Those who know D. K. Olukoya attest to his personable personality. He is a thoroughbred Christian both in words and indeed. He has an open-door policy that enables him to listen to people with complete attention and total empathy. One of his assistants, a famous Nigerian Sportscaster, Mr. Godwin Enakhena described him thus in a recent interview.
“My perception of him is that Dr. D.K Olukoya is not your run-of-the-mill human being. I pray all the time and I always say to him that” “Sir, may God bless Nigeria and the world with more Dr. Olukoyas”. He calls me “Sir”. Each time he does that, you will see humility, sometimes I look at his legs and see what he is putting on. I once told someone my GO drives a Sienna, the type I bought for my wife, that is what GO drives and this is a man that can buy 50 planes in one day!
So, when he passes, you might not even know that he is the one that has passed. Let me give you an insight into the kind of person he is. I told him that: “Sir, running the female league (basketball) is money consuming, what do we do? We need to bring it down”. He said: “Brother Godwin, do not sack anybody, make sure everybody stays, retain everybody”. I said the girls are coming to Lagos and do not have accommodation, but before the girls arrived, the GO had already provided accommodation at Prayer City, sent a woman to set up the place, bought cooking gas, deep freezers, furnished the place, it was home away from home. I took them to GO and said these are the girls and he prayed for them and said it would be well with them. He then counted 2,000 dollars as a gift for them.
I tried telling him that the MFM FC does not have a vehicle, and before I knew it the accountant called me and said the GO has just bought a brand new bus worth N16million for the MFM FC. “In 2006, Fidelis Ulechukwu had an injury while playing in the MFM Football Competition, the GO sent him to NIS, Unbelievable! Our coach, Fidelis Ulechukwu was sent to NIS including all the coaches. We have about 15 of the players that the GO sent to Yabatech and UNILAG to school and he paid their tuition. The GO pays the house rent of the players, pays their mothers, fathers and still pays them their salary. He pays the house rents of the coaches also. When they are sick, he takes care of them, sends them abroad, flies them outside Lagos for competitions.
I told him: “Sir, you are a dangerous giver”. He replied that the youth meant everything to him. The Celestial Church sent some persons all the way from Osun State, to come and see me that they wanted to learn the secret of how MFM was doing it. That their worldwide leader wanted to emulate MFM. I
told them how we did it and everything, that they should not get into it when they are not ready. Then I called the GO and told him. The GO said: “Brother Godwin, you did not tell them the whole truth, he said, once the leader was interested, it meant the ministry was already successful because
there are people who discourage you on a daily basis. He told me severally how they were discouraging him, they said GO was now distracted, that football is demonic, what was he doing with football?
“A few months ago, the GO called and forwarded a message to me wherein the detractors were querying what was the advantage of football to this ministry, that he was sinking his money and that of the church into? I wrote an epistle, he read it at the Prayer City, during the ‘Power Must Change Hands’. I said first and foremost, anywhere you go now, MFM is on the lips of everybody, number two, we have made breadwinners out of touts. These young people are now paying house rents, feeding their families, two of my footballers said they were sending their younger ones to school through MFM salary and they pay the school fees as and when due. They do not even touch their salaries because the GO feeds them. No other club does that in Nigeria. “Number three is what it means to change the spiritual life of the kids because they now speak in tongues.
The GO says whatever it takes to ensure that the youths of this generation are delivered from the forces of Satan, he would do it. He said if not that I love the youth, we would have stopped it because materially, we are not gaining anything from it. And what does he mean by not gaining anything, we are not getting anything from the league management company, we are only spending our money, and I remind him anytime he says this that youth repositioning is very important.”
Here is a man, who is so touched by the predicament of the common man, especially the youths. He believes with every of his breath that the youths remain the hope and leaders of tomorrow, and has not left any stone unturned to see that they are well equipped for the coming tomorrow; mentally, spiritually, academically, and financially. Dr. Olukoya is not the kind of person who takes the young ones with levity as various programs for repositioning the youths have crafted and implemented. These include the provision of cash gifts to MFM students across the world, graduating with first-class degrees among a host of others.
Prof. Emmanuel Adedun, who headed the Mountain Top University Foundation, also has so many things to say about Dr. Olukoya and his passion to see others, especially the youths thrive: “Dr. Olukoya is not
passionate about education alone, Dr. Olukoya is passionate about anything that has to do with life, where people can excel. Dr. D.K Olukoya is a blessing to this generation. Personally, I know that God has just started with him. He is still going places not because he is the General Overseer, but because of the way he has approached his own calling. You know he is a blessed man, and he is going to be blessed more. And I say again, not because he is the General Overseer. He sows into the lives of people
and he does not just preach the scripture, he lives the scripture, he makes his own life to be an example.
Personally, I think it is because of his humble background, he has passed through a lot in life, his pedigree cannot be said to be an affluent one, his background cannot be said to be a very comfortable one. He knows what it means to be poor, and he knows that a little kindness sown into a particular life, can change a family and generation. And the more he does that for people all around him, the more he reaps the reward, the more it comes back to him. I think it is a secret of greatness which he knows, which I personally have also imbibed from him.
His benevolence goes beyond education. It covers everything about life, I can tell you that he has nothing less than 78 charitable projects, just to impact lives Football is one of them, reading is one of them. He started with Bible Club, now it is Dr. D.K Olukoya Reading Club, where fantastic prizes are won on monthly basis just to encourage people to read good books and change their mentality, to change their orientation and channel them towards a destiny fulfilling path.
In his own words, he also said that the devil is raging seriously amongst the youths, and he is also instituting projects that can rescue the youths from the devil. Football is one of them because the youths love football, they are passionate about it, so he set up the club. In terms of marriage, he has intervened. Every third Sunday of the month in MFM worldwide is devoted to a happy home, family, teaching, just to be sure that everybody is impacted in any area you find yourself. The ministry of Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries is a do-it-yourself affair. As a matter of fact, he keeps telling us that, anybody that attends Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries services consistently for six months is already a Pastor, whether you like it or not. In other words, there are basic principles of life you learn from his teachings, that when you begin to apply those principles in your private life, you begin to see results and then your life does not remain the same.
“This is a man whose whole life is focused on how to impact generations, how to constitute an object that will change the destiny of people, how to constitute a figure that will impact positively on everybody around him. You can also find that in the way and manner he attends to people in counseling because you can’t see Olukoya sitting down, he is always on the move because his major concern is the people that are outside, waiting to see him. Touching someone, declaring prophetically in somebody’s life, praying for another, giving prayer points to another, that is what he does. And in most cases, you see Olukoya at MTU and still, he comes back here, because people are still waiting and he must attend to them before he goes. After service closes around 8pm, he still has about 50 people to attend to before he goes home.
“These are qualities of a person passionate about making a serious positive impact in people’s lives, how to change their destiny from the course that the devil has railroaded it, to a course of good calling. In one word, I will say Olukoya is a compassionate man that is so passionate about what becomes of anybody that comes his way. He doesn’t discriminate, whether rich or poor, wherever you are from, anywhere in the world, he will attend to you, pray for you, and of course, there must be a testimony.
