An interview with former Super Eagles goalkeeper and SuperSport football analyst who became a pastor, Idah Peterside, where he unwraps his secrets and true feelings, has surfaced online.
The ex-soccer star in an exclusive interview published in
Vanguard newspaper some time back speaks about his haunting journey into occultism, how his first marriage crashed and his relationship with controversial pastor T.B. Joshua.
Explaining how he delved into the dark world of occultism, the popular football analyst revealed that he did all that because I wanted money and fame which were not coming. “It was so bad for me that I even went into demonic worship; I was involved in occultism and people didn’t know. My case was so bad that I used to have meetings with snakes. Mine was top class; it was crazy,” Peterside recounted.
“While we were preparing for Rivers ’88 in Port Harcourt, we were camped in a school called Enitonia High School and the school didn’t have a good toilet. On a particular day while I was going to the toilet near a building, I heard a voice say, ‘We want to bless you if you work for us’. Then I said, ‘Who are you?’ And the voice said, ‘Turn to your left’. When I turned, I saw a very big and lengthy snake, as big as a python, and it was as if the snake was looking at me. Then I started shivering like I had seen a ghost. You may not believe it but from that moment, I saw those snakes every night when I went to sleep,” he said.
According to Peterside, who is now a pastor at a church called ‘Christ Ambassadors Church’ in South Africa, his major activity was to ‘initiate’ women by sleeping with them.
“What actually took me to the next level in occultism was dependent on the number of women I slept with because my covenant was to initiate women. I didn’t sleep with them for love or any relationship; my mission was just to initiate them and move on,” he explained.
“Automatically, every women I slept with was initiated – no argument. I was basically looking out for and sleeping with virgins because it was a blood covenant. You know, blood is spilled when you dis-virgin a girl. It was crazy,” he continued.
In reward for his devilish actions, Idah stated that he lacked nothing materially and even possessed strange powers within his eyes. “I got used to the snakes and when I had any problem, I’ll just tell them what I needed,” he told
Vanguard.
Idah Peterside said money started to come from nowhere – “money worth as much as N5000 which was big then”. “Those days, when I signed for Sharks Football Club, my sign off fee was N1000 – just to tell you the worth of N5000 then. Things were happening for me and there was nothing I asked any person for that I didn’t get. All I needed do was turn around and look into your eyes – anything I said was done, whether man or woman.”
However, the young man tearfully turned to God in prayer in 1996. He realized he was treading a path toward destruction. “I was calling on God to forgive me, to save me. While I was praying, sitting and crying, suddenly I got filled with the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues,” he recalled.
“The next morning, as I went to the toilet, I saw those demonic people appear to me and say, ‘We’ll kill you’ – and I ran out naked from the toilet. I got so involved in church activities that in three months, I was teaching the Bible at home. In six months, I took off from Iwuanyanwu Nationale and went to Bible school. Since then, I’ve remained in the church.”
Speaking about his greatest regret, the footballer said it was the collapse of his first marriage. Idah also said that his wife was lured away by a South African musician, almost causing the collapse of his young church.
“The greatest mistake I made in my life was to marry a foreigner. I was married to the South African lady for eight and a half years and it just didn’t work. The lady was beautiful but the culture and beliefs weren’t the same at all. Today, I look around and advise young ones who would listen to marry from their fatherland,” he said.
According to him, the persecution he endured at this period was pivotal to his ministry growth later on. “Any pastor that has not passed through persecution has not crossed to the next level. I would sit in my room to cry and the devil would be telling me that I don’t deserve to be a pastor when I can’t even keep a wife.”
Since, Idah has remarried and his church has grown steadily, even starting a television station called ‘Ambassadors TV’ which broadcasts its church services in South Africa.
When asked about his alleged relationship with Prophet T.B. Joshua of The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN), Peterside said that “T.B. Joshua is his friend and he doesn’t care what people think about it”.
“There was an issue I had with a sick woman in my church and while I was praying for her in my closet God spoke to me and said, ‘Go to T.B. Joshua.’ Remember that I’ve served the devil, so I know when I see one. I said, ‘Ah! God, go to that man who I’ve heard terrible things about’ and he said, ‘Yes’,” he recalled.
Describing Joshua as ‘one of the greatest living prophets’, he said that “it is impossible for any demon to deliver another demon”. “I know because I have served the devil. If TB Joshua were of the devil, he would not be delivering people. I want to warn all those people gossiping about him – have you met him? What was your encounter with him and so on? People should not forget that the greatest weapon of the devil is rumor and scandal.”
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| Vanguard publication about Pastor Idah Peterside. |
