The success story of a devoted Moslem, hunted by spirit of death, but refused to die, instead became an Apostle of Christ.

…The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner” -Mark 12:10(Holy Bible)

By Charles Segun Adegbite

A prince from Kogi State and an apostle to nations, Dr David Ahmed Bello Oraru, is the Chairman, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) in Ogun State. He is also the General Overseer of Signs& Wonders Church of God (Antioch Assembly), Antioch City, GRA Extension, Sagamu.

Otaru, President of Blood Banner Ministries Inc., is an alumnus of the University of Lagos(UNILAG), where he bagged his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. He is also a holder of Doctor of Theology (DTh), apart from being trained as an Electrical Engineering Technologist, EET.

He became the State Chairman of the PFN 20years after starting his church as a house fellowship centre. And within the two decades he had conducted over 40 mass crusades through which he took the gospel to many parts of Nigeria and a couple of West African countries like Togo and Republic of Benin.

His Unique Birth & Early Life

Born a Moslem on 29th August, 1965, at Rima General Hospital, Sokoto State, Apostle Otaru is from a royal family of Emani Clan Ruling House of Ihima, Kogi State.
His conception and delivery occurred while his father had gone to Sokoto, for a training, along with his mother. He was named Ahmed Bello Otaru.

The Destiny Moulding Prayer

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo with Apostle Otaru.

His father, a school teacher and an Arabic scholar, thought deeply over the fact that out of over 20 children he had fathered, only this boy was born in Sokoto, the seat of the caliphate. He consequently prayed fervently that Allah would preserve the life of this boy and make him become an Alufa(Islamic Priest)

He Refused To Die

This child of destiny refused to die young, even when spirit of death laid siege around his family, hovering around him.
Of all the male children born by his mother, none ever lived up to three months, except him.

When death perhaps came for him and couldn’t take him, his mother died instead, just three months after he was born.
God apparently heard his father’s prayer and answered it in his own way by preserving the boy’s life and raising him to become a pastor and later an apostle to nations. 

Education

Pastor Adeboye in a handshake with Ogun PFN Leader, Otaru.

He attended Ansar-Ur-Deen Primary School, Ihima, Kogi State (1973-79); Abdulaziz Attah Memorial College, Okene, Kogi State (1979-84); which was one of the highly rated schools in the North-Central then.
He latter attended the West African Portland Cement Co. (WAPCO)Plc (Now Lafarge Plc) Training School where he studied Electrical Engineering Technology for four years to become an EET.
He thereafter went to the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where he bagged a B.Sc degree in Business Administration.

After becoming a pastor and founder of his church, he went to Soul Winning Bible College, Lagos, where he spent five years to bag the Doctor of Theology(DTh) degree. He came out as the Best Student during his set.

Career Development

Ogun Governor Abiodun with Apostle Otaru

After finishing secondary school he secured a job with the WAPCO Plc. There he began his career and became an EET, after completing his four year course at the training school.
He worked for years in the Engineering Department of WAPCO until he was called into gospel ministry and he resigned to face the ministerial job fully.

How He Became A Christian

The family he came from was 99.9% Muslim. “No Christian at all, not to talk of having a pastor. Only me became a Christian.In fact, I used to look at Christians with disdain until I became a Christian, because I was a Moslem” he said.
However, he went to Ibadan, Oyo State, one day on an official business trip. He was hungry that afternoon, but couldn’t get a place to eat. A church program was going on around the place. A lady gave him an handbill which was an invitation for a free food at their church program.

Vice President’s Wife, Mrs Dolapo, Otaru, Ogun Governor’s Wife.

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The mentality of making mockery of Christians led him to take the handbill with the intention of just eating their free food and go. But that was what hooked him for the first time in his life, because he ended up having to listen to the Christian preacher, who happened to be an invited pastor from The Redeemed Christian Church of God(RCCG).

How can someone like him, the son of an Arabic Scholar, become a Christian? No! So, the struggle started. He refused to surrender his life to Christ. But the seed of salvation has been sown in his heart, in God’s own way.

Pastor Adeboye’s Role

Apostle Otaru and his heartthrob, Rev H.B. Otaru 

After a lot of developments and his refusal to surrender completely , he was invited to the Friday, May 2, 1997 Holy Ghost Night programme,at the RCCG Redemption Camp, which he attended.
When he heard Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye preached, he answered the call unto salvation by going out for prayer at the Alta. There and then, Pastor Adeboye prayed for him, along with other new converts. From that moment a force began to operate within him, pushing him to continue in the Christian race. And his life changed completely.
Nearly 23years later, when he led the PFN team in Ogun State to visit and congratulate Pastor Adeboye on his 78th birthday, he shared this testimony with the revered man. And the man prayed for him again.

The Calling into Pastoral Ministry

As soon as he became a Christian, there arose against him serious persecutions from his family. Both spiritual and physical. The spiritual persecution led him to plunge himself into series of fasting and prayers.
“I fasted so much my wife had to send message to my family that, ‘Look! If this man died I’m not responsible o'”If you are talking of persecution in the bible like that of Apostle Paul, my case was another one like Paul’s.” He said.

Rapid Spiritual Growth

PFN National Vice Chairman, Bishop Wale Oke with Otaru.

His spiritual growth was rapid, so much that he wrote his first book, “The Promise of God” within the first six month of his conversion to Christianity.
Just a year after his conversion, “the calling came. It was a case of God seeing a willing vessel.” He said.

No Pastoral Ambition

Did he have a dream of becoming a pastor at all ? He said, “NO!” As a staffer of WAPCO Plc he was doing well then and earning a better salary as an engineering staff member.
“If anybody had told me I would become a pastor, I would had probably cursed the person, because of the picture of the wretched life of many pastors I used to see in my home town in those days. Besides, I was doing well in my job, “ he said.

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However, the joy of having new life with abundant peace of mind spurred him to surrender himself for God service. And God was talking to him directly. He was going for evangelism regularly in the church he was a member then. He was paying his tithe regularly with joy and releasing his Peugeot 504 Saloon car for God’s work.

Ex-Governor Daniel in a tête-à-tête with PFN Chairman, Otaru

From House Fellowship To Church Assembly

Barely a year after his full conversion, the Lord told him to start a house fellowship in his flat at Ijagba, Sagamu, in 1998 . “And the ministry began to grow such that we had to go and rent a flat at the Sagamu Express Junction area” he said.
After a year of starting the house fellowship, the Lord appeared to him again.

The Signs & Wonders Church

Otaru with Reinhard Bonkee’s Successor, Evang Daniel Kolenda (CFAN)
Otaru, his wife, during a visit to Obobanyi of Ihima Kingdom, Kogi State

“The Lord gave me the name of the church in a vision, and the date to start in February.” He said. The name of the church was Signs and Wonders Church of God. And signs and wonders have been all around us since then.” He added.


Of course, in year 2000 the Lord used him to raise a dead girl (the only child of her mother). The girl had died while traveling along with her mother to Lagos from Benin, before they got to Sagamu.
So, when there was commotion at the Sagamu Express junction motor park, he saw them afar and moved nearer to hear them. He immediately prayed for the dead child as the Holy Spirit led him and the girl got revived. With this, his fame and that of the church spread across.
It was this miracle and many other signs and wonders that God has been using him to perform that brought his church to limelight fast in Sagamu ,when he started.
Today his church has parishes outside Sagamu, outside Remo and outside Ogun State. And the church has its own Bible College where they train pastors and other ministers of the gospel.

From Pastorate To Apostleship

He was a pastor for about four to five years while shepherding his church, before an angel appeared to him in a vision. He told him that from that day his status has been changed to that of an apostle.
According to Otaru, he did not begin to use that title until God told him specifically that it was time to begin operating his apostolic ministry. The reason God gave, according to him, was because He is going to send him to the world; everywhere.

From Nigeria To West Africa

With his calling into the apostolic ministry he began to carry out his apostolate assignments . He organised over 40 mass crusades in many major towns and cities in Southern and North-Central parts of Nigeria. Consequently he had taken the gospel to places like: Ile-Ife, Modakeke, Gbongan, Lokoja, Benin City, Ede, Idi-Iroko, Owode-Yewa, Ipokia, Ihima(his home town} and many others.
He had conducted crusades in a couple of West African countries like Republic of Togo and Republic of Benin. “And there were a lot of apostolic signs and wonders following by God’s grace,” he said.

How He Joined PFN

The G.O. and his Wife, Rev H.B. Otaru.

He joined the PFN reluctantly because he was just minding his own ministerial business. But Reverend Segun Oluwasesan, who was PFN Chairman in Remo Zone then, encouraged and pressurized him a lot in 2003 to join the pentecostal association. But within six months of joining as ordinary member, he became the Assistant Secretary for the zone. And since then he began to move higher in the leadership ladder of the PFN as he was serving wholeheartedly.
He later became the pioneer Regional Coordinator of the PFN in the State for Remo Region, which comprises of four Provinces namely :Sagamu, Ogijo, Ikenne and Remo North.

Emergence As PFN State Chairman

Otaru’s election and emergence as the State Chairman and his inauguration later on July 19, 2018, was ordained of God because he was the least qualified among the candidates who contested for the post. He wasn’t even among the initial contenders. “God in his own way made it possible because I’m not from Ogun State.”He disclosed.
Like the biblical David, God brought him out for the assignment he has prepared for him in the state.

…And the History Changed In Ogun State

Otaru with Ogun State Chairman of C.A.N

As he emerged the 8th Chairman of the PFN since the state chapter was formed 33years ago, he became the first state chairman to have his office/state secretariat outside Abeokuta since it was created. So, the PFN leadership power shifted from Egba to Remo .
More importantly it was shortly after the state headquarters of the PFN was brought to Remo that a full-blooded Remo man emerged as the Ogun governorship candidate of APC in 2018. And eventually the Remo man became governor in less than a year that Otaru emerged, in spite of all the tough battles the candidate faced. So, the political power also shifted from Egba to Remo.
This, of course, was work of God, not what anyone planned.
The State PFN he heads is however ranked as the best chapter in the whole of Nigeria by national officers and past leaders of the association because of the way it is run as an institution.

I can become King If….

As a Kogi prince would he accepts an offer to become a monarch in future if called by his royal family to ascend the throne of his forebears?
Apostle Otaru said, “I won’t become a monarch in my town except God tells me to go for it. God never hides his will from me. He told me I would become the PFN state chairman. That was why I joined the race. And today I’m there. I don’t lobby for anything in my life”

PFN Ogun State & His Influence

Goverror Dapo Abiodun in tête-à-tête with Apostle Otaru during a program in his church

Ogun State has the largest concentration of church headquarters/ camps in Nigeria which are mostly Pentecostal like: The Redeemed (RCCG), Winners Chapels, Mountain of Fire, Deeper Life, Foursquare Gospel Church , Assemblies of God Church . e.t.c., which are all members of the PFN, which he now leads with the wisdom and support of God.
However, he said, “There is sense of unity in PFN in spite of the fact that each church has its leader and doctrines. But we speak with one voice and see ourselves as one. Our fathers and leaders in the faith should always remember, that they have their boy here…(laughs)”

How He Handles Challenges

Pix: Otaru (3rd From Left) with Members of Reinhard Bonkee’s CFAN, during last crusade in Ogun 

Whenever he faces challenges he goes to God for solutions. He says God is the one that has been helping him in the ministry because they don’t do what God will not support. “God will not help a son who is not obedient to him. When God gives you an assignment, he will back you and help you, as long you don’t disobey him.” He said emphatically.

His Success Secret

Left: Apostle Daniel Olufemi, Apostle Otaru(3rd From Right) and Other Leaders of PFN
Pix. Shows: Apostle Otaru(Left), Ogun State Dep. Governor, Engr(Mrs) Noimot Salako Oyedele(Middle) and Speaker, Rt. Hon. Oluomo

Revealing his success secret, the Apostle said his church is administered in accordance with the heavenly mandate given to him. Whatever God asks them to do is what they do. That was the reason Signs & Wonders Church of God was the first to discover and developed the forest beside the Sagamu GRA and turned it to the Antioch City, before other churches began to move there. The whole area has now developed into GRA Extension and become a choice area for the wealthy people.
“You can’t run with heavenly vision, by God’s direction and not be distinguished, because what God asks Church A to do is different from what he asks Church B to do ,” he said.

Published Books

Otaru(M): Being presented an Outstanding Leadership Award

He has published many Christian books. Among them are: “The promise of God”, “Understanding Satanic Wiles”, “Understanding Divine Timing”, and “Overcoming Spiritual Poverty”.

Awards & Recognitions

He was bestowed with Outstanding Leadership Award by Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria(PFN) and Foursquare Church of Nigeria, Sagamu, Remo District.

Marital /Family Life

He is married to Rev. (Mrs.) H. B. Otaru, a Chief Nursing Officer with Olabisi Onabanjo Teaching Hospital, OOUTH, Sagamu, They are blessed with children.
In view of the above facts and many qualities not published here, we chose,

Apostle David Ahmed Bello Otaru (Bsc, DTh.)

     Successful People         Man of the Month

    {June 2020}