“Having children here and there is not a good way to go. I have done it in the past and it’s not a good way of life. Polygamy is the behaviour of the negatives. It’s not godly. I got myself involved with seven women. I tell you, it was a demonic experience. It was God that removed me from that problem. I do not wish any young man to undergo what I have gone through. And if you tend to bite more than you can chew, you can lose control.”
— Felix Lebarty
Felix Lebarty, remember him? He is that crazy, lover-Boy “old school” singer-turned-pastor, who rocked the Nigerian music industry in the 80s.
‘Lover Boy’, as he was fondly called then, was the darling of many women. According to the Benin, Edo State born star, he recorded new songs whenever he fell in love with a lady. Songs like ‘’Ifeoma’’ and ‘’Chichi’’ were testimonies to the rampaging lifestyle of the then Nigeria’s king of pop music.
Felix lived a jet-age life, always on the fast lane with expensive cars, and beautiful women at his beck and calls. And when the going got tough, he epitomised Billy Ocean’s song (When the going gets tough, the tough get going). And he got going. He relocated to the United States, where he allegedly became a cab driver.
This is his story.
Yesterday
Yesterday, l had good music. Yes, good music because yesterday was entertainment. Today, it’s kingdom light; spiritually oriented. You know every man has God in him. When he wants to reconcile himself to you, He is the only one who can do it.
But I can only share my experience with you. I remembered when I came back from the United States, I realized that what we were doing in our family- worshipping idols did not glorify God’s work.
At that point, I was no longer comfortable with the practice. I started meditating on our relationship with our Maker. So, when I came back to the country, I wanted to be religious. I thought about Christianity and Islam. But the only thing that took me away from Christianity then was the absence of love, tolerance, unity and other ingredients of Christianity. I saw pride among Christians as at that time.
So, I was judging Christians based on what I perceived from the outside. That was why I opted to become a Muslim in the first place. Because from the outset, each time I beheld Muslims, they were always bound by the ties of their religion.
They believe that they are brothers in one ‘God’ and one religion. And that’s exactly what religion is all about. But to Christians, it’s every man to his own destiny. At that point, I had no choice than to embrace Islam. Islam is a good religion.
I have never felt the kind of love and sense of belonging that the religion bestowed upon me in my whole life. What I’m trying to say here is: Islam was so beautiful to me. That was why I embraced the religion. In my six and half years sojourn as a Muslim, I went to Mecca, and familiarised myself with the rudiments of Islam. In fact, I still enjoy Islam till date.
But when Christ appeared to me, it was through a trance. I beheld a tarred road and I saw a ‘spirit-being’ pointing at me, and saying, ‘You are going to receive a divine revelation. When I woke up from that dream, I was terrified.
My love for reading Koran immediately disappeared. And I found myself in search of The Bible. I prayed continuously till the following day when I approached a man of God who lived within the neighbourhood. He was amazed when he saw me with The Bible. That was it till today. I have never gone back to Islam again. The Holy Spirit now took possession of me and taught me everything I needed to know about the kingdom of God.
I’m like the Saul of The Bible, later renamed Paul, who was persecuting the Children of God, but who was later arrested by Jesus Christ to become the champion of the gospel of salvation. I never liked Christians. But I love Muslims very much because of the spirit of oneness and love that they share together. Today, the things responsible for my inability to love and cherish Christians then, I now know.
I thought I knew everything. But I did not know I knew nothing about His ways. As a human being, when you work against the will of God, you definitely will become an obstacle to yourself. Jesus Christ instructed us not to judge anyone for judgment belongs to him. But I didn’t take note of that instruction. I was judging Christians from the outside based on my knowledge and the happenings amongst Christians. I received Christ about eight years ago. And my ministry started shortly after two years. I went to the Bible school and I left about two years ago.
My music
When I was playing my music in those days, it was God that was in control. All the melodies that I was using in those days came from God. But the difference was that those messages were not messages that came from the heart.
They were mainly commercial orientated messages: what people wanted to hear from me. That’s the difference between now and yesterday. Now, what is coming out of me are God’s words. It’s eternal, and is bound to outlive humanity.
Yes, when things got tough, I travelled to the United States where three of my children are presently residing. They are also into music. My first son plays the keyboard. The same thing is applicable to the second son, while the third son plays the drums. I didn’t influence my children to go into music. It’s a matter of choice and talent.
An irresistible lover boy
When I was the Felix Leberty that you used to know in those days, I was a complete mad man. I didn’t know what I was doing. And all those women that I dated at that time endangered their own lives. Because they did not enjoy any material thing from me.
All they got from me then was heartbreak and abandonment. You cannot go out with a man who does not know God and benefit anything from him. So, practically then it was a life of lies. I didn’t even know what happened to those women, because they had to run for their own lives. They left me the way they came to me. They didn’t get what they wanted from me.
How can a lie reveal anything to you? A lie is blank and it’s darkness. And that’s what I represented in those days. The Felix Leberty of those days was the glory of God that squeezed himself into darkness. When you are in Christ, that’s when a lot of women, men, demons and atrocities come knocking on your door. Today, I see women as my sisters. I have a lot of respect for them now than before. My past was characterised with a life of lies. Sometimes, I wished it never existed.
For me, the Felix Leberty of yesteryears is spiritually dead and gone. What you are seeing today is the transformation of the light of God in me.
The Abacha Story
Till today, I still believe in the late Gen. Sani Abacha’s family. I hold on to what my spirit confirms to be right. Even in the South here, somebody like T.B. Joshua is not loved by many Christians. But suddenly, I have started developing a lot of interest in him, following the fact that a lot of bad things have been said against his ministry. And because people don’t like Joshua, I have started developing interest in loving him.
I believe that T.B. Joshua is a nice person. I also believe that he might have had a wrong beginning. But that does not give anybody the right to judge him. The Biblical instructions are simple: love one another and never judge anyone.
Relationship with Tabansi
Tabansi is my father, right from the outset. He was the first man that God used to give me the breakthrough in life. He took me to England, where I recorded my first album. I came into stardom through Tabansi. God has also used him to provide me with a place to start off my ministry in Lagos.
My relationship with him is very cordial. That’s the kind of message I wish to pass on to the younger artistes: that when you are following a particular route, don’t venture to destroy it. Because if you dare destroy the route, you probably have succeeded in destroying your own tomorrow.
Mothers’ Path
My mother was a Princess of Oloku and the Ogun deities. Like I said earlier, if anybody had preached to me concerning accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour, I wouldn’t have listened to that person. Then, I was wholly committed to my mother’s magical powers.
In fact, anywhere I was billed to travel then, I would first and foremost seek my mother’s protection; bathe with that dirty water before commencing my journey. But when I received Christ into my life, I confronted my mother one day, to ascertain whether she was my God.
Her answer was to the contrary. But you see, when you have a heart of truth, the Lord will surely find you out. As far as I’m concerned, all those idols in my mother’s domain had died physically and spiritually. From the day my mother perceived I was called, there was a kind of disagreement between two of us. We happened to be two different people.
But do you know what! My mother died last week. And she died disappointing those deities. She died in the Lord. She died instructing us to learn to love one another.
The deities have forever been cancelled in our family, even before my mother passed on, even though I believed so much in my mother’s black powers then. I believed that the reason I was doing well in my musical career then was because my mother was strongly behind me. I was not afraid of any eventuality. But I was proved wrongly thereafter.
My Children
I have so many children I cannot be proud of. But I still love them in spite of the circumstances surrounding their births. Yet, I do not like the way and manner through which I brought them into this world. It was not the right path that I followed.
I should not have been the only young man at my age who enjoyed having children here and there. I want to use this medium however to warn every young man that if you do not have the necessary means to cater for a woman and her problems, please don’t have anything to do with her sexually.
For my children, I don’t need to disown them because they are my blood. But their mothers? I cannot claim to have any right over their lives. It was the devil’s handwork.
They thought they loved me. But they never did. Even though I have parted ways with all of them, somehow, some of them are still very happy with me. Right now, I have only one wife, and she bears my name, Helen Lebarty.
There are three people in my life that I cannot toy with: my late mother, Tabansi and Chris Okotie. One way or the other, these three people affected my life...Vanguard News Paper
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