‘Do whatever you want when I die,’ Pastor Adeboye narrates how his mum stopped him from joining Nigerian Army

General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye has revealed why he never fulfilled his childhood ambition to join the Nigerian Army.

The renowned cleric, who spoke on Sunday during his sermon at the Church’s monthly Thanksgiving Service, which was being videotaped, said he had always admired the Army but that his late mother would not allow him to join.

Acknowledging the presence of the military, paramilitary and other security forces in attendance for the special programme, Adeboye, who cited 2 Timothy 2:3, where the Bible talks about “enduring hardness as a good soldier of Christ”, said, “I wanted to be a soldier, it’s my mother who didn’t allow me.”

Speaking further on how he told his mum about it after graduation, he said his mother requested that he should allow her to die before he would take the decision.

“… And I told her that I wanted to join the army after I graduated (from the university), she said to me, ‘You’re my only son. I’m not asking you not to join the army, just wait till I die and you have buried me, then you can do whatever you want.”

Adeboye said this was in the 1960s, and that by the time she died in the 1990s, “it was already too late for me to join the army. But I love the Army.”

“Maybe another time I will tell you the reasons.”

He said he loved the Army so much that he would always watch films and other documentaries that had to do with the military.

“Because I love the Army, I watched every film, cinema, anything that had to do with the military. And I’m telling you I saw what changed the civilians to the iron men,” the cleric said.

He said the fact people saw the military men in fine uniforms did not mean they knew what the soldiers had passed through before wearing those uniforms

“You see them in beautiful dresses, they look nice, maybe you should check what goes on from the day they enlist till the day they begin to march in ceremonial dress, you will know what is called hardness, you will know what is called endurance,” Adeboye added.