Jacob Oshodi is an outstanding Benin man. Or perhaps I should re-phrase this opening remark thus: Jacob Oshodi is one of the outstanding Benin persons in creation – undoubtedly so. I say so without qualms because he without question can be so considered as one of the leading noiseless universal mystics and thinkers in the field, for instance, of eco-mysticism. His more than numerous preaching and teachings that involve his ceaseless meditations and contemplations on behalf of humankind attest to this.

Of course, as a Nigerian and a member and a citizen of Benin ethnic nationality, to boot, we will never give him his due recognition – or, better, the recognition that he more than well deserves. The Christian holy book tells us, after all, that a prophet is hardly or never recognised in his own home or place.

But those of us who know or have met Jacob Oshodi know him truly for his human spiritual and metaphysical teachings and accomplishments which are boundary-less. In fact, as a Benin Nigerian thinker, he deeply understands eco-metaphysics, eco-philosophy, and eco-phenomenology which help to shape his over all ontological views which earn him, among others, the title of Sehaji, Sehaji-Master, God-realised personality.

He is the natural one who is inspired to act and behave naturally and to love life and existence on his own terms in the eternal battle between good and evil. This underscores his cosmological appeal since 1945/1950 when his germination and growth into the shape that has basically metamorphosed into an outstanding pearl in its universal dimensionality.

Two days from today, that is, precisely on Sunday, 27 April, 2025, Sehaji Jacob Oshodi whose universal spiritual status cements him to the entire mankind as a Living Supreme Spiritual Master (LSSM) will be ninety years on our earth plane.

In order to attempt to interpret him metaphorically and otherwise to the public (in my own peculiar way) I decided to embark on what I am embarking on now: To glean from this Benin Nigerian cosmic ambassador what we need to glean from him directly before it is well too late to do so.

Everything about the very wise humble being and his cosmic evolution had been programmed from birth but especially right from 1945 when as a mass server in his Catholic Church in Benin City he rebelled against his Christian faith. He was barely ten years old then. When he moved from Benin at that impressionable age the rebellion accompanied him to St. Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral, Oke Padi, Ibadan, in 1950. At this time his rebellion against receiving and swallowing the Holy Communion which he began at the Holy Cross Cathedral, Mission Road, Benin City was still sustained.

As a matter of fact, until he developed himself out of the Catholic Church he never received or tasted the Eucharist again. By this time he had been receiving visitations from someone, from some being, beyond the limits of his biological existence.

A number of times he believed he was in states of hallucinations – not until the higher-supra-physical being appeared to him realistically in ‘flesh’ as Fubby Quatz – an ECK Spiritual Thinker-and-Leader of Eckankar, the Religion-of-Light-and-Sound-of-God headquartered in the United States of America, although it originated from India (as I gleaned it from my own independent research).

To shorten the story, Fubby Quatz took him under his spiritual fold and revealed to him his path in creation. He, among other things, revealed to the young Jacob Oshodi the worldly profession he would be physically and spiritually trained for; the girl he never knew, but who he would marry and when (after a disclosure of her parental given name); the names, the Benin names, his three male children to be given him by his would-be Benin wife, would bear; and the exact time/period his wife, his spiritual companion and helper would leave him on this earth plane. Everything happened as the Cosmic Masters programmed it.

He became an ECKist who rose and advanced well to the high position of RESA (Regional ECK Spiritual Aide), that is, the Spiritual Leader of Eckankar firstly, of West Africa and later, of Nigeria. This effectively made him a spiritual, cosmic shaper and ambassador of the world traversing all the continents spiritually and otherwise.

In one of the conversations I had with him, the cosmic teacher and accomplisher gave me a profluent remark: “Fubby Quatz, a white man I never knew or met physically was able to arouse me in dream states all the lengthy way from America and made me aware of my destiny, my true destiny, in creation.

I became a positively conscious person through his guidance. Right from when he led me to WNTV-WNBS (Western Nigerian Television-Western Nigerian Broadcasting Service) in 1959 when Obafemi Awolowo sent me to London without any application from me was nothing short of a miracle.

I knew nothing about television or broadcasting. But my spiritual master showed me that my material harmony was in television and I would be employed and trained as a Sound Mixer in the Engineering Cadre where my career would blossom.

I had just left Ibadan Grammar School. When I returned from London in 1960, I was sent to Enugu where began my spiritualisation of the world truly began. As foretold, my cosmic evolution and a being on the cosmic plane manifested. I became an accomplished creator of goals that enabled me to be a true spiritual servant of Nigeria throughout the duration of the Nigerian Civil War. I was in Enugu all through. I was in the State House and Odumegwu Ojukwu never let me out of his sight.

My spiritualisation of Eastern Nigeria was accomplished by perfectly and meaningfully solid human activity. My spiritual development in every field of my activity in Civil War Enugu, in Civil War Nigeria, in Civil War Biafra is not what I can capture in one or twenty conversations. But know this… my spiritual mission was to lessen the ordeal, the burden of Igbos, of Biafrans. My spiritual power lay in the HU you are familiar with, and which I chanted on daily basis and at crucial times.

Okonkon Ndem, the famed Biafran propagandist, Ojukwu’s deputy, Philip Effiong and Ojukwu, the Biafran Head of State and war commander himself joined me as time went on to chant the HU. Ojukwu’s deputy Effiong eventually became an Eckist when he experienced the efficacy and power of HU.

The war would have stretched beyond the time it ended if not for the humanisation of the war events we spiritually influenced and directed. One more thing… I never commanded the commander-in-chief. But any time I politely said to him “You may not go this way or proceed in this manner,” His Excellency obeyed. Those who did not deserve to die in the war on both sides did not die. Let me not continue this… Ask me something else, please.”

I asked him numerous questions on his cosmic path and destiny and on politics within and outside our shores. I won’t dwell on them now. But he told me pointedly that the Fulani herders or hunters or bandits or whatever they call themselves or are called are going to evolve or extinct themselves out of Nigeria if they do not mend their ways and manners. The totality of beings on our cosmic cycle will diminish and deflate them by and by. This is a promise that won’t fail.

Who were his contemporaries at Western Nigerian Television-Western Nigerian Broadcasting Service (WNTV-WNBS) in the 1960s stretching to the 1970s? Nelson Ikpaye, Brown Cowan, Segun Olushola, Elsie Olushola, Victor Adeniyi, Margaret (Anike Agbaje Williams) and Julie Coker. Apart from the last named, the others have departed our earth plane (and Anike Agbaje Williams departed barely a month ago).

How and when did this gleaner and the Sehaji’s paths cross? It is a long short story or a short long story. He admired my writings in the Nigerian Tribune when I was every Monday columnist there. When I switched to The Guardian as every Friday columnist, he and some of his congregation of the Way of Truth where he now preaches, teaches and continues his cosmic evolution as a global ambassador switched to The Guardian.

When we eventually met face to face the simple but ingenious personage of rich and sublime metaphysical endeavours underlined his greatness by deferring to the superiority of poetry that is literature, to philosophy, metaphysics, history, law and journalism. Did I agree with him? I equally deferred to the cosmic and metaphysical phenomenon. Our relationship has been based on this symbiotic relationship that has profited me richly in every way.

Finally, what is his message for people in power? Metaphorically and otherwise we deliberately must be mum. Happy birthday, happy 90th birthday, Sehaji Jacob Oshodi! May your theo-synthesis continue beyond here, our universally divinised personage-and-being!
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.