Pa Elton was a great man of God. We came in contact with him in the 70s as the Pentecostal message took on roots in the university campuses. When the present NYSC was introduced, there were a lot of agitations and demonstrations by people; parents were afraid and didn’t want their children to be taken out of reach but God gave Elton a word for the Christians on campuses and he went round campuses, saying that the NYSC was God’s way of using the government of Nigeria to spread the gospel at no expense. And he made the Christian graduates to know that wherever they were being sent, they should go with a consciousness that they were sent there by God to evangelise that place. He hammered that message so strong that the Christian corpers went with that vision and that did a lot in Nigeria.

He pioneered the Kingdom message. He got us to know that as Christians, we were supposed to be instruments in the hands of God to establish His Kingdom, His rule and influence over the earth - wherever we were, as civil servants, whatever - you were a vessel of the Kingdom and you must bring the Kingdom to bear in whatever environment that you were planted.

He also used to say in those days - 1976, 77, that the time is coming in Nigeria that you would almost regret that you were born because things would be so tough that you would almost spend a whole month salary trying to put food on your table for your family and I used to be so angry at him for saying those kinds of things because the oil was booming at that time and being young in mind with fire and fervour we had the faith that things would be better but he kept on saying it and that’s what Nigeria has become today.

He again used to say that there would be an outbreak of revival in Nigeria but the main problem would be whether there would be enough matured spiritual leaders who would handle that revival and pilot it along the way God wants it to go - and that what’s happening in Nigeria. There’s a gospel explosion but we lack enough mature spiritual leaders so in a very great sense we say that Elton was both an apostle and a prophet - not the contemporary titles that we have today.

When God called me into ministry and gave me my marching orders, I went to him and explained my vision as I understood it and he was very, very excited and he made everything that he had available to me. He had a duplicating machine, probably the earliest at that time and I would use it at will. He was a great father to all of us.

I remember some of the things I wanted to do at that time. Again, God gave me enough sense to go and discuss them with him and he used his matured wisdom to help me maintain balance because some of those things would have aborted my whole vision at that early stage. I didn’t like what he said at that time. He sounded like he was trying to pour water on my fire but God gave me the grace to go home and think over what he said and in the end, I complied and that saved me from a lot of trouble. For most of this time, he drove himself wherever he went, be it to Onitsha, Enugu - even in his 70s. He was a very amazing man. He touched the lives of so many ministers. (late) Evangelist (later bishop) Oduwale, Nwankpa, Ukachi - we all fed from him.