The founder of a branch of Celestial Church of Christ in Lagos State, Aderemi Dabiri, has urged street-hop artiste and zazu singer, Habeeb Okikiola, aka Portable not to dye his hair as well as sing vulgar songs but gospel music at its forthcomng praise night event, where he is billed to perform.
The cleric who made this known in a video where he was seen addressing a delegation of the church’s task force who visited his parish to have an audience with him, said the church has also cautioned him not to dress inappropriately or climb the speakers.
“We have also warned him not to allow his boys to smoke here. We have invited close to 30 military personnel to man the event”, he added.
While explaining the rationale behind the decision to invite Portable and Fuji singer, Alabi Pasuma, Dabiri revealed that the choice of the two artistes was to attract deviants in the society and gain new converts.
According to him, this pattern of evangelism had worked for him over the years and also resulted in the growth of his church membership.
“It is not our first time inviting guest artistes. We have been doing it without a problem and I can give you a series of instances. We cannot go where they sell palm wine or alcoholic drinks and ask them to accept Jesus Christ. If I don’t apply wisdom, they will hit a bottle on my head. That was why I thought of a way to bring them into the church.
“I also noticed that there are some notorious boys who cause trouble in the community, disturbing the authorities and engaging in cultism. I wondered how can we draw their attention so that they would have a change of heart. We have gone to places where they are and they ended up beating us. Most of the members of my church are new converts and it was through that pattern that I converted them”, he said.
Dabiri, who criticised some gospel ministers for being disrespectful said he preferred to invite secular musicians.
“Some gospel ministers are rude. If you talk to some of them, they respond rudely, but the day I called Pasuma, he sounded respectful on the phone and also agreed with my stance,” he said.
Responding to the concerns raised by the task force team about the raging controversy caused by the development, Dabiri indicated that he had no plans to cancel the invitation.
The white garment church came under heavy criticism recently for inviting secular artistes to its praise night event.
