I want to particularly appreciate God for His faithfulness on the successful completion of my academic programme. It was God’s enablement and favour all through. There were five major defences in the course of my Ph.D.programme, and each had a panel of examiners. The first two stages were successfully done against all odds, as some Nigerian university professors will want to delay you for no just cause, telling you that certain professors ran the same programme for as long as eight to twelve years.

During the third level, which included my faculty defence, my main supervisor and many others who had followed up my work from inception were away for a conference and only the junior supervisor was present. I didn’t know that even during seminar presentations some form of politics played out. Unfortunately, I was a victim to the shame of the devil. As soon as I was called out to present, the chairman of the panel hardly allowed me to finish with my presentation when my time wasn’t yet up. He halted me and raised an issue with the work. He is not a professor in my department, therefore, he had little or no knowledge on the topic under discussion. I tried to explain my work to him but he wouldn’t listen. My HOD (Head of Department) and an associate professor in my department who happens to be my design reader tried to speak up regarding the issue, but he just concluded and said he had already decided on my work.

At that point, I knew the devil was trying to fool around. My design reader got angry and left the hall, saying that this was a gang up but certainly not against me, the student, but that, unfortunately, I was the victim. At that point, I began to confess God’s Word that I was not going to repeat that stage and that the devil failed before he began. That defence had been raised in my FOG (Family Outreach group) as a prayer point and we agreed as a family that success was guaranteed.

I waited for the seminar to end and I walked up to the chairman of the panel who didn’t even listen to me, I just knew it was God’s battle. In summary, on my report sheet, I was asked to repeat that stage and God just dropped the story of dead Lazarus in my heart and I knew that everything was going to bring glory to God at the end of the day. The truth is that if I accepted that grading, my program could be delayed for an extra year. I kept speaking God’s Word over the situation, declaring that rules will change for my sake and that God was going to raise unlikely vessels to fight for me.

God came through for me. My HOD who wasn’t best of friends with me (by the way), the most senior professor in my department, and a couple of other lecturers who were present, took it upon themselves, to follow up with the defence chairman. They kept bombarding him with calls, some even threatened to petition him if he didn’t change my grading as they all witnessed the presentation and didn’t see any major error that would have warranted a repeat. They stated also that they have chaired such panels on different occasions.

A colleague of mine who lectures with me in the same part-time centre had a meeting with the professor a few days after my defence and my matter was raised in the course of their meeting. The professor asked him: “Doc, who is this lady that everyone has been calling me on her matter?” The doc quickly added that he also had plans to raise that matter with him. I had no idea that so much pressure was being put on the professor to revisit my matter.

God is a good God and He is too faithful to fail. My HOD told me to go and pick up my report sheet that he needed to use the comments in the report to make his case. However, the report at this point had been submitted to the faculty secretary. A friend of mine who works closely with the dean of the faculty sympathetically told me that once the report has entered that office nothing can change. Immediately she made that statement, I knew that I didn’t have any business discussing that issue with her again. I quickly told her that whether it has entered the office or not, I was not going to repeat and that God had gone ahead of me. She just laughed and said, “I like your faith, but I’m the one in the system”. I assured her that she was going to hear the testimony and I walked away.

The defence took place on Thursday, 15th August 2019. I kept declaring that I was more than a conqueror through Christ and that just like Lazarus’ death was an opportunity for God’s glory, that repeat grading was also an opportunity for God’s glory. In all of these, my main supervisor who happens to be in the same calibre with the chairman never called neither did he do anything to inquire why his student was asked to repeat a work that he painstakingly supervised. Then I began to understand how I became a victim of something I knew nothing about.

From that Thursday evening, we kept confessing every day that God was going to come through for us in that matter. On Sunday, 18th August 2019, First Service, I walked into church with great expectations. A few persons who knew I had an examination asked how it went and I responded that it went well. While Pastor Sola was preaching that Sunday, he began to prophesy that God was going to intervene in someone’s case.

I was to pick my report on Tuesday, 20th August 2019. As soon as that word of prophecy came forth, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God had done it for me. After the service, I asked my husband if he heard my word of prophecy, he said, “Yes”, and we praised God. I was so excited about going to pick my official report on Tuesday to give it to my HOD.

We were a total of sixteen on the day we were examined at the faculty level, Masters and Ph.D. students alike. We all came to pick up our reports that Tuesday. Eight persons were asked to proceed while eight of us were asked to repeat. Mine was a peculiar case as the chairman said he had already decided on my work. We queued up and went in one after the other into the faculty secretary’s office to pick up our reports. As I walked in, he asked for my name, reached out for my report sheet to hand it over to me. Suddenly, he paused. I didn’t know him from “Adam”, he is not a member of my department and I had never had any personal meeting with him before. God’s Word was at work. He asked, “Madam, why were you asked to repeat?” I said I didn’t really know but still mentioned the issue that was raised by the chairman and he said please sit down I need to go through this report.

I knew God was doing a quick work because my friend who is a faculty staff already told me that any report, which entered that office, cannot be altered. He finished reading through and was in shock; he wondered why I was asked to repeat. He was full of rage. He asked if I had a copy of my main work and PowerPoint. I quickly rushed to my car, picked them up and brought them to him. He confirmed whatever it was he wanted to confirm and asked me to wait that he needed to see the professor. To the glory of God, he met the professor and presented my case which was not alien to the professor. He is lower in rank to the professor but a very good head in the faculty with two PhDs to his name and very good in research.

The professor on seeing him with the report sheet, my PowerPoint and main work alongside his strong reasons, just endorsed and said, “Please, go and grade her whatever you think is due her”. Hallelujah! He came back, changed my grade, cancelled the repeat grading, and wrote, “PROCEED”. By November 2019, and January 2020 respectively, I was done with the last two levels and I came out in flying colours with no bad belle of any sort. God is faithful!

Thank you my dearest Pastor Kech, for the undiluted Word and your mentorship on never to accept defeat. Thank you, Pastor Sola, for that timely word on that blessed day – August 18th, 2019. The Word works.