New Baba Aladura for C & S (Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Nigerian Compass):

Contrary to the expectation of a succession crisis, The Eternal Sacred Order of The Cherubim and Seraphim last Sunday elected Elder Lazarus Anuba Onyeleonu as its new spiritual head/Baba Aladura to succeed the immediate past leader, the late Elder Emmanuel Oludotun Okeyemi.

With the new appointment, Onyeleonu becomes the eighth Baba Aladura after the Founder of the Holy Order, Saint Moses Orimolade Tunolase, Elder Abraham Onanuga, Elder Samuel Amodu Adewunmi, Elder Josiah Soyemi Olubusi, Elder Adebowale Ogunyadi, Elder Gosfrey Itse Mene Otubu and Elder Oludotun Okeyemi, all of blessed memory.

Senior Apostle-General and Secretary to the Order, Elder D. L. Bob-Manuel, however, disclosed that the succession was peaceful because there is a leadership arrangement in the church that makes it not susceptible to succession crisis.

 He further disclosed that according to the constitution of the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim, upon the death of an incumbent, the power of control and management of the Holy Order falls on the Advisory Board, adding that the board, after deliberation and prayer, elected the new head.

Okeyemi died on September 17 and was buried on December 11.

The new Baba Aladura, according to Bob-Manuel, joined the Cherubim and Seraphim organisation in 1948 at Aba, now Abia State, and “was instrumental to the founding of Oguta 1, Owerri, Aba, Ibagwa in Nsukka, Umuahia, Ohafia, Port-Harcourt, Diobu (then in Akokwa Street), Sapele, Orlu, Oba, Ogbunike, Nteje, Warri, Agbor, Umunede, Calabar and Nkpologwu parishes.