Archbishop Benson Idahosa was born into a non-Christian family in a predominantly non-Christian community, he was rejected by his father, John, for being frail and sickly. He constantly had fainting spells as a child, and on one of his spells, his mother, Sarah, abandoned him at a rubbish heap presuming him dead. Hours later, he came to, and began wailing and was rescued by his mother. He grew up in a poor household. Like most of the surrounding houses, his family home was a mud house. This reality denied him access to education until he was fourteen years old, when he was able to attend a local government school.
Benson Idahosa had a wife named Margaret Idahosa and a son named "Faith Emmanuel Benson Idahosa" and three daughters.
He began his ministry at age 24, having given his life to Christ as a football playing prankster in Benin City, in Edo State, south-western Nigeria.
He had gone to play football at a pitch near a Salvation Army church on a Sunday afternoon when he succumbed to the temptation to aim his shot at the head of the pastor through one of the open windows.
Five attempts to hit his target had failed, then he made what proved to be his sixth and last effort. It wasn’t clear what the ball hit, but it came ricocheting back to hit him on the chest and knock him flat on his back.
He was in such pain that a crowd soon gathered round him.
This drew the pastor’s attention; he came out, prayed for him and his chest that was rapidly swelling returned to normal.
It was the hand of God and young Benson realized it. The name of the pastor was "Pastor Okpo", Benson followed the pastor back to church and later answered the altar call. He thus became the very first Bini, as Benin sons and daughters are called, to join that largely Igbo congregation.
Idahosa hit the ground running, as it were. Listen to him as he testified to one of his earliest exploits for God as recorded by a chronicler, Elijah Akinwunmi:
I believed it with all my heart.
And flying around on my bicycle in those days, I went through the city of Benin in search of a dead person to raise to life. After about five hours of hard searching I found a compound where a little girl had died a few hours before. The corpse had been cleaned and prepared for burial. I walked boldly up to the father of the dead child. “The God whom I serve can bring your baby back to life,” I told him. “Will you permit me to pray for the child and bring her back to life?”
The man was startled, but he agreed. With great enthusiasm, I walked into the room and up to the bed. The child was cold and dead. With strong faith in the Lord, I called on the Lord to restore the child back to life. I turned to the corpse and called it by name, “Arise in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh Glory to God! The corpse sneezed, heavily, alas. The child had come back to life!
It was also recorded that it was a similar death and life issue that won the heart of the young lady who was to become his wife, become his partner and take over the running of Church of God Mission after his departure. One report stated it like this:
…Margaret was the daughter of a princess of juju, steeped in witchcraft and black magic. At first the relationship was purely platonic but things changed one remarkable day.
A young cousin of Margaret’s had fallen sick and died despite the family sacrifices at their juju shrine.ed in the grieving household, “Will you permit me to pray for her?
” he asked, “The God I serve can bring your baby back to life.” Emptying the room of all but his Christian companion, Benson prayed for the baby and suddenly, the relatives heard the little girl sneeze.”
Raising the dead was to become one of the hallmarks of his ministry.
The headquarters of his ministry, Faith Miracle Center, is a cathedral that seats up to 10,000 people. Church of God Mission has branches the world over, from Europe to Africa to Asia to America. With his main task being evangelism, he launched Idahosa World Outreach television ministry (IWO TV), which was a broadcast reaching a potential viewing audience of 50 million people .
He is reported to have been used by God in performing many miracles, including healing the blind, and raising up to twenty-eight people from the dead at different times in his ministry. A claim made by Idahosa that he had raised eight people from the dead was dropped when challenged by the Advertising Standards Authority, who sought evidence that the individuals concerned had in fact been dead.
He was known for many notable quotes including “my God is not a poor God”, “your attitude determines your altitude”, “it is more risky, not to take a risk”, “I am a possibilitarian”, “A big head without a big brain is a big load to the neck”,”If your faith says yes, God cannot say no”, amongst others. Many of his messages on faith, miracles and prosperity remain a classic among Pentecostals.
He had strong links with international gospel ministers like Billy Graham , T. L. Osborn,
Kenneth Hagin , Benny Hinn , Reinhard Bonnke, Morris Cerullo, Oral Roberts , amongst others; and took the gospel to 145 nations in his lifetime. At the time of his death in 1998, he was reputed as having preached to more whites than any black man, and to more blacks than any white man.
His desire to meet the needs of the total man led him to establish several other arms of the ministry apart from the church. They include the Faith Mediplex, All Nations for Christ Bible Institute, Word of Faith Group of Schools and Benson Idahosa University which is currently under the leadership of his son, Rev. F. E. B. Idahosa. His wife, Margaret Idahosa is the current presiding bishop of the church.
I don’t think there was anything he wanted to do that he didn’t do. He died in March. In February he called me and said, ‘Margaret, I think I have done everything God had asked me to do’.
And I said it is because we were still in February and that because he had not traveled. I said he needed to travel and if he did that he would come back with a fresh idea. And he said he would travel in March and that he would be by himself and will not interact with anybody. I was abroad when he died.
I was planning to travel that night to Nigeria when the report came that he had gone home. That, to me was a great shock. Before he died, he had preached a message titled The benefit of death and he preached so hard and made death so useless. He made it clear to us that he had finished the work God gave him in that message.
He cleared the land for all of us. Many years ago it was a taboo for women to hold the microphone not to talk of preaching in the church but he encouraged us to move in the spirit of God. He encouraged us to preach and do the work.
That was the last message he preached to the women. He preached also at the Bible School before he went to lunch with a team from Oral Roberts University.
He gave instruction to all the members of the team and they were all glued to him! After a while a gentle breeze was blowing and everybody set their gaze on him.
He was saying thank you Jesus and those on the table thought he was praying and they all closed their eyes and started saying thank you Jesus along with him but suddenly they did not hear anything again and one of the team members opened his eyes and found out that archbishop was gone.
They tried all they could to revive him but he was gone. He was not sick.
He never had high blood pressure. He was never down.
Each time we came back from foreign trips doctors were always there to take our blood pressure.
I was the one that was the sick one. Even the doctors were surprised that he died because he was not sick at all.
Chancellor Oral Robert:
I never met a man who so completely saw himself as God did: a man. It says in the book of Genesis, ‘And God made him man.’ Not something else, not a Jew, not a gentile, not white, not black, not this or that–but man. I am honored to have personally known and closely worked with a man who stood so high with God and mankind in life, and who doubtless will stand higher after his death.
International Evangelist T.L.Osborn:
Many who follow Idahosa’s teaching have been saved from poverty and have learned to plant out of their desperate need and to look to God as their divine source thereby becoming prosperous Christians in their own land. Idahosa rose from the rank of an ordinary man to world leadership as a pastor, builder, counsellor, prophet, teacher, apostle, evangelist,–a man of godly wisdom and of Christ-like compassion, whose ministry has blessed millions the world over. Idahosa was the greatest African ambassador of the apostolic Christian faith to the world.
Dr.Freda Gordon Lindsay:
I know of no young black in all of Africa who is reaching millions as Benson is,–in crusades with hundreds of thousands in attendance, in his weekly nationwide telecast, in his Bible School, training eager students from several nations.
He also conducts campaigns in Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Australia and the United States, where he often appeared on national religious telecasts. His burden for souls, his ministry of healing and miracles, even to the raising of several dead, demonstrates he is especially called of the Lord in these end times.
Dr.John Bienose(Dir.Of Admin Church of God Mission):
Idahosa is a living legend, an amiable visionary leader, a trailblazer and an institution of legacy.
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