*My Journey from Secular Stardom to Kingdom Service
By OLALERE FAGBOLA
In 1982, EMI Nigeria and EMI England contracted me for a major music project. It was highly anticipated—even BBC London previewed the record, which had been remixed at the iconic Abbey Road Studios in London. Yet, the project crashed and burned. Determined to bounce back, I went to Tabansi Records, hoping to record a brand-new secular album.
Everything changed because of a gospel book.
While waiting on my music dreams, I read a Christian book belonging to Pa Gladness Aderibigbe, the father of one of my friends, Comrade Lekan Aderibigbe. A specific passage spoke the mind of God to me with unspeakable clarity: “Let there be no zeal except in the Lord.”
At that point, I had been waiting in line at Tabansi Records for three days. The very day God spoke to me was the final day to consider sealing my deal and sign possibly the contract. Prompted by the Holy Spirit, I simply withdrew my demonstration cassette. It was a bizarre, shocking move to onlookers who couldn’t understand my sudden withdrawal on the D-day.
I had originally gone into the EMI project—and music in general—believing I would invest my future fortune into God’s work. But God showed me the truth unequivocally: I was merely chasing my own glory, not His.
Right there, I withdrew my cassette and pledged before God that I would have no zeal for anything outside of Him.
I raced back to our home in the Ilorin GRA, where my wife,Prophetess Idowu Deborah Fagbola and two children were ( Funmi and Femi )
My wife was pregnant with our third child.( Bukola )
The moment I picked up my guitar and began to praise God for His mercies, I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit for the very first time and began to speak in diverse tongues.
That divine encounter marked a turning point. It was the beginning of my experiences with holy trances, and it redirected my path back to journalism. I went on to become a multi-award-winning journalist and author, wielding influence among media greats and eventually ( through the power of the Holy Ghost ) engaging eight governors in a row.
They were : Governor Ibrahim Alkali of Kwara State, Governor Bola Ige of Oyo State, Governor Kolapo Ishola of Oyo State, Governor Isiaka Adeleke of Osun State, Governor Lateef Jakande of Lagos State, Governor Lam Adesina of Oyo State, Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos State and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola Governor of Osun State.
“Let there be no zeal except in the Lord.”
My intense zeal for secular music outside of God’s will ultimately cost two international record labels. EMI Nigeria and EMI England had invested thousands of dollars into “Fagbola and the Turtle: Odion’s Juju”—a massive project where I translated ten hit songs by The Beatles into Yoruba, giving them an Afro-Juju rhythm.
What I didn’t know at the time was that the famous British band was reportedly operating under a spiritual curse. At the height of their fame, one of them had infamously boasted in a television interview that Christianity would pass away and that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ.
If you want proof, you can search online for “Fagbola and the Turtle” to find the remnants of those five hit songs that mysteriously crashed.
Even though opportunistic insiders who secretly listened to the original master tapes went on to make millions of Naira—boasting that they were the creators of Afro-Juju—it is all well and good. If the Lord had allowed me to succeed in that multimillion-dollar secular project, I might have perished beyond redemption as a worldly superstar.
Have I learned my lesson?
Follow me to find out, as I prepare to release my upcoming booklet titled: Those Whom the Gods Will Destroy, They Make Them Sing Gospel Music.
Just meditating aloud.
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