The BBC has uncovered evidence of extensive abuse and ill treatment by the founder of one of the world’s biggest Christian evangelical churches.
A lot of ex-Synagogue Church of all Nations members – five British – claim atrocities, including rape and compelled abortions, by Nigeria’s late TB Joshua.
The claims of abuse in a secretive Lagos compound stretch almost 20 years.
The Synagogue Church of All Nations is yet to respond to the allegations at the time of this report but they have said that previous claims have been unfounded.
TB Joshua, who gave up the ghost in 2021, was a charismatic and largely successful preacher and televangelist who had a massive global following.
The BBC’s discovery over a two-year investigative period include:
- 1. A lot of eyewitness accounts of physical violence or torture done by Joshua, including cases of child abuse and people being scourged and chained
- 2. A large number of women who say they were sexually assaulted by the preacher, with a a significant number claiming they were consistently raped for years inside the compound.
- 3. Several claims of compelled abortions inside the church, after the alleged rapes by Joshua. One woman says she had five terminations
- 4. Numerous first-hand accounts describing how Joshua faked his so-called “miracle healings”, which were televised to millions of people worldwide.
One of Joshua’s victims, a British woman, called Rae, had been 21 years old when she deserted her degree at Brighton University in 2002 and was admitted into the church. She then proceeded to spend the next 12 years as one of Joshua’s so-called “disciples” inside his maze-looking concrete compound in Lagos.
Rae states that she was sexually assaulted by Joshua and subjected to a type of solitary confinement for two years.
She says the abuse was so extreme, she attempted suicide multiple times inside the compound.
The Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) has a massive global following, operating a Christian TV channel called Emmanuel TV and boasts of social media networks with millions of viewers.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, tens of thousands of believers from Europe, the Americas, South East Asia and Africa travelled to the church in Nigeria to watch Joshua perform his famous “healing miracles”. About 150 visitors lived with him to work as his disciples inside his compound in Lagos, sometimes for years and years.
Over 25 former “disciples” spoke to the BBC; some were from the UK, Nigeria, US, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia and Germany, giving convincing corroborating testimony about their experiences within the church, with their most recent experiences being in 2019.
A lot of the victims were in their teens when they first joined. In some of the British cases, their transport to Lagos was paid for by Joshua, in partnership with other UK churches.
Rae and the multiple other interviewees had compared their experiences in the church to being cult-like.
Jessica Kaimu, who hails from Namibia, says her ordeal spanned over five years. She recalls being 17 when Joshua first raped her, and that the succeeding instances of rape by TB Joshua led her to have five forced abortions while there.
Other interviewees have said that they were undressed and whipped with electrical cables and horse whips, and constantly sleep deprived.
When he died in June 2021, TB Joshua was praised as one of the most prominent pastors in African history.
Amidst all odds, Joshua rose from poverty and erected an evangelical empire that included a large number of political leaders, celebrities and international footballers among his following.
While alive, he attracted a bit of controversy during his lifetime when a guesthouse for church pilgrims caved in in 2014, killing about 116 people.
