adding that “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not really.”
He later apologised “unreservedly”, but the remarks cost him his position at CSHL. In 2019, further comments linking race and intelligence prompted the lab to strip him of his remaining honorary titles. “Dr. Watson’s statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science,” the laboratory said in a statement.
DNA was first discovered in 1869, but its role as the genetic material in cells wasn’t confirmed until 1943. The molecule’s structure remained unknown until Watson and Crick built their model, using X-ray images produced by Rosalind Franklin at King’s College London images reportedly obtained without her consent.
Though Franklin died in 1958, she is now widely credited for her crucial role in solving the DNA structure. At the time, however, her contributions were largely overlooked.
Watson also drew criticism for sexist remarks in his 1968 memoir The Double Helix, where he commented on Franklin’s appearance. Despite this, some former colleagues noted that he supported women scientists at Harvard in the 1950s and 60s, when few others did.
In 2014, feeling isolated from the scientific community, Watson sold his Nobel medal for $4.8 million. The Russian buyer later returned it to him.
Born in Chicago in April 1928, Watson was the son of Jean and James Watson, descendants of English, Scottish, and Irish settlers. A gifted student, he entered the University of Chicago at 15, where he became interested in X-ray diffraction, a key technique in revealing atomic structures.
Watson later studied at Cambridge University, where he met Crick and began building models of DNA. After their discovery, he joined Harvard University as a biology professor.
He and his wife, Elizabeth, had two sons. One was diagnosed with schizophrenia, inspiring Watson to continue research into the genetic basis of mental illness.
In 1968, he became director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, transforming it into a leading global centre for molecular biology research, the same institution that later confirmed his death.
The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Adron Group, Aare Adetola Emmanuelking, KOF, has commended the Oyo State Government for its bold reforms in the real estate sector, describing the state as a land of “history, enterprise, and endless possibilities.”
Aare Adetola remarked while delivering a goodwill message titled “The Real Estate Called Oyo State” at the 2025 Oyo State Real Estate Conference, held in Ibadan.
The event, themed “Real Estate and Economic Development in Oyo State: Strategies for Success,” brought together top real estate developers, government officials, and investors to discuss strategies for improving housing delivery and driving economic growth in the state.
Organised by the Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Housing and Urban Development in collaboration with the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN), the conference highlighted the need for policy stability, public-private partnerships, and innovation in real estate development.
In his address, the Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to transparency and investor confidence through the digitalisation of land records (OYOGIS), improved urban planning, and major infrastructure upgrades across the state.
He also cited the passage of the Oyo State Land Control and Administration Bill, 2023, and the establishment of the Anti-Land Grabbing Task Force as key reforms curbing land disputes and promoting sustainable property ownership. Ogundoyin praised major developers such as Adron Homes and MKH Properties for their role in boosting investor trust in the Oyo property market.
In his goodwill message, Aare Adetola Emmanuelking applauded the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde, FNSE, for maintaining consistency in land policies and governance structures, which he said had continued to attract serious investors to Oyo State.
He recalled that Adron Homes made its foray into Ibadan nearly a decade ago based on the state’s stable policy environment, a decision that has since yielded impressive results. He, however, urged the state government and future administrations to ensure policy continuity, warning that inconsistency could derail the progress already achieved.
The conference ended with a collective resolve by stakeholders to deepen collaboration between the public and private sectors, strengthen regulatory transparency, and create a business environment that will make Oyo State a model for real estate investment in Nigeria.
