what life has taught me at 63

Pastor ITUAH IGHODALO Opens Up

As you are reading this, one of Nigeria’s most revered and admired clerics, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, the founder and Lead Pastor of The Trinity House, is basking in the euphoria of his 63rd birthday celebration. He turned 63 on April 6, 2024. Are you surprised? Yes, you read right, the young looking, handsome and ever calm and smiling Pastor Ituah Ighodalo has turned 63 years old! Everyone agrees he doesn’t look it one bit. He looks far too young to be 63 years old already, many remarked. They thought there was a mix-up somewhere. There was no mix-up anywhere, that is the gospel truth, the very dynamic, eloquent and incredibly warm Pastor Ituah is that far gone in age, though he doesn’t look anything near a 63 year old. But only those who know him very closely know he is a man in his 60s. By nature, he is playful. He is young at heart. He is humble. Despite that he runs one of the most respected ministries in the land, and carries with him an intimidating profile and enviable reputation that commands a high network of the high and mighty, Pastor Ituah has remained ever so humble. He respects both the young and old. When he meets you for the first time, he will receive you with such warmth and humilty that leaves you humbled.

Last week, City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) had a birthday interview with this incredibly intelligent Chartered Accountant turned man of God. The 4th Nigerian Leadership Colloquium was held in honour of Pastor Ituah Ighodalo’s 63rd birthday on April 2nd at The Trinity House. The event had the likes of the very distinguished General Ike Nwachukwu, Atedo Peterside, Dr. Reuben Abati and Professor Mrs. Olubukola Oyawole as Discussants. It was after the colloquium had ended that Pastor Ituah graciously squeezed out time to speak with City People. He shared with us a bit of his perspectives about life and the many lessons life has taught him at 63. Enjoy excerpts of the conversation.

What would you say are some of the instructive lessons life has taught you at 63?

Life has taught me to be extremely patient. Life has taught me to always put myself in the other person’s shoes and not to be quick to be critical and judgemental. One of the things I try the most to do is no to be judgemental. For example, one of my ministers who was handling a key role for us in church, people hve been looking for him everywhere, trying his number and not getting him, so my Chief of Staff came and said this is not right, this is unacceptable. We’ve been trying to reach this man but he’s been unreachable. I was a little upset too, but then I thought, maybe he has lost his phone. There must be a reason why he is not responding to us. So, instead of joining my assistant in his anger and condemning the guy, I just said, maybe he lost his phone and the whole thing quitened down. I just said, let’s keep trying him until we get him. All through yesterday, we couldn’t get him. But, finally, this morning, I tried his number and it went through and he picked. His voice was very low. I said, what’s the problem? He said he’s been sick, he’s been down, he could barely talk. I said we’ve been calling you, he said, yes, he couldn’t answer the phone. What I was planning to discuss with him, we couldn’t discuss. I prayed for him, I wished him well and I said God will bless him. And I left feeling a little bit good that, again, I applied the principle of not being judgemental and was able to hear from the other person.

Life has taught me to purse peace all the time and not to put myself first and say I’m protecting my own interest. No, let me hear what your issues are, let me tell you my own and lets see how we can resolve it. And maybe in the interest of peace, you can win, I will find another way another day. So, I went some where over the weekend, I cracked a joke with this lady. It was a very simple joke and I didn’t think much of it. This morning she called and said, I didn’t appreciate that joke. I could’ve said, come on, why are you being over sensitive and just dismiss her, but something just said to me, apologise to her, and I said to her, I’m sorry. Now, she came to this programme today and she said she didn’t know about the programme but when they told her she said she would come, that if she had known that today was my programme she wouldn’t have made that call. I said it’s okay, I said to her, I am sorry, I didn’t mean any evil, I was just cracking a joke. Again, it was a lesson to me that I must be a bit more sensitive. You are now in the public space, just be a bit more careful, don’t crack all these funny jokes anymore. And I apologised to myself and I apologised to her. I refused to be offended even though it is somehing that people could take an offence on. Life has taught me how to take life easy, how to look for the best all the time, how to try and make people happy, how to go out of your way to be there for people.

I have also learnt how to be a lot more hopeful that with God all things are possible. That if you believe in God and you behave well and you trust God, eventually things will change somehow. It may take a while but things will change because God knows the best for you. So, the ability to be hopeful has kept me going.

What are the thoughts running through your mind right now, knowing in a matter of hours you would be 63? Are you feeling you’re getting old, or are you feeling a little worried that you still have a whole lot of things you want to accomplish and 63 is already here, knocking on the door? What are your thoughts really at this time?

Well, no thoughts really, I always add on my age well in advance, so I’ve been feeling 63 since around November. That’s usually the way it works with me so that the day doesn’t come to me as a surprise. So, I break myself. But right now, this whole age business is just a number. My prayer is that I’ll contnue to be strong, continue to be healthy, continue to be young at heart and continue to live my life and enjoy myself with my children and fulfil my purpose. What is most critical to me is that I fulfil the purpose for which God created me. , that’s what I pursue passionately. And my love and my work for God, that’s my priority, everything else is secondary. But quite close to that is looking after my children and giving them a good upbringing. It’s very, very important, I owe it to them and I owe it to society to bring them up well with the right amount of love and discipline and encouragement and boldness and education, that’s my primary responsibility. And of course, to fulfil my purpose in life which the ministry is part of, which mentoring people is part of, which running a few businesses here and there is part of, which making sure that people who come in contact with me benefit from is part of.

The only people which I find a little bit sticky, even in spite of the fact that I give them a long rope, people who are just inherently lazy, or people who simply just don’t want to help themselves and think that they are entitled or society owes them and think they can’t help themselves. There’s nobody who cannot help himself, it doesn’t matter which condition you are in. God has given you that capacity and also, somewhere along the line, given you other people who could help you. Yorubas have a saying that no matter how bad it is for someone that he won’t have someone somewhere who will show him or her mercy. That’s the natural buffer and protective mechanism that God has put into society and into mankind to help us. I have a friend who’s a bit of a drug addict, never done well, before the father died, the father focused on him and his brother. Subsequent to that, even till today, he’s had at least two people who guide him around. One guy is always by his side because he can’t see anymore, so that guy has abandoned everything to be by his side for really no benefits because the guy doesn’t even have money. They scramble together, they live together, the guy is always by his side. The other day, a lady showed up by his side and he said this is his wife and he started laughing. And I was like at your state and age, you still have a young girl, much younger than you, who still considers you…but that’s God.

Another friend of mine, a doctor who was crippled from the neck down, his brother who was a budding footballer abandoned his career and is now with his brother permanently and somehow, through my help and through the help of God, both of them found themselves in the UK and the UK society took it up. But the boy can’t leave his brother because UK insists that somebody must always be with the brother. He has been with his brother ever since… we’re talking almost 16 to 20 years in that state and the young boy looks after his brother. Now, he called me a couple of days go, that’s the young boy, that he’s found a wife and he’s getting married. So, now he and his wife will look after the brother, so maybe he and his wife now can share the responsibility, but the boy has had no life for the past 15 years, just looking after his brother. You can imagine! A young, able bodied man. But that’s God for you. So, I have learnt God will always give you help. But I must say, some of these people, it’s not even their fault, some of them have spiritual problems. There’s something in their ancestral spiritual make up that gives them that attitude so I never give up on them. Sometimes, people are surprised, they say this man’s burden has been on you for the past 20 years and you’re still helping him, and I say I will keep helping him o, until one day God makes a way for him. But until then, I will keep encouraging him, I will keep pushing him and God has been kind.

What part of your childhood shaped you into having the sort of disposition you have towards life and the calmness that you exhibit even when you are supposed to be under some measure of pressure? At what point did you evolve into becoming the person you are today?

I’ve always been a quietist, thoughtful kind of person. Always in a state of thinking, meditating, imagining, I’ve never been a really boisterous person. Although as a young teenager, you can be boisterous, make some noise, enjoy good party, go up and down. But in my usual natural state, I’m not the loudest in the place. I’ve had experiences since childhood that have taught to listen to people, learning about people, observing people, knowing who they re so that you don’t find yourself in a position where somebody has taken advantage of you because you didn’t bother to listen to them very well. I think that’s one of the things I pay attention to the most. So, most places I go to, I’m there listening, I’m there learning, I’m there observing. And I enjoy learning new things from anybody. I enjoy listening to stories. So, you find me in the midst of people listening to them, learning from them, so that has given me that quietist disposition. But I’ve also learnt through, experience, to be calm and not lose my temper. I could have a bit of a temper when I’m a bit irritated or when somebody has disappointed me. But the last couple of times that I sort of lost my temper, the reaction from the other party put me in a place where I said, no, this shouldn’t happen. It’s not fair to shout on people. Once, when I was attending a house fellowship, I lost my temper with somebody and the next thing he said was, ‘but you call yourself a Christian.’ That statement was very devastating for me, that I hadn’t shown a good Christian example, so I said to myself, young man, you have to learn to be a bit calm. So, once I begin to get a bit worked up, I just remind myself, calm down. And I calm down and I listen and I find out that the matter is easily resolved. So, once in a while, I’ve raised my voice for emphasis, because sometimes you need to emphasise somethings.

But how difficult can it be for you sometimes trying to be calm at all times and striving to meet people’s expectations? You are not expected to be angry or lose your cool just like any other person because as a man of God, you’re not expected to react to situations the way another person out there would react to it. How tough can it be trying to meet these expectations?

Let me say I don’t really try to meet up to people’s expectations. I’m really more interested in meeting up to the expectations of God. So, I’m very focused. Most times when I’m faced with a situation, my first thought would be what would God do, or what would Jesus do in this situation? So, it’s one expectation because when you try to meet up to various people’s expectations, you’ll be torn apart. So, my thought would be, what’s the best way out of this situation or what would Jesus want me to do at this point in time? And in dealing with people, my question is usually very simple: how can I help? You tell me how I can help you and I’ll tell you what I can do to contribute towards that help and when I’ve done what I think I can do, please accept and lets move on to the next thing. So, dealing with people, for me, is very simple. I don’t bother myself too much, I ask very direct questions. And after I’ve listened to them, I’ve observed them, inside me I have an idea, but then I ask them a direct question and the next thing is, what would God want me to do in this situation and once I get a direct answer, I’m fine.