The Year 2047

Tunde Ekpekurede

My name is Tunde Ekpekurede, today is my 80th birthday.

27 years ago, I was then 53 years of age, there was a Corona Virus (some of you will remember this virus) outbreak that started in Wuhan China and the virus outbreak almost paralysed me and my finances. The virus caused a global pandemic that practically kept much of the entire world on a lockdown. Prior to this lock down, my finances were in a fairly good shape and I had a few promising contract opportunities lined up for me. However, once the virus pandemic set in, several of my regular clients cancelled their contracts and I gradually slipped into a state of panic. From a faith filled mind packed with plenty promises, I moved into a defensive and fearful mode. I remember one particular Friday during the pandemic, I sat in front of my television all day and by the end of that day, I was so fearful that even my wife could not believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. Fear wrapped up my entire mental faculties, I looked at my finances and it was like I was finished. I thought of what I might be able to sell to stay afloat, but there was nothing to sell and even if I had anything that was sellable, it was the worst time to sell even a TOKUNBO shoe. In the pandemic the only thing that people bought was food — I had none to sell and did not even understand the business.


I am here to testify of God’s faithfulness in my life today and how He delivered me and my family from the Corona virus. I am 80 years today and my wife is 79 and we have given out so many scholarships that beats our imagination. We have invested millions in real estate, and I continue to run my business. I outlived the Covid -19 pandemic together with my wife and entire family, siblings and loved ones. I lost no friend, family, or church member to Covid 19 to the day they discovered a vaccine and to the eventual disappearance of the virus. I gave out several millions to help vulnerable families during the lockdown much beyond my wildest dreams — from a near bankrupt position. All my kids are multi-millionaires in their own rights today; happily married and leading incredibly happy lives. My wife and I see our grandkids now and then and we are so full of joy. As I celebrate my 80th birthday today I can only say, THANK YOU JESUS. My coaching business has taken me to every corner of the world and millions are watching my coaching videos every month.

In the year 2020, the year of the virus, I was head of a household of 6, my wife, was the only one that earned wages to feed the house and cater for all the bills at the start of the pandemic just six weeks after a brutal lockdown. In my mental paralysis, I began to depend 100% on the wages that my wife earned as a doctor and started postponing my entire life to when my wife wages will come. I saw myself sinking into hopelessness and surrendering my mental powers until in one moment of enlightenment, I saw on Bloomberg News one morning that while the pandemic lasted, Amazon Stocks grew 30% when all other stocks were down nearly 50%. I found out on Bloomberg too that Amazon hired an extra 200,000 staff in March of 2020 alone. Immediately, as if awoken from a dream, I knew immediately that I too can grow my finances in a downturn. But the question was how? I am an engineer, project, and operations manager, Life coach and public speaker. None of that was selling in that moment. I kept digging into the avenues of my soul and finding out what I could do. My prepaid electricity meter was honking its blaring alarm most mornings and I am having to report this to my wife every now and then — an extremely uncomfortable position for me at the time though she was as supportive as ever. I have always believed that those who find answers are those who ask questions. Jesus said emphatically that THOSE WHO SEEK WILL FIND. I have oftentimes rebooted my life by unceasingly seeking a way out of impossible situations. In my small life I have found out that if you do not stop SEEKING, you will eventually “FIND”.

In the morning of May 2020, the year of the virus, I took one small decision that helped me a great deal. I stopped looking up to the news for my inspiration. I decided to go inwards, to search the avenues of my spirit and find out how I could get out of the place that I was and remove myself from the roll call of complainers. I figured out that there must be a way and it was up to me to find it, not the news. I decided that I was going to at least try. As I lay down one morning doing my meditation and trying to call up every knowledge I have been espoused to over the years that brought me out of difficult situations, I remembered one from Pastor Chris Oyakhilome where he said that Jesus told the man with a withered hand to STRETCH OUT HIS HAND. Pastor Chris explained that for Jesus to ask a man with a withered hand to stretch fort his hand meant that there was something the man could do. I sat in quiet meditation and said a simple prayer, “Jesus, I am like that man with a withered hand that you talked about in Mark chapter 3. My hand is withered, my profession is withered in this pandemic, my source of livelihood is withered. How do I stretch out my hands? I have nothing to stretch out. As I reflected on the response of the man, I reckoned that the man stretched forth a hand he did not have. How did he do it. Pastor Chris said he stretched his hand in the spirit. But how does one stretch forth his hand in the spirit? Unfortunately, I did not get this from Pastor Chris message. So, I kept reflecting.

In one moment of quiet contemplation, I stumbled onto a YouTube message by Bishop TD Jakes titled “BELIEVE”. The message had over 2m YouTube views at the time, so I decided it might be a good one to watch. I was glad I watched it. I saw vividly that we are all as happy, wealthy, and prosperous as our beliefs allow us to be. I saw like I have never seen before that an audacious belief was better than a PhD. I saw faintly that I could at least believe that my situation could improve when everything in the media or environment says otherwise. I know first-hand many of my classmates who although I beat them academically at the University of Benin, they have audacious beliefs that they projected while we were in school and after they left the University of Benin with a Pass degree that I felt was worthless, these persons went on to amass so much wealth and influence I could not even dream of.

As if I was been led by a divine hand, with the Corona virus still ravaging the world and my finances at that time, I began to THINK DIFFERENTLY. I began to HOPE. I began to see possibilities. I exchanged 90% of my TV time for more knowledge. I dusted some old books that have helped me in time past. As I watched on Channels TV what people were doing with the locked down time, from reading to bonding more with their families and learning new skills online, my hopelessness began to disappear. A new dawn began to emerge. I latched onto Matt 6: 22 — If your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light. I kept my eyes on this single theme — that I can transcend the pandemic. As I focused on this line and searched, by the law of attraction, I laid hold on the appropriate books in my shelf that continued to pull me out of my imagined darkness into light. I flipped through the pages of a book by Wharton Professor, Stewart Friedmann that was sitting on my book shelf — “TOTAL LEADERSHIP, Be a better Leader, Have a richer Life”; as I did, I saw pages I previously underlined where Stewart recounts great leaders writing the about the life they desire in the past terms as if it already occurred. I sat up! I re-read chapter 2 of the book where a great number of company CEOs told the story of their lives 30 years into the future, but this time as it happened 30 years ago. As I read story after story, I reckoned that there must be a science to this. This is not a religious book. Stewart works with Fortune 500 Company CEOs, teaches at Wharton and this is what they do.

As I reflected on this, it dawned on me that if this is what great people did to achieve greatness, they must be doing what the Bible describes as Faith. In my church attendance at the Elevation Church, I learnt that Faith is SEEING THE INVICIBLE. Hebrews 11:23 records, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment…. “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is INVISIBLE.” … As if in a mystical EUREKA, I remembered that Abraham was a native doctor when suddenly he believed that God could justify him even as a native doctor and the Bible reckons that because he believed God as capable of doing this, God justified him and made him father to everyone who will believe on him this way. Now, my armoury was beginning to increase. I am not different from Moses — I am a proper child — I am defying Covid 19.


As if propelled by a divine hand to find answers to my question on how to get out of the prison of Covid 19, my friend Samuel Egube, who served 2 times as commissioner under Governor Babajide Sanwo Olu (Governor of Lagos State from 2019–2027) called to ask me if I could help with the distribution of food to vulnerable communities in Lagos State? I said, YES! YES!! YES!!! even without thinking about what the work entailed. I told him I will need to be mobilized financially. He said come to my house to get cash. When I got to his house, he not only gave me cash, he started to share his experience of life and what he thought must have brought him to Governor Sanwo Olu. He said it was God, but he thinks that saying “it was God” isn’t all there is to a miracle and that God is no respecter of persons and we have to respond to God to get a miracle. As he spoke, he said “when God called Adam in the cool of the garden, he asked him a simple question, where are you?; but the man replied that he is in hiding because he is naked, and God asked him “WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE NAKED”?”. Sam Egube said many times we unconsciously disqualify ourselves from opportunity when it knocks by bringing out the worst that we imagine about ourselves. Immediately, I told the commissioner that “it wasn’t money I came here to collect”, money was the bait, “I needed to hear what you just said” — it will take me too many pages to say here what the commissioner said to me for about 30 minutes.

I think God got me involved in the food distribution program to just let me know that not everyone one was sleeping at home watching Channels TV. Doctors are working, Netflix is working, Telecoms staff are working and on top all these, Biotech businesses were in the fiercest battle in all of history to come up with the first vaccine against Covid- 19. By April 30 of that year, 3 countries — the UK, Germany and China have given the go ahead for clinical trials for Covid 19 vaccine. I will later read in the Economist of London that it was the fiercest battle amongst pharmaceutical companies, countries, and biotech companies in Modern history. As of April 20, of that year, the US had paid out over 7.5 billion dollars to vaccine research firms. So, when I thought we were all watching films and complaining, some of the fiercest business battles in modern history were going on. I certainly did not want to be an onlooker.




FINDING is reserved for the searchers, according to motivational speaker, Jim Rohn. One good way to live your life is to be a student EVERYDAY. I was on YouTube in one of those days of the Covid 19 virus, and I heard Dr. Joe Dispenza say that “giving thanks for something you already have was living in the past”. He said what we should be doing ideally was to imagine the future we want, create it, and live in it. He said we live in it when we DAILY give thanks for that future as if we were already experiencing it. I jumped off my couch shouting EUREKA! EUREKA!! I have found it. To give thanks for your imagined future as if it already occurred. I got it. Stewart & Joe have just said in different ways what God was trying to teach me.
I am not a real estate agent, but that year I had tried helping a friend to rent a property. In one Sunday morning while Covid 19 news reigned in the media, after I had forgotten about the rental property because of the lockdown, an agent called me that the property has just been paid for and that my lot in the agency fees paid was N30k. Talk about a miracle. My prepaid meter was already crying for a top up. I got my N30k and loaded N20k into the prepaid meter and got some foodstuff stocked into the house. From that day to the end of Covid 19 I was loaded with so much work that I hired several new staff to come work for me during the lock down. From the days of Covid 19 to this day, it has been miracle after miracle. I made more money every month from the time of the Covid 19 virus lockdown to this day in ways that could only have happened because I CHANGED MY BELIEFS.

Has this testimony been a blessing to you? Why not share your testimony of how you overcame Covid 19 27 years ago? Please share your testimony and post it here or drop it by email at tunde@ekpekurede.org. I bet you will be glad you did