The Soun of Ogbomoso, Oba Afolabi Ghandi Laoye Orumogege III, has said that general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, encouraged him to become a traditional ruler.
Until his installation on September 14, Ghandi was an RCCG senior pastor based in Washington DC, USA.
The Soun said God instructed him to leave his pastoral duty in exchange for the throne.
The traditional ruler stressed that he confided in Pastor Adeboye who encouraged him to take up the position.
“I was born into the royal family. But one way or the other, the Lord took me on a completely different path. He made me a pastor. In December 2021, I was on vacation in Nigeria, like I normally do every August and December. If I was not in Nigeria, I would be in other parts of the world,” the former pastor said.
“So, I was in Nigeria when the king of our town joined his ancestors. We have five royal families in Ogbomoso. After the Ajagungbades, we know that it is my royal family – Olaoye, that is the next to produce the king. Everybody in Ogbomoso who knows about the tradition knows that. Of course, I knew about it but I was not interested in it at all because I believe that I have gone on a completely different path. My father never sat me down to say, Ghandi, if you want to become Soun of Ogbomoso, you can be. He never told me and I never bothered. My dad tried to be Soun of Ogbomoso in 1940 but it was not what God wanted for him as the people rejected him.
“But in December 2021, people started calling me, saying: ‘Ghandi, why can’t you do this? -especially people who were close to me and knew that the Laoye Royal Family would produce the Soun after the Ajagungbades. I insisted I did not have interest because I believed I had a different path. Sometime in 2021, I said in the church that I was going to retire. I said that at the age of 60, I was going to retire. People asked me what I would retire into and I said I have done 30 years as a pastor, I felt there are other expressions of ministry.
“I planned that I was still going to do other things in the ministry. It was that time that I appointed Pastor Chinyere as the Executive Pastor and Pastor Olumide as the Lead Pastor of the Church. When I was doing all that, I did not have a plan of what I was going to do. All I knew was that I have had 30 years of pastoring, and Pastor Olumide has been my assistant pastor for 21 years; that is a long time to be somebody’s assistant. Twenty one years! That is nearly a generation, since a generation is about 25 years.
“When I was being told to come and be Soun of Ogbomoso, I told them the life I wanted to live after 60 years is very simple. I wanted to travel the world because I like travelling. I tell people that I was born in a car, and maybe that is why I am just restless as a person; that is my nature. It has been a little difficult to change that. Today, I am just restless, I just want things to happen, I just want to be on the move. I know that is the way God created me. So, that was my plan for 60.
“Then, people started calling me a lot. I insisted I was not interested. Of course, as a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God, I didn’t want Daddy G.O (Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the church) to hear. Of course, he is my spiritual father. So, I called him and told him what was going on. I said: ‘I don’t want you to hear. My people wanted me to come and become Soun of Ogbomoso. But I just want you to hear what people are saying. It is not because I am interested, but I don’t want you to hear it from other people.
Then, he stopped me, saying: ‘Don’t say you are not interested.’ I asked why and he continued: ‘No, this kind of thing, you brought it from heaven.’ I asked what he meant by that and he said ‘You were born into a royal family, you brought it from heaven. Don’t ever say you are not interested’. He told me to go and pray and fast about it. But I didn’t pray and I didn’t fast because it’s not what I was interested in.
“The next I asked him was if he knew of any pastor, who left pastoring and went to become an oba. He said of course, he could tell me four. He told me two among them. He then said: ‘You can go ahead, that is all I have to say.’ He also told me that he never wanted to become General Overseer and I can see what General Overseer is today. He told me: ‘Go ahead and do whatever you have to do.’
“To cut the long story short, I had planned that on January 2nd, 2022, which was first Sunday of 2022, I would tell the people calling me to become Soun of my final stance. I was going to tell them to stop bothering me.
“So, I woke up around 6:30am to pee. When I finished peeing, I laid down on the bed, thinking about how the service was going to be. Then, I prayed: ‘Lord, I am at a crossroads of life. These people are saying I should come and become Soun of Ogbomoso. Today is the day I am going to give them the final answer that I am not interested. To me, how would Jesus say leave Washington and go and live in Ogbomoso? The next thing I heard was: ‘You are born for this. This is the reason for your birth’.
Of course, that was not what I was expecting. But let me tell you this; when I hear, it is 10/10. So, I got ready for church. I came to the church, I called Pastor Olumide, Pastor Chinyere, and Pastor Tunde. I called the three of them to my office on January 2nd, 2022, and I said to them what the Lord told me, and I told them I am 10/10. I never miss it.
“There is time when I don’t know, I’ll say let’s go ahead and do it. When I say God told me, it has never changed in 30 years of ministry. People that are close to me know exactly what I am saying. When God spoke to me, what I said was very simple: ‘If it is not you, stop it.’ The next thing I did was, I got into the process because I am following God.
“There is nothing in this world that anybody has to offer me than what I have committed half of my adult life to do; absolutely nothing. If you know me very well, I am not doing this because I have nothing else to do,” he added.
Oba Ghandi has, however, pledged to allow other religions thrive during his days on the throne.