Church remains silent on Sadela’s successor

Members signing condolence register...on Sunday.
| credits: Photos: Folashade Adebayo

Two weeks after the demise of the founder of the Gospel Apostolic Church, Pastor Akinbode Sadela, FOLASHADE ADEBAYO attends a Sunday service

Pastor Daisi Olisa did not look anything like his principal, the late Pastor Akinbode Sadela, when he took charge of the pulpit on Sunday at the Gospel Apostolic Church, Gbagada, Lagos.

It was the second Sunday after Sadela, who was the General Overseer of the church, passed on and the church appeared to be in dire need of direction.

Olisa did his best, however, in keeping up the spirit of the congregation. Supported by a female interpreter, his voice electrified the church as members of the congregation jumped to their feet now and again.

‘Papa Sadela is not dead, he has gone to rest. His God is still alive and He will fight for you!’’, Olisa thundered from the pulpit. With each declaration, the responsive congregation shouted a resounding ‘Yes!’, men and women jumping to their feet with hands raised above their heads.

In a sermon titled ‘Let me Die the Death of the Righteous’, Olisa hammered on the covenant of long life as represented by their late leader. He enjoined the worshippers not to mourn, but to celebrate the departed cleric.

He urged the congregation to pray against anything that would dislodge them from the GAC and disallow them to partake in the coming rain of blessing.

‘When Baba was alive, the covenant was in force. Even after his death, the covenant is still potent. Let us rejoice because he left a good heritage. If you believe, continue. What will separate you from the love of Christ? What will separate you from the GAC? This church will grow bigger than this, from here to London and Germany. You will see the character and the spirit of Baba in his successor,” he said.

For members and non-members of the GAC, choosing a successor to fill the vacuum created by Sadela’s death is a natural and daunting task. The church, which boasts about 200 branches nationwide, is administered by numerous pastors while Sadela busied himself with the supervisory role of a general overseer.

Although two of Sadela’s children currently serve as pastors in the church, the Head of the Legal Department, Pastor Adebola Onadeko, said there was no controversy on who would succeed the late G.O.

Onadeko also denied, in an interview with our correspondent, the existence of a succession tussle in the church. While urging the world to focus on celebrating Sadela, he said that the GAC would reveal its next general overseer at the right time.

“All of us have been prepared by Baba. In his lifetime, he put some people in place. Someone as old as Baba would not just die without thinking of who would succeed him. There is no tussle of any kind and the church will reveal his successor very soon,’’ he said.

Sadela, died on August 24 at age 114, after a routine medical check-up at the Sacred Heart Hospital, Abeokuta. The hospital, which still has Sadela’s corpse, was built by the Catholic Church in 1895.

At the GAC on Sunday, the sense of loss was palpable, even as pastors kept straight faces to encourage members of the church to keep the faith. In the eyes of the congregation, Sadela was the last of a select group of apostolic titans, including the late founder of the Christ Apostolic Church, Joseph Ayo Babalola; founder of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church, Moses Orimolade, and the founder of the Celestial Church of Christ, Samuel Oschoffa.

These revered religious leaders reportedly heralded a distinct phase of miracles in Christianity and Sadela, who had worked closely with some of them in his youth, was seen as an extension of that electrifying era.

Sadela was said to have slept on the same bed with the legendary Babalola, rode in his car and ultimately fasted together with him for forty days and nights in 1948.

Claiming that he received a supernatural instruction from God, Sadela, fondly called ‘Baba’ by his admirers, established the GAC in 1972.

With his age and spiritual affiliations, Sadela, perhaps, might have been the church’s biggest niche. Since his death on August 24, a series of revivals and other religious activities have taken place in the GAC.

Despite the lacuna created by the death of the founder, the church’s leadership also plans to make this year’s anniversary – scheduled to hold on October 12 – the biggest so far.

Unfortunately, Sadela, who told this correspondent in an earlier interview that he would celebrate his 120th birthday at the Buckingham Palace in the United Kingdom, bowed to the wish of nature after taking his bath around 4:30 am on a Sunday morning.

But, Onadeko said that Sadela knew his time was up.

‘Man proposes but God disposes. Baba was passionate about teaching the next generation the principles of faith. But the moment he realised that it was time for him to go, he stopped talking about living any longer. It was time for Baba to go and we were not caught unawares. He always referred to Jesus Christ as the Word, and he said the Word will not take him home without giving him notice,’’ he says.

Onadeko, who is also the chief interpreter, joined the GAC in the 1990s. Though the church misses its leader, Onadeko said members would celebrate Sadela rather than mourn his passage.

“He was perfectly okay before going for a medical check-up. The children had been urging him to go for a check-up. He woke up, had his bath and he was powdered. In the process of lying down, he left (died).

“That is why we are not mourning. When we broke the news to the church, everybody felt a deep sense of loss. But a lot of people praised God. We are celebrating the life and times of this spiritual icon and Oracle of God,’’ he added.

Our correspondent gathered that Christiana, Sadela’s widow was absent durng the church service. Onadeko, however, gave the assurance that the 40 year-old woman, whom Sadela married in 2006, is coping well with her loss.

“If you lose a partner, it is natural to feel a sense of loss. But she is praising God for the life of our father in the Lord,” he said

As the Sunday service came to an end around midday, the congregation spilled out of the church with unhurried steps, singing the closing hymn in a solemn procession. Still, some made a beeline to the side of the building where a portrait of the late general overseer, Pastor Akinbode Sadela, stood on a table alongside the condolence register in a flux of trimmings.

No other member of the church agreed to talk to our correspondent on church matters. But one of them explained why. He said, “We have been told not to speak with journalists for now.”

As they stood in groups, discussing the death of their beloved leader, it was clear that they missed Sadela’s presence and longed for a worthy successor.

Culled from Punch Newspaper