The Man Who Claimed to be ‘God Himself’ on Earth OLUMBA OLUMBA OBU But Still Died!

The famous spiritualist Olumba Olumba was born in 1918 in the tiny compound of Ano-Obu, Unorowenze in Biakpan Village, Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State in Nigeria.

His father, Olumba Obu was a minister in the Presbyterian Church while his mother would later be referred to as Queen Mother Ibum Olumba and is greatly revered in the Brotherhood of Crods and Star).

A baby, that would later grow up to have followers, some of whom would claim his birth during the flu pandemic was not a coincidence.

Olumba himself would later describe the event as the cleansing movement of the spirit.

Over time, various strange events would be attributed to this boy who would later morph into OOO.

By the year 1956, Olumba Olumba Obu left his village of Biakpan and headed to the main capital city of Calabar in search of the much-famed greener pasture.

He left Biakpan in 1942 when he was just 24.

While in Calabar, he took to trading of where he gained a reputation as a very honest businessman and it did not take long before he was chosen to become the leader of a local prayer team.

OOO said he received his first revelation when he was just five and then he started preaching to his playmates to love one another and leading prayers.

Olumba Olumba Obu had little formal education (estimated at about just four years of elementary formal education while some others like Apostle EK Ukpai, his first cousin, BCS Secretary-Treasurer who grew up with the Obu family claim he never even attended any school) but by the time he entered his youth, he was already respected for being a teacher and healer.

Olumba Olumba Obu did not have any formal theological training.

It was said that before his birth, Prophetess Otemegan Otumesin had already prophesized his coming.

Same with Prophet Enu Enu Nkpa who also said he saw a prophecy that his mother would be the daughter of Onowon Obazie, Ibum Mba, would be his mother.

There are numerous legends about Olumba, of how he prayed for a woman who died during childbirth and had her resurrected, of how he stopped a hunter who had killed an animal, removed the carcass from the hunter’s pouch, flung it into the bush and the animal sprang back to life, scampering off into the bush.

Olumba then told the hunter that the resurrection of the animal meant that the life of a man about to die has been saved.

In another narration, he was on his way to the now holy stream in Biakpan when he met an old lady along the way, and asked for water to quench his thirst.

The lady gave him some of the water she got from the stream and he was so moved by her kindness.

He then asked for her child but she responded that she was not able to give birth upon which Olumba prophesized she would become a mother and it came to pass.

Of course, there is really no way to independently verify these claims and I had to rely on oral accounts at this stage.

Quite unscientific I’d say but it will give us an insight as to how he came to be revered as a miraculous healer in Biakpan.

The first ministry and prayer point of OOO and his friends was the home of a follower on 35, Wilki Street in Calabar.

OOO took part in various developmental projects in his hometown of Biakpan but he was subjected to energetic opposition from the locals and had to shift somewhere else.

He left the place in January 1956 for Calabar and reportedly did not set foot there again. Olumba Olumba Obu would later preach that a prophet is not honoured in his own land.

He would soon settle down and become a trader of drapery and other fabrics and later became well-known for his honesty, willingness to help others and his warm disposition.

Later, people came to him to pray for them and to deliver them from evils, leading him to set up a small building to work as a prayer house in Calabar, which he called a ‘bethel’.

History tells us that he later left his business to become an itinerant preacher and after a while, his people from Biakpan who were also living in Calabar rallied round him and looked up to him as a source of inspiration and pride.

In 1956, the prayer team that Olumba Olumba Obu was leading met two times a week, on Fridays and Sunday.

At that time, he was staying on Eton Street and that was where the prayer meetings were held. With time, OOO became very popular and renowned for his charisma, with many claiming he was blessed with unrivalled powers of healing and prophecy. Over time, he would be known for blessing people as thus.

By 1958, the little prayer team had become oedematous and had around sixty members.

Olumba’s house could not contain all of them anymore and they had to move to a new structure located along Mbukpa Road.

In 1964, the prayer team had become so huge that Olumba had to register it officially as Christ’s Universal School of Practical Christianity.

He was granted a certificate of incorporation by the Federal Government of Nigeria and had the name of the organization later changed to the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star (BCS). An enigmatic star was born.

With their organization formed, they outlined their simple aims and objectives as follows according to Religion in Calabar by Rosalind Hackett:

“To advance Christian Religion by spreading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to all parts of the world.

To carry out Practical Christianity of healing the sick , helping the poor, and relieving the distressed.

To establish Christian schools and colleges from time to time which shall be non-profit making, and shall be in accordance with the Education policies of the Government concerned.”

In a few years, the body grew rapidly and the success was so dumbfounding that they acquired a larger area within the proximity of the now-famous 34, Ambo Street, Calabar as the site of their international headquarters which remains so till date.

However, not too long after they purchased their new site, something dramatic and doubly tragic happened in Nigeria.

A civil war broke out in 1967 when the Governor of the Eastern Region announced a secession from Nigeria.

Calabar was located in the eastern part of the country and by the time the war ended in 1970, many Nigerians were really battered psychologically and were desperately searching for anything they could cling on as a source of hope and many of them eventually ran into the open hands of the evangelistic groups and movements like the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star.

It will uncharitable of me not to mention that around 1969, Olumba Olumba Obu was one of those who rallied round and brought together almost 30 other church leaders and fashioned a way to assist war victims, an exercise that was very successful and continued even after the war ended in 1970.

On the 6th of August, 1980, they moved to their global headquarters at 34, Ambo Street in Calabar. 34, Ambo Street is now very synonymous with the body.

To be Continued….