Pastor Patrick Ngozi Anwuzia, a popular prosperity televangelist who reigned supreme in the 90s and whose style of preaching on television in those days, supposedly, ‘arrested’ so many souls, is bedridden. The clergy who has been away from public glare was hit by kidney disease a few years ago. It began like a manageable illness but before long, the flamboyance that characterized his person began to fade away and the church began to experience a decline in membership. Some branches began to fold up until the reign of Zoe Ministries Worldwide ebbed away as the clergy could no longer manage his ministry due to his illness. It became increasingly difficult to raise funds to fly him abroad for treatment and today, he is like a vegetable. In his hey days, Anwuzia added spiritual flavour and colour to his style of evangelism with his dove symbolled Zoe Ministries, which had its headquarters at the Orile-Iganmu and a branch at Ikeja areas of Lagos. He also had branches in the United Kingdom and some other parts of the world.
His slogan then was ‘Practical Christianity’. He was accustomed to wearing sparkling flowing wide-sleeved Agbada attire with rich colours and held crusades in most big cities in Nigeria. He was once accused of commercializing the word of God in his crusades because of how he raised funds and how often offerings were collected in his church services. Like a tsunami, Zoe Ministries shook the Christian community in Nigeria; the cleric was everywhere, in newspapers, gracing the covers of magazines, broadcasting houses, etc. But the story changed following alleged sexual scandals and an assassination attempt that prompted him to fly to the United States for treatment. On his return, he kept a low profile, perhaps due to financial crunch until he got hit with kidney disease.
