How TB Joshua Faked Miracle, Raped, Tortured, Forced Abortions On Worshippers

At least 25 witnesses featured in the BBC Eye’s three-part expose on the purported clandestine life of the late televangelist, Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua, commonly known as TB Joshua, asserted that he harboured intentions of enslaving not only Africans but also Westerners, actively singling them out for miracles.

Evidence of widespread abuse and torture by the founder of one of the world’s biggest Christian evangelical churches has been uncovered by the BBC.

Dozens of ex-Synagogue Church of all Nations members – five British – allege atrocities, including rape and forced abortions, by Nigeria’s late TB Joshua.

The allegations of abuse in a secretive Lagos compound span almost 20 years.

The Synagogue Church of All Nations did not respond to the allegations but said previous claims have been unfounded.

TB Joshua, who died in 2021, was a charismatic and hugely successful preacher and televangelist who had an immense global following.

The BBC’s findings over a two-year investigation include:

–Dozens of eyewitness accounts of physical violence or torture carried out by Joshua, including instances of child abuse and people being whipped and chained

–Numerous women who say they were sexually assaulted by Joshua, with a number claiming they were repeatedly raped for years inside the compound

–Multiple allegations of forced abortions inside the church following the alleged rapes by Joshua, including one woman who says she had five terminations

–Multiple first-hand accounts detailing how Joshua faked his “miracle healings”, which were broadcast to millions of people around the world

One of the victims, a British woman, called Rae, was 21 years old when she abandoned her degree at Brighton University in 2002 and was recruited into the church. She spent the next 12 years as one of Joshua’s so-called “disciples” inside his maze-like concrete compound in Lagos.

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“We all thought we were in heaven, but we were in hell, and in hell terrible things happen,” she told the BBC.

Rae says she was sexually assaulted by Joshua and subjected to a form of solitary confinement for two years. The abuse was so severe, she says she attempted suicide multiple times inside the compound.

The Synagogue Church of All Nations [Scoan] has a global following, operating a Christian TV channel called Emmanuel TV and social media networks with millions of viewers. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, tens of thousands of pilgrims from Europe, the Americas, South East Asia and Africa travelled to the church in Nigeria to witness Joshua performing “healing miracles”. At least 150 visitors lived with him as disciples inside his compound in Lagos, sometimes for decades.

Rae spent 12 years in Joshua’s compound

More than 25 former “disciples” spoke to the BBC – from the UK, Nigeria, US, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia and Germany – giving powerful corroborating testimony about their experiences within the church, with the most recent experiences in 2019. Many 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 co-ordination with other UK churches.

Rae and multiple other interviewees compared their experiences to being in a cult.

Jessica Kaimu, from Namibia, says her ordeal lasted more than five years. She says she was 17 when Joshua first raped her, and that subsequent instances of rape by TB Joshua led to her having five forced abortions while there.

“These were backdoor type… medical treatments that we were going through… it could have killed us,” she told the BBC.

Other interviewees say they were stripped and beaten with electrical cables and horse whips, and routinely denied sleep.

On his death in June 2021, TB Joshua was hailed as one of the most influential pastors in African history. Rising from poverty, he built an evangelical empire that counted dozens of political leaders, celebrities and international footballers among his associates.

He did, however, attract some controversy during his lifetime when a guesthouse for church pilgrims collapsed in 2014, killing at least 116 people.

The BBC’s investigation, which was carried out with international media platform openDemocracy, is the first time multiple former church insiders have come forward to speak on the record. They say they’ve spent years trying to raise the alarm, but have effectively been silenced.

A number of our witnesses in Nigeria claim they were physically attacked, and in one case shot at, after previously speaking out against the abuse and posting videos containing allegations on YouTube.

A BBC crew that attempted to record footage of the church’s Lagos compound from a public street in March 2022 was also fired at by the church’s security, and was detained for a number of hours.

The BBC contacted Scoan with the allegations in our investigation. It did not respond to them, but denied previous claims against TB Joshua.

“Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated,” it wrote.

Four of the British citizens who spoke to the BBC say they reported the abuse to the UK authorities after escaping the church. They say no further action was taken.

Anneka says she believes there are many victims yet to speak out

In addition, a British man and his wife emailed eyewitness accounts of their ordeal and video evidence – including recordings of being held at gunpoint by men describing themselves as police who are also members of Scoan – to the British High Commission in Nigeria in March 2010 after fleeing the church. In his email, the man said his wife had been repeatedly sexually assaulted and raped by Joshua. He warned the commission that other British nationals were still inside the compound facing atrocities.

He also says no action was taken.

The UK Foreign Office did not respond to these claims, but told the BBC that it takes all reports of crime, including sexual assault and violence against British nationals overseas, very seriously.

Scoan continues to thrive today, under the leadership of Joshua’s widow, Evelyn. In July 2023, she led a tour of Spain.

Anneka, who left Derby in the UK to join Scoan at the age of 17, told the BBC she believes there are many other victims who have yet to speak out. She hopes further steps will be taken to uncover Joshua’s actions.

“I believe the Synagogue Church of All Nations needs a thorough investigation into why this man was able to function for so long the way he did,” she said.

Neither Rae nor Anneka, nor many of the young people who left their home countries to meet Joshua in the early 2000s, paid for their tickets. Church groups across England raised funds to send pilgrims to Lagos to witness these miracles – and Joshua contributed Scoan money himself, senior former church insiders say. Later, once the church was well established, he charged high prices for pilgrims to come and stay.

Bisola, a Nigerian who spent 14 years inside the compound, says courting Westerners was a key tactic.

“He used the white people to market his brand,” she says.

Agomoh Paul says he was in charge of the “miracles” production

Former insiders estimate Joshua made tens of millions of dollars from pilgrims and other money streams – fundraising, video sales, and stadium appearances abroad. He rose from poverty to become one of Africa’s richest pastors.

Head shot of Agomoh Paul from BBC interview, wearing grey polo neck and jacket

Agomoh Paul says he was in charge of the “miracles” production
“That guy [was] a genius,” says Agomoh Paul, a man once regarded as Joshua’s number two in the church, who left after 10 years in the compound.

“Everything… [he did was] planned out.”

A major part of this planning was the faking of the “miracles” says Agomoh Paul, which he says he oversaw.

He and other sources say that those “cured” had often been paid to perform or exaggerate their symptoms before their supposed healing took place. In some cases, they say, people had been unknowingly drugged or given medicine to improve their conditions while at the church, and later persuaded to give testimony about their recovery. Others were falsely told they had tested positive for HIV/Aids and that, thanks to Joshua’s ministrations, they had now become virus-free.

When Rae landed in the seething heat of Lagos, she saw miracles too. Dozens of people came and testified to having been healed of serious illnesses.

“I had a really involuntary reaction. I just broke down in floods of tears,” she says.

It was then that Rae was chosen. Joshua singled her out to become a “disciple” – an elite group of followers who served him and lived with him inside his compound.

Rae thought she was going to study under Joshua, to “cure” her sexuality, to learn how to heal people.

The reality was very different.

“We all thought we were in heaven, but we were in hell,” she says. “And in hell terrible things happen.”

Sixteen of the former disciples we interviewed, including Rae, provided first-hand testimony of sexual assault or rape by Joshua. Many say it happened frequently – as much as two to four times a week – for the duration of their time in the compound. Some described violent rapes which left them struggling to breath or bleeding.

Many believed they were the only ones being assaulted and did not dare share what was happening to them with the other disciples, as they were all encouraged to report on each other.

According to Victoria, who asked us to change her name for safety reasons, and who spent more than five years in the compound, other sexual assault victims were often hand picked by Joshua from the church congregation.

She says she was picked out while attending the church’s Sunday school, and says she was raped in Joshua’s private quarters a few months later, after her parents entrusted her into his care. She was then recruited as a resident disciple.

Victoria says Joshua ordered some of his most trusted Nigerian disciples to help identify new victims. The group was informally known as the “fishing department” and she says it ultimately coerced her into joining.

Another disciple involved in similar recruitment was Bisola.

Bisola says she was forced by Joshua to select young women for him to abuse

Bisola says she was forced by Joshua to select young women for him to abuse
“TB Joshua asked me to recruit virgins for him… So that he could bring them into the disciple-fold and disvirgin them,” she says.

She participated because of both “indoctrination” and threats of violence, she says, adding she herself was repeatedly raped by Joshua.

A number of women say they were under the age of legal of consent – which is 18 in Lagos state – when they were sexually assaulted or raped. This offence can lead to the death penalty in Nigeria.

Jessica Kaimu, now a broadcast journalist in Namibia, says she was just 17 and a virgin when Joshua raped her in the bathroom of his penthouse, within weeks of her becoming a disciple.

Jessica Kaimu, crying, in BBC studio interview

Jessica Kaimu says she was repeatedly raped by TB Joshua

“I was screaming and he was whispering in my ear that I should stop acting like a baby… I was so traumatised, I couldn’t cry,” she says.

Jessica says this encounter was repeated again and again, throughout the five years she spent as a disciple. Her account mirrors that of other women who spoke to the BBC, and also of accounts by four of Joshua’s male personal servants who were given the job of clearing up the physical evidence of this abuse.

Many of the details of our interviewees’ accounts are too graphic to publish. They include multiple first-hand accounts of women being stripped naked, and raped with objects – including one woman who says it happened to her twice before the age of 15.

“It was so painful, he violated me,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, says. “Words cannot properly express it. It scarred me for life.”

A number of interviewees who say they were raped and became pregnant by Joshua, explain how they were also then given forced abortions inside the compound – in an area known as the “medical department” or “clinic”.

“It would all be done in secrecy,” says Sihle, a South African former disciple, who says she had three forced abortions in the church.

“You are given a concoction to drink and you get sick. Or they put these metal pieces in your vagina and they extract whatever. And you don’t know whether they’re [accidentally] pulling out your womb.”

Sihle wept throughout her interview, as did Jessica who says she was given five forced abortions.

Bisola says she witnessed “dozens” of abortions during her 14 years inside the church. At times, she says she would climb to the highest floor of the compound and cry, begging God to save her.

The disciples served Joshua’s every need. They gave him massages, helped him dress, sprayed perfume when he entered the room. They placed plastic gloves on his hands so he could eat his food without touching a crumb.

Rather than call him by his name, they were all encouraged to address him as “Daddy”. It’s not uncommon for a Nigerian pastor in the Pentecostal tradition to be addressed this way, but the disciples say it was a term Joshua insisted on.

“My mind was like it had been shaken,” says Anneka. “There was no cognitive clarity at all… Reality was skewed completely.”

The physical design of the compound deepened their disorientation.

Rae proselytising for Synagogue Church of all Nations in one of their broadcasts the disciples say they worked unpaid for the church for long hours each day

“It was a maze of staircases,” says Rae.

In 2014, the construction cost lives. A six-storey guest house built for international guests collapsed, killing at least 116 people.

A subsequent local government report found structural failure and shoddy building work to be the cause of the collapse. No-one has ever been prosecuted.

Some of our interviewees told us they believe the death toll was significantly higher than reported, explaining that a number of Nigerian nationals who had been working on the guesthouse were not listed as victims, and that church members had botched rescue attempts and hidden bodies at night.

They say Joshua also prevented the emergency services from assisting rescue efforts in the immediate aftermath, ever aware of his public profile.

His grip on communication was always tight, our sources say.

Rae says it was only after she left that she realised that her family and friends had been sending her emails. She had never received them.

Joshua restricted disciples’ access to phones and email accounts, our interviewees say.

“He wanted to control everybody, everything,” says Agomoh Paul. “What he was really scrambling for [was] the control of people’s minds.”

The disciples say they were made to work, without pay, for long hours each day – running all aspects of the megachurch. All say sleep deprivation was routine, with lights left on in the dormitories at night.

Anneka says they never had more than four hours of sleep at a time.

Scoan continues to thrive today, under the leadership of Joshua’s widow, Evelyn

Scoan continues to thrive today, under the leadership of Joshua’s widow, Evelyn
If anyone was caught napping without permission, or contravening any other of Joshua’s rules, they would be punished. Nineteen former disciples described witnessing violent attacks or torture within the compound, carried out by Joshua or on his orders.

Other disciples described being stripped and whipped themselves, with electrical cables and a horse whip known as a koboko. Among those allegedly targeted in this way were trainee disciples as young as seven.

The compound in Lagos had 12ft-high [3.7m] walls and armed guards. But what really kept the disciples there was the fanatical loyalty he generated, and deep-rooted fears instilled by Joshua about what might happen to them if they did escape.

“It was a psychological prison,” says Rae. “It’s extremely difficult to understand how somebody can go through psychological abuse to the extent that they lose their critical thinking.”

“Scoan fits the definition of a cult rather precisely,” says Dr Alexandra Stein, an honorary fellow at the University of Sussex and member of The Family Survival Trust, which raises public awareness of cult groups.

She has encountered multiple Scoan survivors, and says Joshua isolated his victims, putting them through “coercively controlling processes of stress, fear, guilt and shame”. She adds this meant they became too frightened to leave.

All the BBC interviewees spoke of “brainwashing”, “indoctrination” and “mind control” – and many described life as a disciple under Joshua as like being in a “cult”.

Rae says for her, it is the psychological torture that has left the deepest scars. She says Joshua subjected her to a form of punishment known as “adaba” for two years, during which she was forbidden from leaving the compound, and nobody inside was allowed to talk to her.

“I was basically in total isolation… I had a complete breakdown,” she says. “I tried to commit suicide five times.”

Rae is now back in the UK after 12 years in the Scoan compound

In being pushed to the brink, something cracked in Rae’s mind. Twelve years of indoctrination began to unravel.

“He made a huge mistake, he lost control of me,” she says.

While travelling with the church on a tour to Mexico, Rae slipped away from the disciples. She never went back.

Her life is now very different. But she has to live with the disappointment that there is no way to hold Joshua to account.

“TB Joshua dying before facing justice for the atrocities he committed, has been deeply frustrating. It’s only added to the gross sense of injustice felt by all of us as his victims.”

When BBC contacted Scoan with the allegations in their investigation. They did not respond to them, but denied previous claims against TB Joshua.

“Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated,” they wrote.

Story  by Maggie Andresen, Yemisi Adegoke and Ines Ward

Source: BBC