I had a life-threatening brain surgery in March 2011. I cut my hair because of it which left a bald patch at the back of my head. As a result, I had to wear wigs. I also lost a lot of my independence. I was temporarily unable to talk and walk (I was in a wheelchair). Not a lot of people know this because I didn't tell anyone. 

Basically, I had a condition called Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM). It made me have seizures. The condition was life threatening and so I took medications every day to control it and eventually had to undergo surgery to get rid of it. I couldn't miss my meds because if I missed even one, I would have terrible seizures. I scheduled my surgery during spring break because it is a week-long and I thought it would take a week to recover but oh, was I wrong.

Anyway, to cut the long story short, after the surgery, I had to go through physiotherapy to learn to walk again. I was told I would have to fill some disability forms but if you know me, you will know I'm strong willed, so of course I didn't. I went back to school, re-enrolled for the classes that I had to drop out from, finished my Masters with my colleagues and am now rounding up my PhD. 

It takes about 5-6 months to fully recover from the kind of surgery I had but I was out of there, fully recovered in exactly one month. The doctors kept saying how amazed they were and how I am a miracle. If that isn't God I don't know what is.

Even though I have scars on my head where hair will never grow again (lol), I have so much to be grateful for. There is nothing like having good health and you will never know what I went through if I don't tell you. Thank God we don't look like what we have been through. 

I want to specially appreciate my amazing parents and siblings, my pastor in Nigeria, my second family and all those who prayed tirelessly and stood by me. God will surely reward their labour of love.

(Part 1/3) Pleasing my dad was very difficult while growing up. A lot of people used to call him Lieutenant, General, Deacon, Elder Baba Subomi, but he was never in the army. He was just hard.

It was so difficult to get on my dad's good side, coupled with the fact that I was one of the most stubborn kids in the house. Although there was love in my family, I didn't feel loved. I began to look for love in the wrong places. I left primary school safe enough, but I attended secondary school far from the watchful eyes of my parents. I started exploring - girls, relationships and porn. I got sucked in and went overboard. It was just by the mercies of God that I was not consumed.

I kept to myself a lot. I loved my space, I was always locked up in my room, listening to the radio, watching TV and reading books. I started desiring a way to to express my feelings. I remember when my older sister sat me down and asked if I was depressed. She had noticed I was always by myself and it was like I was rebelling against something. I told her that I felt nobody understood me and I didn't have a voice in the house. I always worked hard to please my dad but he hardly showed that he noticed, not to talk less of acknowledging my effort. Nothing pleased him. Instead he demanded more. She told me that they all loved me but may not just be speaking my love language. I shouldn't take it personal but should try to place myself in their shoes and think as a parent. By that time, many things had transpired. If my parents had known what I had been up to, they would probably have disowned me.

(Part 2/3) So here I was. I had a lot to say and I didn't know how to say it. At first, I kept a journal. I sometimes still go through those books now and I’m shaken, like, "Okay, where were you getting your inspiration from. What were you thinking of at that point in time?"

Once I started a journal, I think it just naturally metamorphosed into music. I never considered starting music as a secular artist. I was raised in a Christian home and always had a kingdom mindset. I always felt that there were issues that needed to be addressed. I realise now that I went through all those things because of today's youths.

Trust me, compared to then, being a youth wasn't half as bad as it is now, even when I was feeling like a ‘badoo’. I look at what is going on now and it scares me. I believe God was preparing me to be able to understand what it is young people are going through and to reach out to them from a real and understanding point of view. When you go through a challenge and come out better, you know how to assist anyone going through the same issues, in love.

So yes, I started writing and it got me thinking; it got me digging. I started checking the word of God. By this time, I had given my life to Christ possibly a million times *laughs*. But I started finding God for myself, locked up in my room. There was a hunger to encounter God in a different way and I wanted God to really show himself to me; not the things I had heard. I wanted a one-on-one encounter with God and he started showing up.

My older sister who spoke with me never gave up. She was always on my case, always checking up on me, eager to answer any questions I had. I got deeper into God and I started seeing that the sounds, the tunes, the spirit, the truth and the lyrics that we put into music are the things that affect the mindset of every young person.

(Part 3/3) Everyone is looking for what excites them, what inspires them. They go out looking for books, music, and movies. It is the indecent ideas and wrong content put into these things that begin to shift people's focus from who they truly are to who society defines them to be. I found out that true identity needed to be addressed. True identity from God's point of view.

Although today I've picked up a camera (I'm now into photography), God keeps telling me that the strength in my voice is in music and I must not leave that because it's very key to what he has called me for. Until that is established, I'm not to let go.

I started writing songs from one dark room in my house out of loneliness and lack of understanding of what love truly was. But, my heavenly Father who I don't have to please, who loves me regardless of who I am or what I have done has taught me love through the pages of his word and through his son, Jesus.

For anybody out there who has a dad like mine, I want to tell you first of all that everything your parents are doing, or have done is out of love. That is just the best way they know to express their love. You can work on that and be a better version of your parents. Also, look to God. He is the best example of how to be a father.

(Part 1/3) I was born into a polygamous home. My mother was the last of four wives. We lost my father while I was still in primary school. A family where there had been love, harmony, and peace turned into one where the extended family members said the only gift they could give my mother’s children was a gun; that we should go and start hunting in the village. "What good could come out of the children from the last wife", they asked?

We had nothing, but my mother promised she would do whatever she could legitimately to make sure we continued school if that was what we wanted. I took to doing odd jobs to make extra money to help at home. Praise be to God that I never did anything illegal. In secondary school, I worked after school at the homes of the more well-to-do teachers and area aunties/uncles. In exchange for money and meals, I would do chores around the house and tutor some of their children.

It took me about ten attempts to pass English Language in WAEC/ GCE. I then gained entry into the pre-ND program at Federal Polytechnic, Offa. I sailed through my first year, then fell deathly ill during my first semester of ND 2 where an Ambulance was engaged. My mother told me I came back to life at the 22nd injection. By the time I was discharged, I needed a physiotherapist to help me walk again, and I had lost too much time to return to school. I was despondent, but God said it wasn't over for me yet.

I managed to gain admission into Ogun State University for a diploma program in Marketing. While there after my Diploma program, I struggled and started a GSM business in 2001/2002. There were so many setbacks. At a point, I was in my room for three months with no food and seemingly no hope. That was where God told me about Job 36: 11, “If you obey and serve Him, you shall spend your years in prosperity and your days in pleasure.” I said to God, "If what you require from me is to serve you, I will serve you." That was where I got the encounter of Deuteronomy 8: 10-18. It was all settled in 2002 when there was no food for me to eat. When God gives you a promise, even though it looks delayed, wait; it will come to pass.

(Part 2/3) After a while, before I knew it, the business had become a standard business centre. Soon, I had about 50 people that were reporting to me directly/indirectly as a student and it later graduated to a multi branch system. We started doing projects for students, I was making photocopies for them, and God eventually made a cybercafé out of the business. By divine design, at some point in a month I could make a profit of about five hundred thousand Naira. God so blessed me through the business.

One of the humbling things about my testimony is that serving God pays. There’s nothing like serving God because everything about my life is tied to serving God. Anytime I was going to church and locked up my shop, virtually all my competitors would not have network on their phones. I didn't know until I was told later. Once I opened up after church service, people would have network. By the time I returned from church, many people who had taken tally numbers would be lined up outside my shop!

Eventually, I gained admission as a full-time student through direct entry to study Economics and I moved from the house where I was staying in a room to a rented self-contained apartment where I was paying proper rent. God began great things in my life. At the time, I already met my fiancée who is now my wife in the course of my service to God. When I finished school, I still stayed to continue my business until we moved to Ibadan where I initially stayed with a family before we moved our business down. By this time, I was on my fifth car as a graduate student and I could help other people to pay part of their school fees.

From Ibadan, it was time for my NYSC. I was posted to Yobe State. When I saw a danger of backsliding there, I told God, "If you don't want to lose a son, please help me out of this place." I applied for redeployment and was granted it to Lagos. I needed to choose a place for my youth service. After praying in agreement with my then fiancée and now wife, God said I should go to PropertyMart Real Estate Investment Limited.

(Part 3/3) I became the first accountant of the company and set up the accounts department. The instruction I received from God was to sow my own business and that I needed to learn from someone else (Humility). He helped me to obey. From the time I started there, there was a dramatic turnaround in the organisation.

I then moved to the sales/marketing unit, and within 6 months I became the Head of Marketing. From there, I joined the acquisition department as the first acquisition manager with the MD and after some months, I became the first personal assistant to the MD. In 2010, I was sent to Abuja to become the first branch manager there. Within 3 years, I had delivered four estates for the company - Palms Garden Kuje, Grenadines Homes Lifecamp, Grenadines Homes Lokogoma and Grenadines Homes, Katampe (which I only started).

In July of 2013, my boss gave me an offer to go out on my own. I went to God and he gave me a word in Deuteronomy 1:21 where he said I shouldn’t be afraid and that he has gone ahead of me to take the land for me. I needed more clarification so I spoke to some of my fathers in the faith and they said, "Go ahead, God is with you".

While in the US with my family in December 2013, I received the final direction from God that it was time to move and accept the offer. When I returned to Nigeria, I went to see my boss. He said, now that you have said God has given you the go ahead, "I'm giving you a bigger offer, I want you to be the MD of PropertyMart. I want you to move to another level and oversee the business."

He gave me about thirty minutes to go and pray about it. I went to pray and God said, "No, accept the Tromville offer". That was what led to a rebirth of Tromville Investment Limited. To the glory of God, I work with some partners and the business is doing well with about four estates in two years. Some major forces that have kept me going are: Holiness, Servanthood, Humility, Obedience, Prayer & Fasting, Living Sacrificially and raising others as God raised me.

(Part 1/3) I was molested as a child from age 5. She was a neighbour’s house help, way older than me. The children would all go there to play but she would particularly ask me to come into the room with her and play with my genitals. The funny thing is I was enjoying it and it awakened something in me but I knew it was wrong even at that young age. Nobody knew; not my parents, pastors or friends. I kept it to myself.

When I got into secondary school I noticed I had a thing for older women. I also started masturbating and having sex just to quench the urge. Sometimes I would stay on my own and the urge would just come from nowhere. The things I did in secondary school secretly were crazy, but no one even suspected because I had a very innocent face. All this while I had given my life to Christ and I was born again but I was seriously battling with sexual addictions.

I didn't want to talk to anyone. I was ashamed of it, and I wanted to come out of it. I would pray to God but afterwards I'd still go back because I was enjoying it. You know the Bible says that sin is pleasurable. I knew what I was doing was wrong because the Holy Spirit was always nudging me.

Despite my struggles, God still used me a lot in secondary school. I would see things, I would prophesy and things would happen exactly how I said it would. I would pray for people, and they would get healed, but these sexual issues were there so I was confused as to how God could still be using me like that.

I got comfortable with it and I concluded God would still use me notwithstanding.

When I got into the university, I had a health issue. My friends told me it was only steady sex that would help me (such silly friends). So, I went on a sex rampage. I would sleep with anyone, just to stop the illness. But the more I did it, the worse I got. I eventually had to do an operation.

I was still attending church, serving God fully, praying in tongues, doing evangelism and preaching in different places.

I did so many bad things that I don't even want to talk about now. Sometimes I just look back and say, "Wow! God is a forgiving and merciful God."

The funny thing is people would come to me with this same type of problem. I would counsel and pray for them and they would get delivered. Sometimes in church they would ask people dealing with sexual issues to raise their hands, but if I had dared, I felt I would damage a lot of people, so I never did. I didn't know that I was killing myself more because I was looking at people and thinking about what they would say.

God wanted to do a whole lot more with me, but this habit/addiction was keeping me down. Sexual sin, be it sex itself, or masturbation will drain you physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. You can't think and you can't focus. The devil is a bad guy and he's very cunning. He knows that God's plans for you are of good not of evil to bring you to an expected end. He knows that there's a deposit of God in you that if he allows to manifest in full potential, will wreak a lot of havoc in his kingdom. So, he tries to distract you with these things. I didn't know then and I didn't have understanding, so this went on for a very long time.

People started calling me pastor. I was a successful cell leader. Sometimes before cell meetings, I would masturbate or have sex. Nobody knew because I was doing these things behind the scenes.

I kept rising in church. I eventually became a pastor, but each time the church wanted to give me serious responsibilities I would run away because I knew what I was dealing with.

In fact, there was a time that I would go to brothels to sleep with prostitutes and pay for sex. This went on for about 3-4 years continuously.

My leaders didn't understand why I was running away from responsibility because I wasn't telling anyone. This is actually the first time I'll ever be talking about my issues with anyone. Church folks know how to be very judgmental and I didn't want my business out there.

It was sometime in the year 2015 that I got tired of everything. I started playing out my life, reminiscing and I realised that at this point I should have grown in my career, and even in ministry, but I was stuck. I told God I was tired, very tired of the life I was living.

I saw a scripture in the Bible, Romans 11:29 which says, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." I checked other translations and found out God's gifts are irrevocable; his call will never change. You can be doing wonders for God but be so far away from him at the same time. The Holy Spirit started talking to me. He said, “I love you. You don't understand how much I do. If you were the only person alive, Jesus would still have died for you.” I cried.

The year 2015 was the turning point in my life. God started dealing with me personally. I'm ready to beat this with God. I'm ready for ministry. I'm ready to serve God and I thank him that I never caught an STD.

He’s indeed a merciful God.

(Part 1/2) I am what you would call a late bloomer.

I was a fat child and the biggest of all my sisters. I'm also the darkest. I felt disadvantaged and when I was in secondary school, I was bullied. Students would pour water on all the chairs and call me a milk factory. I felt inadequate and like I had to over-compensate. I would do anything to make people like me; anything to make them look beyond my physical body. And so, I was self-serving and people-serving for a very long time. It was a toxic way to live. I coasted along in my Law degree at university just because it was what my parents wanted. I was content with being an average student. I could have excelled, but I felt 2.2 was enough. I didn’t push as hard as I could have.

My Christian life began quite early and that even made me more closed off. My life revolved around church, fellowship and home. I had very low self-esteem and didn’t really explore many areas of my personality or interests. I would smile at everyone, but inside I thought, “Maybe she's looking at me because I'm fat and that's why she doesn't want to be close to me or be my friend. Maybe if I try hard and like everything she does, she would like me."

All these issues reached a peak when I got married.

I got married because everybody around me was getting married and it was the Christian thing to do. I wanted to do it right before God and be a virgin till I married. My very low self-esteem affected my choice at the time and I did my husband a disservice too. When you have an unhealthy self-esteem and you join yourself with another person, you're going to bring pain and hardship to the other party.

I don’t blame myself or my partner for my marriage ending. When I started to deal with my issues, I knew the marriage could not continue. I left so that he could heal and I could heal & deal with myself.

(Part 2/2) When I started working in radio, it really helped me to discover who I am. I just never knew people like me could achieve great things despite the way they looked. It has nothing to do with your size and everything to do with the capacity of your mind. Since I made the decision about 6 years ago to begin to live the way I wanted, I've been happier. I've achieved more, I've taken great strides and I know that it's because I faced my fears. I had to get to the point where I told myself that, “I am good enough because everyone God has made is good enough.” If you don't think you are good enough people are not going to think you are good enough.

I have 4 amazing kids; a daughter and three sons. I understand that self-esteem is something you must get right. I tell my daughter every time how beautiful she is, how great she is. I tell her these things now so she can sit among people and keep her head high, knowing fully well that her “content is more important than the container”. That’s what I am doing to correct what I didn't get initially.

I'm single now and I'm very happy. I love my kids, I have a good relationship with my ex, and I have people that love me. I have a good team, I have work, comedy, music and church. I travel, write, act and do the things that I've always wanted to do. Imagine if I had this kind of healthy self-esteem; I would have made better choices earlier in life and started out better, but there is nothing that happens to man that God is not involved in.

The people that you celebrate are not people without scars. The stretch marks on my belly are a tapestry of my children. They expanded my womb, they made it wrinkled and I love them. They are not something to be ashamed of. You are all the things that you've gone through and come through. I'm not ashamed to talk about these things now because there's somebody out there who needs to get up and know that things are not bad. So, that's how I see my life - like a tapestry.

I hated school.

I went to 3 different universities. I really don't want to talk about the first one, but know that I had to leave. The 2nd university was the University of Lagos (UNILAG). I was really unserious. I would party regularly and I got into drugs too. I was just in school collecting money from home. I had an apartment and a car, so there was really no reason to be serious. I just kept on playing and all the people around me were bad influences and were pushing me in the wrong direction. The school advised that I withdraw because I wasn't writing exams. The truth is I didn't even know when we were supposed to write exams. I was meant to be in 200 level when this happened.

I later got admitted into 200 level in a private university. Honestly, I turned from bad to worse. I didn't like the school because there were so many rules and regulations. There was also a curfew and we had to wear a suit and a tie. I was pretty much a rebel. I broke some of the rules a couple of times, smuggled in drugs (codeine), smoked weed & cigarettes and had another set of bad friends. I got suspended 3 times, till I was expelled from the school in my final year. I was later readmitted into the school to redo my final year. At this time, all my mates had graduated. I was still a naughty child but I was able to graduate. I was happy when I finally graduated and got my certificate.

I've stopped taking codeine and weed. I'm still trying to stop alcohol and cigarettes. I really do desire to stop everything and focus on what is right and I know God is able to help me.

I used to itch till I bled.

In junior secondary school, I noticed a tiny rash on my finger which expanded every time I itched. The rash gradually spread to my elbows, my face and then my entire body (even my scalp). I used different steroid creams but every new one I tried out soon became ineffective against the rash.

In 2014, I had another attack and sought the attention of a doctor. I was diagnosed with psoriasis (an autoimmune disease that causes over production of skin) and as a result I was placed on oral steroids.

This time, the rash became worse and I couldn't go out. I could barely even feel my face or talk properly. I wondered what God thought about this, having a pending issue already and adding a greater one. One very clear message I got was "careless trust". I struggled for a while but gave in. I ignored the rash and continued with my regular activities.

A few months ago, I was discussing with a friend and an issue on "the rash" came up. I wanted to show her the dark scaly scar on my fingers. I looked for it but didn't see it. The rash had cleared up!

No matter what is wrong in your life, no matter how bad you think it is, God can never give you more than you can handle because he is definitely with you. You might see the issue as a "problem" but the truth is, God might need you to learn something. I learnt trust. Never focus on "worry". Has it ever added a strand of hair to your head? Instead it makes it grey.