2024-01-31 19:00:56
During his lifetime, the influential Nigerian pastor TB Joshua was followed by thousands of followers at home and abroad, who flocked to witness his miracles.
But the Christian televangelist, who died suddenly at the age of 57 in 2021, is also accused of torture, sexual assault, rape and fraud. Today, his evangelical church, the Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan), located in Lagos, the country’s economic capital and the continent’s most populous city, is once once more the target of accusations of abuse while there. officiated.
In a series of videos and articles published in January, the BBC provided more than twenty testimonies from former Scoan devotees reporting abuse and simulated miracles by TB Joshua, whose real name is Temitope Balogun Joshua. The Scoan quickly dismissed the allegations, saying none of the people appearing in the videos were members of the church.
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“The mistake not to make is to focus on TB Joshua. The real subject is the influence of pastors and the way they use it”said Ebenezer Obadare, Africa studies fellow at the Think Tank Council on Foreign Relations and author of the book “Pastoral power, clerical state: Pentecostalism, gender and sexuality in Nigeria”. “The male figure is preeminent and all the faithful are subordinate to the Pentecostal pastor, who has enormous political and economic but also erotic power”he adds.
After the BBC’s publications, Internet users went wild on social networks, with many people accusing the witnesses and the British media of wanting to harm the pastor’s legacy.
Powerful characters
In Nigeria, a religiously conservative country divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south, pastors have considerable influence. TB Joshua, nicknamed “the Prophet”however did not unanimity within evangelical churches, a branch of Protestantism. In April 2021, YouTube removed his channel following he claimed to cure homosexuality, which is once morest the law in Nigeria.
He also boasted of having cured people of AIDS and claimed that the Covid-19 pandemic would end on March 27, 2020. Nigerian church leaders have long been sounding the alarm regarding his behavior.
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In 2009, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), one of the largest evangelical Christian groups in the country, publicly disassociated itself from TB Joshua’s church, urging it to “repentance“and to”convert” to Christianity. Ayo Oritsejafor, leader of the PFN at the time, had accused TB Joshua of exercising the profession of pastor without prior training.
According to Babatomiwa Owojaiye, founder of the Center for Biblical Christianity in Africa, many Africans believed in his miracles despite the accusations once morest him. He considers it difficult to regulate the activities of self-proclaimed prophets and religious leaders since they are not associated with a formal structure that would act as a safeguard.
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On January 26, the Lagos Court of Justice sentenced another evangelical pastor, Oluwafeyiropo Daniels, to life in prison for rape.
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