Born in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State over 50 years ago into a Muslim family, Isa El Buba grew up a fundamentalist with extremist training in Nigeria and abroad.
All that changed in1983 when he was converted to Christianity. Now a prominent prophet, the Founder/President of Evangelical Bible Outreach Ministries International, Jos, Plateau State, hosted NEWS EDITOR, Ajibola Abayomi, at the headquarters of his church, where he told the story of his journey in Christendom, how he escaped nine assassination attempts and foretold the future of Nigeria.
When you talk about your fundamentalist background are you referring to that similar to Boko Haram?
We laid the foundation for it. If you read the book I wrote in 1994, you would note the areas where I had my training. You would discover that these are the strongholds of the Boko Haram sects today. I wrote the book in 1994 when Boko Haram was not in existence.
The world got to know about Boko Haram in 2009. What I am trying to say is that those places where I had my boxing, guerilla and Man o’ War training are Boko Haram bases today.
We were told that it was an ideology based on the extreme teaching in Islam by our scholars. My father is a devoted Muslim and is about 104 years old now. Then I believed in Prophet Mohammed (SAW) but I never believed him as the messiah. It was a culture and lifestyle until Jesus Christ appeared to me. I had a face-to-face encounter with Christ.
What does He look like?
Glorious, Jesus does not look like an American. He looks like somebody from the Middle East. He was brown in colour. His eyes were blazing. That was the thing that made me surrender to Him because, in His face, you could see love.
What specific instructions did He give to you?
He showed me heaven and hell. He took me there. I saw the people who taught me extreme faith in hell and some of my relations. There was no compulsion when I submitted to him.
Where is the way to hell or heaven on earth? Can you still recollect the place you journeyed through when you met Christ?
No, not like that. After a man dies, he faces the direction to which he will follow according to his deeds on earth. If it is heaven, you go to eternity and if it is hell, you go there. After a man dies, the judgment begins, according to the scriptures.
How did you meet your wife? Was she a Muslim and you got her converted?
She is from the southern part of Borno State, which is a Christian dominated area. She was one of my disciples and a member of my church. When I wanted to get married, God spoke to me about her and said: “This is your wife”. Actually, I never wanted to get married.
I wanted to live like Apostle Paul in the Bible by being single to do the work of the Lord because I know the danger of getting married. I don’t look at faces. I do not compromise.
By getting married now, have you compromised?
No, it has to do with God. He gave the instruction that I should go ahead and He gave me the grace. I got married about 20 years ago.
We have been following your predictions over the years, how do you come about those pronouncements?
It is a divine connection. Actually, it is not natural. Before the year comes to an end, God would call me and talk to me the way we are talking now about what will happen in the new year and I would be writing them down point by point. When the Lord revealed to me what would happen in Rivers State, all was well before the political storm erupted.
Prophecy is a divine message to help you do the right thing. It is not to make you do what you are not expected to do. When the Lord told me Governor Rotimi Amaechi would make some pronouncements that would heat up the polity to the point that he was going to be impeached, I told the nation about it. The reason for the prophecy was for people to put themselves in the right perspective beforehand. When the Lord spoke to me about the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) crisis last year, everything was normal.
How do you feel when your predictions come to pass?
Number one, I give glory to God. Again, it tells us that there is hope. God does not leave us without a witness. The greatest thing that can happen to a family and a nation is to have someone that would tell them about the evil things to come and warn them ahead of time. If people listen to him, they would be guarded and if they don’t, they will face the consequence.
The Israelites failed and succeeded based on their relationship with the prophets God raised for them at different times. In the Bible, God said: “I will give you a shepherd that is after my heart.” No matter your expertise or profession, you cannot do well without the right shepherd from God. If the right shepherd from God is over your life, everything around you is going to change in terms of your finance and economy, because the person is not looking at your face or enticed by your material worth.
That is why I am able to look into peoples’ eyes and tell them the truth no matter what. The other thing is that it pains me when I see somebody heading towards the pit. I groan in pains before God for Him to have mercy on the fellow. Human beings can be very stubborn and it is not until they are whipped before they retrace their steps back to God.
What is God telling you about the future of this country?
What I see about Nigeria is great. God is interested in this country. He was involved at the beginning when the nation was named. God proclaimed Nigeria as a nation.
But it was the wife of Sir Lord Laggard that named the country Nigeria?
No, God was involved in Nigeria’s formation. Look at it critically; the South and the North belonged to different nations, but it pleased God to fuse us into one nation. Nigeria is going to salvage a lot of things in the world before the coming of Christ. Nigeria is going to be a place of hope for the universe.
Economically, this nation is going to be the superpower of the world. What we are going through now is a process that would prepare us for a great revival and a turnaround.
The process of transformation includes the wiping out of all unclean things before the appointed time. In one day, God can raise a nation.
As a young man, was there no time you felt overwhelmed by the weight of the spiritual power in you?
It may surprise you that I am above 50. What did God tell Jeremiah? Jeremiah looked at himself as being too small to carry out the message of God and God said: “It is not by power nor by might, but by my spirit.” If not for God, how would I have escaped nine assassination attempts? How would I have survived shooting from a close range and still be alive? It is through the supernatural power of God.
Where were you treated when you were shot?
The bullet did not enter me. You want to treat me for what? The bullet did not enter me.
So, how did you manage to escape when the assassins surrounded you?
I was surrounded by gunmen on my way to Maiduguri, my home town. I was warned not to come but I stubbornly went because that is the place of my birth. I cannot be intimidated because I am not a coward. I was never raised to be a coward. I was raised as a militant but now a militant of Lord, Jesus Christ.
I went to see my people and to strengthen the church because the church there was going through persecution. The pastors there were being killed and the assassins surrounded me with their guns, but the Lord had His way. We won’t run away and we shall never be tired of preaching the gospel despite the persecution.
The crisis in Plateau State has persisted, you are there as the prophet of God, what is He telling you like the way out?
There is always a period in the history of mankind that turbulent times take place for things to take shape. You have the time of storm and calm and a stage where everything would fall in line.
It has to happen in one’s life otherwise the glorious hour would not come. These things shake every nation for them to know that on their own they cannot succeed without God and that unrighteousness does not profit a nation. These things are happening to take the people away from unrighteousness and make everything fall in line by reawakening them.
Do you know that the crisis has suddenly reawakened the economy of Plateau State? People that were not into certain businesses before have suddenly found their way into them and they are excelling.
You can see the traffic in the state. That was not there before. You can see development all over. Take a look at the indices; you would observe that Plateau State is the safest state in the whole of Northern region.
Are you saying God is using the blood of Christians as cleansing for the North?
Well, we are paying the price for it. It costs the blood of somebody to bring about change. The book of Revelation says “We overcame by the blood on the lamb and by the word of restitution,” but they do not spare their lives, and that was what happened. We did not run away.
We decided to stay even at the point of death. The blood of innocent souls is going to cry for justice. In the North now the security task force has come up and the Boko Haram units are being dislodged and their leaders are being arrested. It is the blood of the martyrs that are crying for justice. The North is going to rise again.
God told me that the North brought the problem to Nigeria and the same North would solve the problem. The region is going to be a major force that Nigeria would lean on.
What do you think is the way out of the Boko Haram problem?
I have given the way out before now. I said it in 1994. I also talked about it in 1983 when I became a Christian. At that time, the solution was simply because, in places where we were having our centres when I was a Muslim, we were insisting on the Islamisation of Nigeria.
One of the ways is what the government is doing right now. Another way is to establish a farm. You see, the al-maajiri thing is not as simple as you think. You can imagine when 100 of Boko Haram members are killed, they manifest in thousands again.
The farm would also serve as a camp where they would be taught by teachers that are really “civilised.” Then the al-maajiris would be taught the right approach to life by that arrangement.
We have never heard about Christianisation of any country, does that mean the Christian faith doesn’t bother about getting other people converted?
Christianity was never founded on force or coercion. It depends on the leader. Christ is soft. If I am aggressive, majority of my followers would be aggressive. That is why nations rise and fall based on the type of leaders in charge. We are suffering in the northern part of Nigeria today because of the selfishness and the nature of the leaders we have.
They keep amassing the wealth of the people to themselves and keep giving the masses peanuts instead of developing them. The same thing with faith. Jesus came with a simple gospel of the kingdom and gives you the choice to choose but that is not the case in Islam. If you check history, how did North Africa Islamise the nations? How did Islam come to Saudi Arabia? How did the Uthman Dan Fodio movement get into Nigeria? If you study history, you would note that the invasion of the Fulani in some communities in Nigeria was following a scripted pattern.
Those who didn’t want to submit to the will of Allah were slain as enemies, but in Christianity, there is nothing like that; there is freedom. At the end of the day, it is God that will judge and I trust Him.
We have what is called Islamic militancy, which is the fundamentalist, and Islam, which is the peaceful aspect of the religion, for those who really desire Allah.
They are the moderate Muslims but the extremists see them as conformists and attack them, calling them pagans. They believe they are palling with the Christians and are not following the dictates of the Quran. In the North, politicians encouraging Boko Haram are the ones pushing for the destruction of the region by paying the attackers to visit further violence on the people because they want to actualise their teachings and doctrine.
We have had pronouncements from men of God that there is going to be a revolution in the country soon. Do you see that happening?
The hand of God is upon Nigeria and He is going to judge everyone whether you are Muslim or Christian. He loves this country and He is going to shake the nation down to its foundation through cleansing at His own time.
Do you still preach to the people in your state?
I do. I was excommunicated. I have survived nine assassination attempts but today the story is different. Both Muslims and Christians in my family are now one. We eat and share a bond together. Before now, Christ’s name could not be mentioned in my father’s house. Today, he has given his blessing for that to happen.
Did he ever regret rejecting you when you accepted Christ?
Yes, he did because he did the rejection out of ignorance. That is why we must understand one another. There is going to be a turnaround in this nation soon.
The economy of the North is being destroyed. Is there any hope that God will intervene?
Certainly, He will. Check the history of great nations like America and Great Britain. They were developed by Quakers Movement that came up in England at a point when the economy was down and people were giving their daughters out for prostitution. They were the puritans who developed the systems because of their faith in Christ. They were the ones that developed Britain and that is going to happen in Nigeria.
You are putting up a 12-storey building in Jos. Is that part of the traffic you are talking about?
That is a place where people would come from all over the globe to worship God. Remember, God, said in the Bible: “I shall bring them to the holy land, and in there, I shall give them joy.” The place of Christ is a turnaround cite for every soul. Britain was never a superpower but God turned around the fortunes of the country. The Germans were drunkards and wayward before God changed their history.
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Today, they are among the best nations in the world. Germany has developed great machines that the entire world is proud of. All these happened through the power of prayer. South Korea was poor but God intervened and today it is a great nation. The Christians in the North are being persecuted today. Their blood would cry for justice. God would listen and things would continue to manifest for good across Nigeria.
Culled from Daily Independent