Arts Personality
KIKI ASONIBE: NIGERIAN POET AND PSALMIST
Who is Kiki Asonibe?
Kiki Asonibe was born to the late Mr Sunday and Mrs Elizabeth Moka and named Nkiruka Moka. She lived and went to school in Lagos until the early 90s. After her first degree in Business Education from the then Anambra State University Of Technology (Asutech) in Enugu before the States were divided, she began her travels through countries in North Africa, Middle East, West Africa and a couple of countries in Europe. She was in and out of Nigeria for about 20 years before finally returning to Nigeria in 2009 and settling in Lagos.
“Kiki” as she is generally known today, has two lovely daughters and a grandson, loves to read, cook, write, travel and housekeep. She has retired from any active work, enjoys the quiet life of meditations and writing psalms and poetry.
When did you start your walk with God and what has the experience been like?
I honestly will say that my walk with God started in 2009, when I returned finally to Nigeria from the United Kingdom. I don’t want to count the years of being born again, being a church goer, an active participator in church activities, church group committees and all that because, for me, unless you have a precise understanding of the experiences that make up your lifestyle in the kingdom of God, you can’t boldly say you have a walk with God, you may probably say you have been happening into things consciously or otherwise but that’s all it can be.
In 2009, l began to notice that some of the events that were happening in my life were not just coincidental, so I became more attentive to events around me but somehow, honestly I don’t know how I knew it then, I was sure they were not humanly orchestrated but I didn’t understand why God would let such things happen to me. In fact sometime in 2009, I can’t remember the exact month, a pastor friend of mine told me that God said to tell me to stop every financial activity I was involved in, business and otherwise and that He, God, is and will be my sole provider. I stared at the pastor knowing this could not have come from him and at the same time, wondering how I was going to take care of my daughters, who at that time were 9 and 17 years old. Hmmmmm! God is faithful. Anyway I did continue dabbling into things which, of course, all failed.
By my birthday in 2010, I prayed to God to please end this life for mine because I did not see any need for it. Come to think of it, He did end it, because the day after my birthday which was the 9th of November I bumped into the pastor friend of mine who told me about a fellowship he attends that is for people who are looking for a deeper life with God. I followed him to Jordan Ministries, and within a few weeks I confidently dropped every financial activity I was involved in and a few months down, every finance I had or saved finished. My life entered into another kind of story, it started becoming clearer to me what God meant by being my sole provider.
Exchanges began to happen, I became like one who had found a valuable Pearl and was willing to sell off every other thing for that single pearl. Joy and peace began to take the place of anxiety, faith for fear, stability for indecisiveness, understanding for vagueness. Pictures fitted into storylines that confirmed a precise walk with God by the leading of the Holy Spirit, my meditations and writing intensified, things that looked like mysteries started becoming clearer, I realized nothing was a coincidence, everything that had happened to me up until then were all plans in the life of my walk with God. It’s incredible. I stayed in Jordan Ministries for a while and later moved on, thanking God always for the good, the bad and the ugly, for it all worked and is still working together for good in my life and walk with God, experiencing Him in deeper understandings of His thoughts and ways, submitting to His will as a living sacrifice that His will may be done here on earth just as it is done in Heaven.
You are a poet and an author and you once said that you portray life in the kingdom of God in your writings. How did this come to be?
I didn’t initially understand some of my writings as patterns of life in the kingdom of God until, I began to understand the uniqueness of my walk with God, or you can say the hope of my calling in Christ. Most of my writings come from the place of meditations, of course, and interactions with the Holy Spirit. After a time of meditation the Holy Spirit would have me pen things down in the form of prophecies, parables, solutions to issues, understanding of spiritual situations, seasons and times, all poetically. That is when I began to understand what my life represented in the kingdom of God. It is incredibly humbling when I see the lives of people conform to the will of God and come to an understanding of the mind of God over their lives or situations after reading or listening to any of my writings. It is more amazing to me. To God be the glory.
What is it like giving voice to the utterances of God?
It is an awesome responsibility. You have to be mindful of whose words you are uttering at every given time. Sometimes it doesn’t even come out in understandable words, some other times it’s in actions and positions taken. Whichever way, there is a message in the heart of God that must be heard, seen or in very few cases understood, and the responsibility lies on you at that moment. The beauty that it carries is that God always confirms His words with signs, wonders and miracles most importantly to you, giving you peace all the time no matter how bizarre, frightened, foolish or crazy you may sound or look.
What kind of challenges do you face in your journey and how do you overcome them?
At the beginning of my walk with God I had a lot of challenges. Sometimes it was getting angry that people did not instantly agree with what I was saying to them, some other times being emotional. I used to feel so restless, especially when a message was within an immediate time frame; it really was difficult at the initial stage. I was labeled with funny names and patronized; I look back now and laugh.
As time went on and I began to mature in the life of God, I started to understand that it was just fear. So I would go back to God with a prayer of mercy and strength for the people knowing I could not add, remove or make a shift from any position I was to take. Ezekiel chapter 33 was my Bible passage. I would also go back to the Holy Spirit to ask for details of the message. The utterances that come from me were to compel people to go back to God for details. That way I am never the final word, to the glory of God, I always remembered to tell everyone to go back to God. There were also some challenges that were handled by being satisfied with whatever I had at the time, I learnt how to abase and abound.
Afrika’s rich art culture is facing a gradual watering down due to the chase after shallow monetary gains. How do you propose we help the situation?
First of all, the reason you water down what belongs to you to sell it is because you do not have value for it. Anytime money becomes the reason for anything, then it becomes possible to alter it on demand, hence it loses the quality of being priceless.
Honestly speaking, I do not think that there is any earthly thing that cannot be altered and monetized. The only way to help with this is by educating the people to have eternal values, love, joy, patience and contentment. The truth is whatever comes from you shows who you are, your values and all. So for me to change the mindset of the people of Afrika from earthly to eternal is very key. Change the mindset and values change and every other thing follows.
If you were to say something to those who may be wrestling with the process of getting to the point of allowing God to simply do as He wills through them, what would it be?
I believe everybody goes through this from the beginning, but the feeling begins to give way when there is a decisive decision to love God come what may, a place of “if I perish I perish” That builds strength in the inner man and of course there’s the most important person of all, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is such a loving Being that will never put more on you than you can bear, find strength in Him at every point.
If you are faithful in the little then more will be given. Remember that Jesus, when He was leaving the earth, understood the challenges in earth (Hebrew 2:17) knew that only the Holy Spirit can lead you successfully on earth. Only the Holy Spirit knows the will of God over your life, bear in mind that no one knows the will of a man except his spirit( 1st Corinthians 2:11&12). The Holy Spirit knows and understands how your walk with God is supposed to be. So hold tight to the Holy Spirit.
God bless you all.
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