BY NYAMBEGA GISESA
Pastor Chris Ojigbani first held his ‘prayers-for-a-spouse’ in Nairobi on September 4, 2010. As a journalist covering the event, I had to plead for my life as thousands of apparently single women fought, shoved and screamed at the gates of the KICC to be let in to hear the “apostle of marriage.”
An Administration Police officer who rushed to help me was pushed aside with the considerably generous derrière of a huge woman.
On that day, women seemed not to care as the heavens opened up, undoing their fancy hairstyles and peeling off layers make-up. When I returned to his 2013 prayers on April 20, things were not the same.
At the entrance of the hall, dozens of his marriage books remained unsold. Hundreds of free copies of brochures were uncollected.
Pastor Ojigbani, dressed in his trademark white suit, was in the altar staring at hundreds of empty chairs. He spoke in a low voice, almost whispering. He kept on referring to streaming videos of single ladies, who apparently had got married without delay after listening to his gospel.
When he spotted our photographer, Felix Kavii, he sent one of his aides to tell him to stop taking photos. “You are distracting me,” thundered the pastor, who is usually used to the spotlight where tens of photographers scramble to have his pictures taken.
Minutes later, he picked us from the crowd. “I am not against journalists. You can come tomorrow (Sunday April 21) and take all the photos you want and ask me any question,” he said.
On the appointed day, journalists were barred from the event. Pastor Ojigbani blamed the media for the low turnout this year.
I was barred from asking him this troubling question: were the empty seats a sign that his prayers in previous visits had helped Nairobi’s single women find husbands or was his popularity waning?
ngisesa@standardmedia.co.ke
