Hello everyone, I am sorry I have not published in a while, I had
to take some time off to focus on some important matters, one of which was my
wedding. Yes! I got married to the most beautiful woman in the world on
February 15, 2014, and it was a wonderful event, you will see the pictures soon.
We thank Jesus for His goodness.
Someone asked me to describe Panam Percy Paul and I said, he is to Gospel music what Sir Shina Peters is to Juju music and more. I grew up listening to Panam Percy Paul
and I still listen to him today, the anointing that flows from the voice of
this man of God is outstanding. There was no greater gospel hit than ‘Come lets
praise the Lord’ in the 90s.
Today, Panam Percy Paul has more than seventeen
awards which include: Best Producer of the year and BMI Music Award for Africa
in London, 1995; has over thirteen albums to his credit.
In this interview, he talks about how he met Christ, his struggle
with a demonic sickness, how he joined the Rosicrucian sect, his music, family,
Boko Haram and the Goodluck Jonathan
government.
AWT: Sir, for this generation, tell us who is
Dr. Panam Percy Paul, who is Papa, the musician, music minister, pastor…?
Panam Percy: I was born in 1957 to Major Paul Harley
and Paulina Paul Mokungah of then Gongola, now Adamawa State; I attended Second
Baptist Church Primary school, St. Paul’s College, Zaria, Kaduna State,
Government Secondary Technical School, and Technical School, also in Suba. Then
Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna, Kaduna State
I initially worked as Production Supervisor /Engineer, Radio ELWA
Christian Communications; I do not need to inform us, that I speak English, my
native Mbula and Hausa. I spent my early life in various parts of Nigeria
because my father was an officer in the Nigerian Army, and he was always on
reassignment. My parents are members of the Lutheran Church.
AWT: How did music come into the picture, not
with a Major as a father and you having graduated as an Engineer?’
Panam Percy: My parents did not find it funny,
especially practically paying through the hard pocket for their children to
have a good formal training, they got disappointed if those children venture
into trades considered unenviable or silly. For a twenty year old graduate, one
would think I got the full moral support for my creativity and talents but that
wasn’t the case with me and our generation, you had to be trained to be a
doctor, lawyer or engineer and my parents had done one, so music was out of it.
My mother was a composer though. Whenever my father was
transferred to a new place, we would go to church there. My mother would join
the women’s choir or women’s fellowship of that church and would write
Christian songs for them to sing.
My father liked music too, especially the American “country
western” music, and he had a big collection of gramophone records made by
singers such as Jim Reeves. I used to listen to these records and imagine that
I was the singer.
Yet, I became an outcast and was estranged from home for over
15years. Not minding my health condition of a Sickle Cell like Anaemia and the
spiritual case of being tormented by a demon from a very tender age, I was
determined to seek help at all cost which made me join the Rosicrucian
Movement. Many people did not or do not know this.
AWT: (cuts in) Rosicrucian?, many would want to
know more sir’
Paman Percy: Let me continue, on this fateful day, I
was hit by the sickness, while on my hospital bed, I received my healing
through a TV broadcast after the preacher had led me to Christ. That was the
beginning of my journey with Christ in 1976. It was during the turbulent times
that I got inspired to write the song lyrics:
“Don’t give up, it’s not over. When you give up, then it’s over.
Hold unto the Lord, trouble not your heart. Even when you fail, it’s not over.”
I became born again on that June 13, 1976. I was what you might
consider sickle but not as having sickle cell anemia. Every 3 months in a year
found me bedridden because I had high fever there was some kind of congestion
or whatever in my chest. Each time it came, it was so bad that I thought I
would die.
“I suffered like this persistently for years. This went on for six
years until 1976 when suddenly, I started to see images and noticed the roof of
the house spinning. I saw some spiritual images and sometimes I saw some things
that didn’t look natural. But when I talked about them, nobody in the room
seemed to understand.
“Certainly, they were not angels. These were spirit beings, wicked
spirit beings, because they did some nasty things to me. They were oppressing
and suppressing me. I had gone to so many places for assistance. Then I
tactically joined the Rosicrucian Movement Society just to be able to get some
form of help.
But all I got were certain powers to exhibit some control over the
environment. I knew how to hypnotize some people. But that didn’t give me joy
because my health was still bad.
“So, while in the hospital, I became fed up with the sickness and
then sought God, saying wherever God is, if He does exist, He just should prove
Himself to me. So, I screamed on my bed and said “Jesus if You are there, and
if You have really died for us and resurrected; then make me believe it. Show
me that You died and rose again for my sake, and the only way You can show me
is to heal me.”
This is the second time; I have ever narrated this in an
interview. It was the beginning of a journey; I can only say that it is a case
of “It’s not about what people call you but what you answer to.” No one but
God, the Master planer can decide your future. Make yourself available to Him
and you’ll become an instrument of global positive impact. So he took away
cultism, sickle cell like ailment and here we are me and aworship (laughing).
AWT: You radiate so much passion, laughter, and
self-belief, what is the drive’
Panam Percy: First my passion is from Christ, and only
Christ, but I will break it down to say that Christ gives me self-worth,
something the devil has taken away from this generation of young people both
even so-called believers in Christ. I believed that I could by God’s grace
affect my local community, I believed in my heritage that I could conquer.
Jesus never went abroad, my focus was on local success, if you
want to be an international success, write your story at home.
AWT: Talking about success, your high points,
what was that breaking point, concert or event, which sticks?’
Panam Percy: In 1997, I performed for the first time in my home state of
Adamawa, it was Master of the Universe Concert, in a sitting dome of just 3,000
and it took some 24,000 people that day, some seven chiefs from all the
chiefdoms that made up my locality. You know the song refrain is in my local
dialect and there is a particular dance and beat for it.
Before then, many thought because of my name I was some black
American, we and the band played that some eight times, you wonder why, I will
tell you, at some point my paramount chief, signaled that we stopped and he
brought out 10, 000 Naira, and that was a lot of money then and even now
(laughing) and asked that we play that chorus again. We did and when we were
done, another chief not to be outdone, asked that we play the song again.
For these persons it was with a sense of ‘this is our son’, it was
that feeling of when the Lord is proud of you. He says “this is my beloved
son”.
I also like to recall, my first tour abroad, to the USA. It was
1985/86. I did not know the people, they had heard about me, and went all the
way to the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa in Benin, Niger Delta region of
Nigeria to inquire about me and papa told them, I was the bomb and he got
across to me. It was one of those moments, need I say that God has been
faithful. I was viable locally so I could be exported. I had to discover what I
was worth to the society.
AWT: Almost past three decades some thirteen
albums and plenty awards, how does it feel and why just thirteen albums?’
Panam Percy: It takes me three years to package an
album, it is also not just about an album but a name, about making people
through this songs. An album of necessity must outlive a person; your child
must outlive you. It is godly. How old is amazing grace, the song, several
versions, new ministration but same old blessed songs, it is not in the number
of albums or songs.
These days, there is paradigm shift; it used to be
Ministry-Minister-person, now it is industry conscious, instead of ministry
consciousness. The world dictating the pace of the gospel, that is simply
unacceptable but that is what is happening.
The songs today hardly influence the society; they are not answers
to any question. Now the industry dictates the ministry, instead of the other
way round in which people are touched.
There is a process in life; I began to record albums when I was
twenty years old. After I finished from Kaduna Polytechnic, I got a job with
Radio ELWA Christian Communications as a Production Supervisor/Engineer. I got
married when I was twenty-four years old. God has blessed us with four
children.
“My elder brother, Rev. Phillip Paul Mokungah, (now deceased),
became a pastor of an independent Pentecostal Church called Oasis of Love in
Jos, Plateau State in 1978. What I saw there encouraged me to decide on being a
full-time gospel music minister. I resigned my position with Radio ELWA and set
up my own recording studio with digital recording equipment in Jos. I named it
Panam Music World.
AWT: Sir, briefly let us talk politics, these
are tough times in your part of the nation, the North. The Boko Haram scourge,
people have been talking retaliation.
Paman Percy: My take is dual, one Boko Haram is on an
Islamist agenda, maybe many Muslims may not agree, but that is what it is, take
the middle belt by some way, get the nation, it baffles them how they cannot
get the middle belt, and if they cannot get the country. Let us destroy it. It
is not a faceless group as speculated; they have known sponsors and are part of
the system.
It is only sad that they have dealt body blows to the church and
Christian, the value of life in the North is less than 10%, people used to run,
but now we have seen it all, people are getting immune.
Secondly Jonathan is a target, the idea is to make governance
difficult for him and that they are already doing to him, reasons are many
stemming from political to economic. For faulting on the PDP North/South power
sharing formula. Maybe we should be asking if Yar’adua was alive, we would be
witnessing the level of violence.
People forget that the Boko Haram leader was even killed during
Yar’adua and it was not this bad. Jonathan is faced with the difficult task of
solving this dangerous slide without breaking the country.
AWT: But many may not agree with you, the
thinking is that Jonathan is a weak president’
Paman Percy: (smiling) Jonathan is not charismatic, he
is no Obama, and he has no oratory skills. But I believe he has vision, but he needs
to speed, unfortunately my take is that he is surrounded by people who lack his
vision contrary to public opinion that he has a wonderful team.
He is a child of destiny, and has the opportunity to make Nigeria
what he least expected. I see him like a front runner not necessarily the real
deal but a prelude to the real thing.
AWT: Your contemporaries, many have faded and
the young generation we simply cannot grasp them anymore
Panam Percy: The Music Minister is a life and passion,
the passion with which you sing and minister a song any day and anywhere, shows
the listener that the song was a product of a serious experience and only the
actor in the movie can convey the message properly. I say this always. I had my
trying periods too.
In a bid to combine music with engineering, I took up an
appointment with the Radio ELWA Christian Communication as the production
supervisor/ engineer but later resigned to set up my own recording studio and
named it “Panam Music world” in Jos. Panam Music World is an organization set
up to facilitate the training of Christian Musicians for evangelism and to
serve as a springboard for musicians that might be financially challenged. From
there the “Panam College of Music Ministry”.
I decided to make business a ministry, apart from composing,
arranging and producing his audio and visual tapes of my performances, I went
into publishing sheet music for church choir for them to render my songs
correctly.
Like a fruitful tree provides cover and shade for several other
things and people too, I decided to keep ministry by expansion.
Most of my peers allowed the tide pass them, and the new ones
believe it has to be Lagos (commercial nerve of Nigeria)
Unlike many youths of this generation who dissociate themselves
from Christian songs because they consider them not in vogue or uninteresting.
My aim as a gospel Music Minister is to lead non- Christians to be interested
in the gospel message and to draw them to the true knowledge of our Savior
Jesus Christ”. Sing songs that are gateways to worshiping God and establishing
an intimate relationship with him.
Again, many Christian musicians and ministers could not go through
some hurdles in life and today they are no more there. It was Leonard Ravenhill
that said “No man is greater than his prayer life. The Pastor who is not
praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can
be a shop window to display one’s talents; the prayer closet allows no showing
off”
I don’t need to talk much about being a praise and worship legend.
I hear many people say their love for praise and worship developed from
listening to/watching me. Songs like “come let’s praise the Lord”, “bring down
your glory” came from deep within my spirit… These days the spirit of many
Christian artistes does not sing. And in this day and age it is rare to find
gospel music artistes who are genuine worshippers, the anointing is missing.
AWT: Apart from that anointing what is missing,
it has all gone sour in Christian music ministry especially in Nigeria and
Africa; we depend on American and European Soul worship for spiritual
enrichment, why’
Panam Percy: Let us look at it this way sometime in
1961, I was just barely five thereabout, I started to play my first musical
instrument, the harmonica. My father taught me to play the organ. I started
playing the guitar in 1975. Even the man who actually taught me how to play the
guitar did not even believe that I learnt it from him.
My teacher, Mr. Saidi was teaching a fellow student how to play
the guitar… and I saw how the student was arranging his fingers on the guitar
and looking at the chord chart, and I became interested. So after a while he
had the need to go to the bathroom and so I picked it up and within 15 minutes,
I was already playing the C, F, and G notes and singing.
Today what do we have, the computers have taken over
everything. There is no learning process, I recall, I would later asked
my father to buy me a guitar, so he bought a cheap acoustic guitar for me. I
taught myself to play and would try to mimic the song and play along on my
father’s records.
Later, I would entertain my parents, brothers and sisters by playing
the guitar and singing along my renditions. They would all laugh, but my mother
would encourage me saying, Son, keep it up. Something good is going to come out
of that.”
“One year I entered for a music competition, but my preparation
was insufficient. Facing the crowd, I became so nervous that my performance was
woeful. I did not know what to do so my father walked up and dragged me off the
stage. I was humiliated, but I was not discouraged. I practiced diligently,
entered the competition again the next year and took first position.
AWT: Has these affected standards of the
ministry?
Paman Percy: Yes, it has, and I am not satisfied with
the standards of gospel music in Nigeria or even Africa because of the
mentality of musicians. In the first place, how many of them really know that
they are ministers and not entertainers? Secondly, I think that the pastorate
has contributed to the problem of the music ministers.
They’ve made it look like something you do to earn a salary. I
want the upcoming music ministers to know that the ministry has an origin. The
ministry started with God. God was the first musician and it was He who made
Lucifer to have part of His Spirit in order to minister back to Him. So, the
musician is always so gifted that he can function in all the offices.”
AWT: Your regrets, or most challenging period?
Paman Percy: My salvation was a challenging period,
Yeah. I was desperate because everybody had the opportunity to write their WASC
Examinations but I could write only 2 papers and that was it. I was always
sick.
That same weekend, the CAPRO (Calvary Ministers) then headed by
Bayo Famunure, who incidentally was my teacher in the secondary school, was
organizing a film show and what they showed was a T. L. Osborne’s crusade
films.
“In the film, I heard T.L Osborne say, “those of you watching, you
can see how Jesus healed this boy whose leg was four inches shorter than the other,
He can also heal you. So, just lay your hand where you have an ailment.”
“So, I moved my hand to my chest, loosed my two top buttons and
slipped in my hand. The man prayed and I said ‘Amen.’ That was it. I felt as
light as a feather and as free as air. The congestion in my system just
vanished.
For the first time, I shouted, jumped and started shouting, “I am
healed, I am healed!” And they started chasing me about, probably wondering if
I was mentally all right. Of course, I had to stop running because I was so
fast; no one could catch up with me. It is sweet narrating it now but it was
tough.
How about regrets, no, I do not have any; I think I have turned
out the best I could be, I still try to keep improving and learning, but no
regrets.
AWT: How do you cope, family, all the
responsibilities and this talk about you seeing everything as politics?
Paman Percy: (smiling) Yes everything is politics, it
only depends how it is played and who it is played for, I play politics for
Christ, trying to catch disciple for the Lord.
On the family level, I try to create balance; you cannot be
everything or one thing for twenty four hours. There are times when I am a
father, a husband, a music minister, business man, and grandfather amongst my
many responsibilities. I believe every individual is a factory. By wisdom a man
apportions time to himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment