EBENEZER OBEY`S SECRETS EXPOSED!

If when a man tells his own story it is referred to as autobiography what would it be called if the narrator is the man`s 6^th son? This was the case when one of the scions of legendary high life maestro

Ebenezer Fabiyi Obey, Reverend Folarin Obey revealed more than the world knows about his iconic father.

Folarin was quoted as telling a mammoth Christian congregation a little more about the childhood and life of his father; Obey why delivering a sermon, The Hand of Esau, recently at the Christ Liberation Apostolic Mission (CLAM), Ogba Ikeja. He told the over 5,000 parishioners how his father came from grass to grace, undermining negative prophesies that he may never make it in life.

According to Folarin, “Once upon a time I have been a pain to my parents. My mum looked at me and said ‘you are a stain in a white garment’; I was a pain to my parents. But one day I entered the house and my mother looked at me and said, ‘my father in the lord’ and I said mummy what did you say? She said, ‘I said my father in the lord has entered.’ I asked,’ me?’ She said ‘Yes. You’re my son but sometimes God makes children the father in the lord to their parents.’ Me, that they called a pain before they now call me father in the lord.”

He continued the sermon which was intermittently disrupted by songs from his reverend father`s musical achieve, “Me and my father were preaching in a church in London when he told the church that, ‘Today I am not preaching for my son is going to preach.’ The Bible said Moses was a proper child’. I have a proper child in my house, my father said of me. I am not number one, not fourth but sixth and my father called me that, saying in my house this is a proper child. I am a son of a rich man so I know the rot, the decadence that happens in the life of the wealthy people.”

Of his paternal grandmother, Abigail Oyidamola Fabiyi, Folarin said, “The mother of Ebenezer Obey was married to a station master in Lagos. He was a very wealthy man. They were married for 18 years and did not have a child. Because of that my would –have- been grandfather and his family decided to return my tall and beautiful grandmother to her parents. They told her parents, ‘Look at your daughter, kopa koye. We discovered after 18 of patience that she is a pot, take her back and give us our dowry.’

 So they took back their dowry and abandon my grandmother in this Lagos.  My grandmother was ashamed, ran to Idogo, our village and lived with her brother.  Eighteen years of barrenness and she was in the village, a humble woman; then came along one old carpenter that was helping them to roof buildings. That carpenter saw my grandmother and said, look at you woman, what is your problem? My grandmother cried, ‘I don’t have a child, I was rejected, an abandoned project and drove out of my husband`s house because I have not been able to conceive a child.’ That was when my grandfather told her, ‘You see, I am a carpenter, Jesus is a carpenter and the father of Jesus is also a carpenter. Whatever they have dismantled I can assemble. I am also the son of a carpenter. If you want I can put things together for you.’ That was how he took my grandmother to be his wife, telling her, ‘I have chisel and screw so I can chisel and screw you to perfection. I can put you together, so come let me show you how I can do it.’  And that man showed my grandmother what he promised and soon she was pregnant.  That is how she gave birth to her first child and daughter, Grace; then the second child that gave birth to Ebenezer Olashupo Aremu Obey Fabiyi was born.  Then the third child came; for this is a woman that did not produce for 18 years” 

In continuation he said, “My grandmother was prophesied to that she will give birth to an international star and for 18 years that did not manifest. So one day I asked my father if the rubbish man that abandoned my grandmother is still alive, that I want to know him. I told him, what would he have been if he were the father of my father? Then my father began to sing and they did not understand those songs.

At one point they told my father that that grace and gift will not come to pass.  One man brought a juju and cursed my father that he would not make it. My father looked at him and entered the studio and sang, “tewure maboju wenyi  afipe felepe.”

When that man who would have been my grandfather came looking for my father, saying ha, ho that would have been my son o. my father told him, ‘Didn’t you know that before you abandoned my mother? He then went to the studio again and did, “ajefe mope okuku komase osupa loro…ayemi atoro ayemini…” 

After then some people went to my father and said we now see you have become a star, we are going to spoil it, we will use juju to destroy it,  my father said its ok and entered  the studio, “kini gbeju gbeju fafigi ogede je, kini ategu fe kini feju se?...asiko lowo oluwa…oromi lowo olwa…” after that they told my grandmother that “osiwon laye ni”, that she has escorted them to this world because she didn’t have a child so my father did a song, “maje yoni ayewa maje siwon waye….ye oluwa mi gbami lowo ota kemi mase fofo.”