His Grace, Archbishop Dike Chukwumaeze Joseph, is the head of the Inter Religious Council in the office of the spokesman of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star Church. He was formerly spokesman of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star from the year 2002 to 2007. Currently, he handles the Missionary Crusade Fellowship, the evangelical arm of Brotherhood of the Cross and Star as the National Chairman and International Vice Chairman. He is also the Director of Evangelism of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star College of Bishops. He recently spoke to us on a viral video of a testimony by one Abasiema at the Pastor Daniel Olukoya-led Mountain of Fire and Miracles church late last year, concerning his “activities” at the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star church which has attracted reactions from Christians and others from all over the world…
His view about the video…
Thank you very much, I have seen the video that was shared and a lot of people have been reacting to it. The man claimed to be Abasiema Olumba Obu, a native of Biakpan in Cross River State of Nigeria. I want to first point out that the name Abasiema is alien to the land of Biakpan. It’s as alien as someone from deep inside Igboland answering Obafemi or Olajide. A name is identical to an environment.
As for Abasiema himself, to my knowledge of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, I have never come across such a person or name in the family of Olumba Olumba Obu. And I must say categorically that the guy is an impostor.
On the concept of the 144 virgins…
Everything in the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star is from the scriptures and in the book of Revelations, it spoke about the origin of the 144 virgins. Rev. Chapter 14:1-6. It says these are the virgins, the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, therefore they are before the throne of God praising Him day and night.
The 144 thousand virgins of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star is the highest order of the priesthood. These are young men and women who have dedicated their lives totally to the service of God. And from the records and evidences at least by the grace of God I have been physically baptized into the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star for 33 years today. I have been privileged in high positions of authority in the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star all through. I have never come across any name like Abasiema Olumba Obu.
On Olumba as Abasiema’s father
(Laughter). Do you know why I laughed? It’s because I know that from the nuclear biological family of our father and leader Olumba Olumba Obu, there are nine children, four men and five women and I will take the privilege to call their names. His Holiness Olumba Olumba Obu, the king of kings and lord of lords, Obu Olumba Obu, Eno Olumba Obu, Emmanuel Olumba Obu. These are the four men in the family. Then the five women are Ibum Olumba Obu, Angela Olumba Obu, Elizabeth Olumba Obu, and Ugonma Olumba Obu. These are the direct children and the ones we in Brotherhood know as belonging to the nuclear family of leader Olumba Olumba Obu.
You can even come to headquarters and talk to people if they have ever heard of any name called Abasiema before in Olumba’s family. And then on this issue of the grandfather, the holy father, Leader Olumba Olumba Obu was born in 1918, that’s a hundred and one years ago. Even now none of us in Brotherhood can claim to know who the biological father of Olumba is.
For many of us Brotherhood is the movement of God’s kingdom on earth. Many of us at different points in time, we were called into the Brotherhood. The Bible never spoke about the father of Joseph because the focus is on the man Jesus Christ and the Brotherhood story begins and ends with Olumba Olumba Obu, so the issue of the grandfather has no bearing here.
On Abasiema as an Angel in the Brotherhood…
With respect to my brothers from other churches, I think it is in places like Celestial church or Aladura that you hear of Angel Michael or Angel Gabriel. In the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, we don’t even understand this issue of angels. The Holy Spirit the comforter is the leader of the Brotherhood and Psalm 82 told us that we are God’s children. Angels are servants of God’s children because angels are servants that minister in the throne of God. Here we are talking of the Lord God almighty and His Christ and the children of God together. So to say he’s an angel of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star is fallacy unless it is not the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star that I happen to be the spokesman at a point in time. But if it is the one I know, it sounds very alien. It is the first time I am hearing about the issue of angels.
On Abasiema’s claim to have visited India…
I was in India from 1981 to 1987 and it was in India in New Delhi on the 11th of January 1986 that I was baptized into the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star. And in the numbers of the first brethren, I am among the first 10.
The earliest baptized members there were Rear Admiral Denison Ere, Okwuchago Alo and his family, he was Nigeria’s ambassador to India then, Mr Sunday Akpoyibo, from Delta State, the then immigration attaché to the Nigerian Embassy, Brother Emmanuel Obayore Ade, who was married to the secretary to the head of delegation of the European Community, Prophet Douglas Aliu, Brother Okoni Iwosu, one brother from Ikare, but before Okoni I think I should be about the 9th or 10th person.
I am talking about 11th of January 1986 and I happen to manage the first Brotherhood of the Cross and Star Bethel established in India for a year before returning to Nigeria. And in all my encounters and records I never came across any human being called Abasiema. If indeed he was a son of Olumba Olumba Obu sent to India as he claimed, if nobody knew him, I must be among the first people that will know him and reverence and honour him as the offspring of the Godhead on earth.
About the names Abasiema reeled out…
Anybody who knows about the demography and linguistic distribution of Nigeria knows that Biakpan people hardly bear the name Sunday. That name Sunday is more homogenized in Akwa Ibom State.
Friday, Sunday, Saturday, Monday, that’s their common names. Even the name Abasiema is more of Akwa Ibom in origin. In Biakpan, they don’t call God Abasi. They call God Suguren. That’s the Biakpan name for God. Abasiema means God’s love its Ibibio. Just like Ifunanyachukwu in Igbo or Ifeoluwa in Yoruba.
The name Sunday does not exist in the father’s family. Even the biological sons don’t have anyone called Sunday. But you know along the line people take up English names. There was a time we called his holiness, Rowland, Obu Olumba Obu was Orlando, Enoh Olumba Obu we call him Fred. But the name Sunday and the other names he is calling about has no bearing in the Brotherhood. I speak in authority and I dare say that I am supposed to know. I will even avail you with my contacts so you or anyone else can come, and we will take you around to see for yourself because the taste of the pudding is in the eating.
Did Olumba prohibit preaching Jesus Christ in Calabar?
The answer to this one is there for you to see. Brotherhood of the Cross and Star has a television station called Star Television. It’s a cable television. On this channel, you will hear the Holy Father himself preach and pray. And each time he prays, do you know how he starts? He begins with “let thanks and praises be given to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let honour and glory be given to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. So if he will pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, then what is the fear again?
Everything he says and does are taken from the holy Bible, the first lesson is taken from the New Testament; second lesson is from the golden text. Our father Olumba told us that he came to compliment the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, to start from where Christ stopped. Remember the Bible told us that He will send us a comforter that will teach us all things.
Christ will not speak anything except in parables. But when the comforter, the teacher comes, he will break down those parables to our own understanding. And his teachings have been developed into 15 volumes called the Everlasting Gospel and each of the Everlasting Gospels is bigger than the holy Bible, expatriating and analyzing in details the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ so that the man on the street no matter your religion, you will be able to understand it.
Brotherhood is not about belief or worship, it’s about practice, that’s why it’s called Christ Universal Spiritual School of Practical Christianity. You see that Christ appears twice, in the beginning and the end. Then if he teaches in the name of Christ, preaches from the Bible, prays in the name of Christ, calls the school Christ Universal Spiritual School of Practical Christianity, how can Brotherhood be against Christ when the leader is enmeshed in the Christ? That’s another falsehood.
On whether Calabar airport authorities collected N46 million from BCS to stop Pastor Olukoya from coming to preach in Calabar…
Abasiema and the Mountain of Fire and Miracle people should help us with that information. And I tell you if that information is made available, we will even help to forward it to the EFCC and ICPC as well as other security agencies. As you well know, Calabar airport is a public property of the federal government of Nigeria designed to enable the ease of movement by air to come in and go out of the zone and I dare say that if it is easy for anyone or organization to buy off the management of the airport, even the president is not safe. The governors are not safe, no visitor from any part of the world is safe, that means they can easily compromise.
People can even buy bombs, settle the management, plant it in the aircraft and people will get blown up in the air. This is an amazing allegation and we are waiting for the Mountain of Fire people to come up with that information because they told us that they are the ones who went to pay.
We will be very happy and pleased if Pastor Olukoya, if he calls himself a true man of God, will bring Abasiema to Leader Olumba Olumba Obu to verify these facts. There will be need also for the entire members of the airport management should be called to answer for compromising the security of the nation.
Does Olumba Olumba Church run a hotel in Calabar?
The Holy Father’s message is about the emancipation of the human soul from the bondage of darkness and doom. I listened to his testimony where he said a man was electrocuted, the food was poisoned and the man escaped.
In Calabar, you can inquire, the only place the Holy Father has is a guesthouse within the Ambo environment, because when people come from all over the world, for security reasons, you cannot make them stay far away and be coming say by 5 o’clock for morning devotion or leave late at night, so we have a guest house called Brotherhood Hotel in front of 34 Ambo and one inside the compound.
And as at the time Abasiema narrated his testimony in the 80s, the Borland hotels have not even come into existence. It came into existence in 2006/2007 because of the demand of the members that are coming from Asia from America, South Africa and other parts of the world. When they come they suffer a lot of inconveniences, some of them get robbed by the local hoodlums when they are coming in for morning devotion, so in order to take care of that he had to provide that guest house which most of the time 90 percent of the clients are Brotherhood of Cross and Star members.
It is not even in the municipal area of Calabar where business activities take place a lot. It is created for their convenience. Most of the off season time, the place is virtually empty md I have never heard of any man of God that has come to Calabar South to stay. Even when Archbishop Idahosa came to Calabar in those days, he didn’t come to Calabar South area. It is a place that was known for endemic violence and crime. But Leader Olumba Olumba set up the headquarters of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star in that environment to prove to the world that he is the king of peace and only him can bring peace and only him can bring security to the area. Since he came to that area, the place has been calm. The father is not into any hospitality business like running hotels, chalets and all.
On the rumoured death of Olumba…
Dead? As in dying? There is a question I want to ask, if minions in the ministry of Christ will pass away and it becomes a public information, can you imagine a personality that has created so much impact on the human factor? We have been confronted with this before we tell them let them come and show us his grave because I have been here for ages. Thirty three years in an institution is not thirty three days and I have been living in the world headquarters since May 2002 to the present day.
If you come to 34 Ambo Street and you say you are looking for Archbishop Joe Dike, you don’t need to talk twice and they will bring you to my office, so when they talk of his death, I wonder. But you know it’s rather unfortunate, pastors of Pentecostal movements, the general overseers of Pentecostal movements in Nigeria act as agents of satan. Because satan is the father of liars and any man who lies is satanic and it is very unbecoming of them to look at a fellowman and wish him to die.
But then we understand the jealousy, Leader Olumba Olumba Obu is not like other church pastors. He is the Godhead personified, the living truth. You know when the Bible spoke of the comforter, Leader Olumba Olumba Obu is that physical manifestation of the spirit of truth, the comforter. But you don’t blame them, our Lord Jesus Christ came and told them that He came to fulfill the will of God as the son of God, they rejected him and crucified him. On the third day when He rose up what happened? The same priests went and bribe the soldiers that they should not tell people that Christ he resurrected. But that did not stop Christ from moving.
Leader Olumba Olumba Obu as I am talking to you, am breathing air of nature with you, is physically in existence but he has done his work so he doesn’t need to show himself to people for them to know that oh, I am Olumba.
Between Brotherhood of the Cross and Star and Pastor Olukoya…
I want to advise Pastor Olukoya particularly and his membership and branches all over the world that they should return back to the true teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. The basis is not character assassination, it’s not wishing death on your members. Personally, I will be bold to say that Pastor Olukoya is promoting satanism. Because Christ says if you are slapped on one cheek, turn the other one. Forgive one another. In Romans 12 from verse 17 it says don’t give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine, I will repay says The Lord.
If your enemy is hungry feed him, if he’s naked clothe him, if he’s thirsty give him to drink. Says that by so doing, you’re heaping coals of fire upon his head. You shouldn’t be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good. Let them teach people love, let them teach people forgiveness, let them teach people righteous life, let them teach people understanding and accommodation. If you say your enemy die, imagine a situation you’re in the church with your father and your mother and maybe your mother offended you hours before and you’re saying my enemy die die and your mother drops there and dies are you not a murderer? But when you forgive, Martin Luther King Junior said one thing, an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind, a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone toothless. You have just two eyes and 16 set of teeth. And if you encountered 32 persons and they extracted a tooth from your mouth, will you not be toothless? If you offend two people, you will go blind. But in forgiveness we coexist.
So let them teach their people the true teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Love, forgiveness, let them be free from sin, let them be free from fornication, adultery, witchcraft, envy, hatred, etc. All these ones they are talking about miracles, magic, signs wonders condemning people and all that, it’s a waste of time. The kingdom of God is not in those things, the kingdom of God is in righteousness, right living, forgiveness, truth and peace. Let them do that and Nigeria will be in peace, Africa and the world will be in peace and the universe will be one and there will be progress and development.
Abasiema’s video is 419…
I believe the pastors of the Mountain of Fire Church lack discernment. If they had discernment, they would have known that Abasiema was a fraud. A 419. And the pastor prodding him to the end means he was part of it. He was the one orchestrating it. Otherwise he wouldn’t be behaving and talking the way he did in that video.
He wouldn’t be saying, ‘when I remember that thing you told me yesterday, and all that’. It means he lacks the spirit of God. He is not qualified to propagate the work of God and if that is what obtains in the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Church, I am sorry to say that both their leadership and members have a very big question to answer before Christ.
-Charles Nwagbara
