By Christy Anyanwu
Pastor Ituah Ighodalo is the Founder and Senior Pastor of Trinity House, Victoria Island Lagos. At a recent event organised to honour this cleric cum accountant on his 62nd birthday was the crème de la crème of the society. Afterwards, he spoke with Effects about life generally, his late wife, the ex-beauty queen Ibidun Ighodalo, growing up and lots more.
At 62, what lessons have you learnt about life?
The first lesson that I learned was when I was about 10 years old. I ran for elections in my primary school. I campaigned very well that I began to act as though I was already a school prefect, because I felt I was quite qualified to do the job and I was ready to serve, so I became a bit strict. I was acting. When the election came, I lost woefully. Those who had promised to vote for me, none of them did.
So the first lesson I learned is that you cannot trust men. Every man and woman, including yourself, at the end of the day they will be acting in their interest.
The second lesson I learned from my parents was that truth never fails. When you are truthful, you tell the truth, you will not fail and you will have no fear. I sleep well because I am a truthful person. I don’t exaggerate, I don’t flatter unnecessarily, and I don’t even flatter people. I tell the truth as I see it nicely. I don’t owe anybody. I don’t go begging people unnecessarily. I do ask people to do me one or two favours and help me, but I don’t beg anybody for anything. If you can help me, help. If you can’t, don’t help me. Everybody needs help. I mind my business, I keep my life simple. I don’t envy anybody. I want everybody to prosper and do well. But if you are not doing right, I will tell you. If you are doing right, I will commend you. But I mean no evil against anybody. I just want everyone to prosper.
People say you are humble and down to earth. Does this have anything to do with your upbringing?
My parents disciplined us even though we were like privileged children, comparatively in Nigeria of those days. Both of my parents were highly educated who had very good jobs and provided for us what was available, but they made us very humble. We went to the farm, because my mother said she was a farmer’s daughter, her children must learn to farm. Each one of us had house chores we were doing every morning. We made our beds, washed our clothes. I learned to cook at the age of eight or nine. We were self-taught, self-sustained, very, very disciplined and told to be humble like normal children. I never forget that. We were also told to fear God. We were also told to do our best for mankind. We were also told to pursue our dreams.
So my parents brought us up with a mixture of discipline and confidence and the ability to take your own decisions and not be fatigued or cowered or pressed by anybody. So while my parents were insistent on discipline, you could ask questions, you could discuss, you could negotiate. They never took decisions concerning the house without consulting us.
So when it was time to go to secondary school, I chose my own secondary school. What secondary school do you want to go to? I said Kings College. When I graduated, what A level school do you want to go to? They said, no problem, if you pass, you go.
I started driving at the age of 14. My parents encouraged me. I started taking responsibility from that age, taking after them. Taking my mother to the hospital, driving her up and down. Very little children of my age were doing it. Their parents were still caging them. So from age 12, 13, I would get on the bus, I would go to Lagos, all by myself. Of course, Nigeria was a lot safer when I was in boarding house in Kings College. I would get on a bus and come back. My parents allowed us to. We were taught to be independent minded, bold, confident, not to fear anybody, but to be respectful and humble to all.
What are you most grateful for?
I am grateful for good health, I am grateful for the children that my late wife left behind for me. I am grateful for family. I have a very, very strong family. My immediate family, my sister, they are fantastic people. My sister-in-law. I am thankful for good in-laws too. My mother-in-law, my two brothers-in-law and the other related people in the family. My stepbrothers and sisters-in-law.
I am grateful for the church that God has given me to manage. He has given me quite a good set of people who have been of tremendous help and support and understanding. And I am grateful for my practice. SIO. We have very good partners, Mr Getty, Mr Smith, mature people who work well together, we love one another. It is more than a partnership; it is a brotherhood. We are brothers. We are there for each other and we allow each other to be. And we have been able to together build an institution that has transcended into this level of relationship that will outlive all three of us. So I am grateful for all that God has done.
It is a painful thing losing my wife, there is no doubt about it. God and I are still talking. But I am thankful that He did not put us to shame. And I am thankful that she left an exceptional legacy. Everywhere I go, I hear good comments about what she did, about who she helped and so on. And it is not about saying good things about the departed: it is a question of people genuinely being positively influenced by this great lady. So I am grateful.
My only source of anxiety, like anybody else, I can do a bit more resource, in terms of financial resources personally, but my concern is Nigeria and by extension Africa, and people of black skin. And then I am also worried about the world. But let me deal with Nigeria first and hope that some way or the other God will help us to have very good, great and outstanding leadership in Nigeria. If only that could emerge then I will know that I have done my best.
At 62, you still look the way you looked when I saw you 10 years ago. What is the secret?
It is the grace of God and as I said, I keep my life simple. I don’t eat much. I am trying to exercise a bit more now with advancing age. But let me say it is the grace of God in living a simple life. Most of my siblings are quite young looking too – my brother especially. My sister too, she is trying. I keep my life simple.
You have a good dress sense. What does style mean to you?
That is how I grew up, in the midst of an enlightened society. I grew up with a father who dressed very well, and an environment where they taught us proper dressing and to look the part. You mustn’t overdress but you also must dress for the occasion and dress respectfully. So we try to miss and match and God has helped us, just to look decent, to look nice and to be able to deliver the message that we have been sent.
Looking at your life generally, if you were editing anything out, what would that be?
I have no regrets in life. Sometimes I wished I knew God earlier and got born again earlier, maybe when I was 18, 19, or 20. I wish. But then, when I was playing the field, I played it very well also. I lived a good life, partied hard, chased girls, did all those things. Is it a regret? Sometimes. But then the experiences that I learnt, the relationship that I cultivated, the people that I knew, a lot of them are here today. I knew them from even my partying days and we are friends today. Maybe you hurt one or two people. It is regrettable, but a lot of them are still my friends. Some of them, I have apologised to them and I have helped some of them become born-again Christians because of knowing ourselves from the past.
So while that lifestyle is regrettable, the benefits of the experience and the outcomes, I am not regretting. Because everything good or bad that has happened to me has been experience. It was painful to lose my wife, but sometimes I am able to say to God, the pain that I learnt, the trust, the compassion for other people who go through that kind of pain cannot be paid for. So it has become a gain and experience that has made me a much better person. So nobody can lose somebody now and I will treat it trivially. Ooni of Ife was saying I am always there, I am always there for people. I learned it from the things I suffered. When I needed people at a certain time in my life, they were not there. So when people need me, I am there for them.
I have learned the pain of losing my parents. So if you lose your parents, I am there for you. I have learned the pain of losing a wife. If you lose your wife or your spouse, I am there for you. Encouraging you, telling you to trust God. So while those were pains, they have become a beneficial experience that made me a better person, a calmer person, a much more mature person, a much more respectful person, much more concerned person and therefore, I take my life easy. I try my best not to have enemies. There is nobody I don’t like. I tolerate everybody.
A few people may not like me for one reason or the other. They may not like the way I look, what I wear, or something I said either jokingly or by mistake. I don’t go out of my way to say anything bad about anybody. They may not like the fact that I tell the truth, and I can’t do anything about that, but I am not going to reply them in kind. There is nobody on earth that I don’t talk to. We might have quarrelled in the past. If you think I have offended you, I am very quick to apologise. And it is because I want to be available to help you if ever that day comes. But if we disagree on principle, I say to you, this thing you are doing to me, I don’t like. But it is okay; we don’t need to quarrel about it. But I have warned you that this is where it will end up. But if you choose on doing it, do it. There is no problem. I am not going to fight you because of what you want to do.
If there’s anything like re-incarnation, would you be a pastor?
There is nothing about my life that I regret. I will come back as a Nigerian. I love Nigeria. Even before I became a pastor, one of my friends said I was acting like a pastor. I have always been generous, and I have always been kind. I was born a bit of a miser, as a child, I lost some money in the Bar Beach here. That was when I knew that money is useless and that you have to quickly spend money and give it out. If you give me money, I was keeping it. I came to the Bar Beach here, my uncle brought me, and the water washed my money away. All the money I was keeping became useless. I learned my lessons early in life. From that day forward, I knew that whenever you make money, let money work for you. So I make money work for me. There is nothing I have that I cannot give out. There is nothing that is so critical to me that I can’t give out. Ask anybody in this church, there is almost nobody that hasn’t gotten something from me.