REVELATION: TB JOSHUA RAPED, TORTURED MEMBERS – BBC INVESTIGATION
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According to the BBC on Monday, no fewer than twenty-five people have provided eyewitness stories that purportedly involve trauma, physical abuse, sexual assault, and bogus miracles that occurred at the hands of Temitope Joshua, also known as TB Joshua, a late Nigerian pastor.
During his lifetime, Joshua, one of the wealthiest and most powerful religious figures in Africa, had the entire world at his disposal.
He lived with many of his followers in the Ikotun neighbourhood of Lagos State, where he founded the 12-story Synagogue Church of All Nations.
Joshua gained fame for performing miracles that “delivered” followers and guests from a variety of illnesses, including HIV/AIDS, cancer, chronic migraines, and blindness.
Evangelical churches across Europe and Africa were drawn to Joshua’s healings in the late 1990s and early 2000s, drawing in a large global audience.
While his generosity attracted a large number of followers, the majority came for his purported miracles.
The cleric, who was born in 1963, passed away on Saturday, June 5, 2021, one week shy of becoming 58 years old, according to PUNCH Online. It was not disclosed what caused his death.
The cleric, according to a church statement, served God with his final breath on earth.
According to the study, former insiders calculated that Joshua earned tens of millions of dollars via fundraisers, stadium performances overseas, and pilgrimages.
The investigation centered around allegations of sexual assault, physical abuse, solitary confinement, and fake miracles, amongst others.
“More than 25 eyewitnesses and alleged victims, from the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, US, South Africa and Germany, have provided accounts of what it was like inside Joshua’s compound, with the most recent experiences in 2019.
“Testimony from dozens of survivors suggests Joshua was abusing and raping young women from around the world several times a week for nearly 20 years.” the report noted.
21-year-old British victim Rae described her experience as one of the “disciples,” an exclusive group of followers who lived and worked with Joshua inside his complex.
In 2002, she was enrolled at a Brighton, UK, university to study graphic design.
Rae’s close friend Carla recalled how the two of them had gone to Nigeria to look for a mystery man who seemed to be able to heal people with his hands. He wore white robes and was a Christian pastor with a black beard. He went by TB Joshua. His devotees referred to him as “the prophet.”
For just one week, Rae and Carla intended to visit his church, the SCOAN. But Rae did not return home. She had relocated to Joshua’s grounds.
“I left her there,” says Carla, tears flowing freely. “Never will I ever forgive myself for that.
“For me, it was like she died, but I couldn’t grieve her,” Carla revealed.
Rae, in her account, stated that she was gay and thought being healed by Joshua would solve her predicament.
She narrated, “I was gay and I didn’t want to be,” she says. “I thought: ‘Well, maybe this is the answer to my problems. Maybe this man can straighten me out. Like if he prays for me, I won’t be gay anymore.’”
Rae described the moment she stepped foot into the Synagogue, saying, “I had a really involuntary reaction. I just broke down in floods of tears.”
She stated that at that point, Joshua singled her out to become a “disciple.”
She had thought the clergyman would “cure” her sexuality and learn under his tutelage, but to her imagination, her thought never materialised.
“We all thought we were in heaven, but we were in hell,” adding, “And in hell terrible things happen.”
Rae narrated how she went through psychological trauma for two years, during which she was forbidden from leaving the compound, and nobody inside was allowed to talk to her., adding that she attempted to commit suicide five times.
Many of the victims said 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 breathe 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.
Rae noted that it’s “extremely difficult to understand how somebody can go through psychological abuse to the extent that they lose their critical thinking.”
“I was basically in total isolation… I had a complete breakdown. I tried to commit suicide five times,” she said.
After spending 12 years inside Joshua’s compound, Rae returned to England.
She had slipped away from the disciples while travelling with the church on a tour to Mexico, stating, “He made a huge mistake, he lost control of me.”
Rae stated that it was only after she left that she realised that her family and friends had been sending her emails. She had never received them.
“On the outside, I look normal, but I’m not. This story is like a horror story. It’s like something you watch in fiction, but it’s true,” Rae said while she recalled the tragic trauma and the impacts it’s had on her.
She expressed her disappointment that Joshua didn’t wait to face the consequences of the atrocities he had committed before his death.
“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,” she noted.
BBC stated that it contacted SCOAN with the allegations in the investigation. They did not respond to them but denied previous claims against Joshua.
“Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated,” the church stated.
The BBC stated that former followers have previously tried to speak out about abuse, but say they had been silenced or discredited by SCOAN, while two said they were physically assaulted.
When the BBC’s Africa Eye was filming outside the church, a security guard shot above the heads of the crew after they refused to hand over their material, the report noted.
A Nigerian, Bisola, who was also a ‘disciple,’ stated that she was raped multiple times by the late clergyman.
Bisola, who spent 14 years inside the compound, added that she was asked to recruit virgin girls into the disciple fold under threats of violence.
“TB Joshua asked me to recruit virgins for him… So that he could bring them into the disciple-fold and disvirgin them,” she revealed.
Bisola told the BBC that courting Westerners was a key tactic employed by Joshua
“He used the white people to market his brand,” she said.
The report stated that many of the young people who left their home countries to meet Joshua in the early 2000s didn’t pay for their tickets.
It added that 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 said.
Later, once the church was well established, Joshua charged high prices for pilgrims to come and stay.
A broadcast journalist in Namibia, Jessica Kaimu, narrated that she was raped by Joshua at the age of 17, in the bathroom of his penthouse, within weeks of her becoming a disciple.
She stated that Joshua wasn’t moved by her screams, saying, “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.”
Kaimu noted that she was raped for five years throughout her stay as a disciple.
A woman who craved anonymity stated that it happened to her twice before the age of 15.
“It was so painful, he violated me. Words cannot properly express it. It scarred me for life,” she said.
The report noted that there were accounts by four of Joshua’s male personal servants who were given the job of clearing up the physical evidence of this abuse.
“We’d never… seen anything like that before,” said a journalist who covers African religion, Solomon Ashoms, adding, “The mysteries that he had, the secrets that he carried, [were] what people followed.”
Another victim, Victoria (not real name), stated that she spent more than five years in the compound, adding that some victims were often hand-picked by Joshua from the church congregation.
While recounting her ordeal, Victoria said 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 later recruited as a resident disciple.
Victoria said Joshua ordered some of his most trusted Nigerian disciples to help identify new victims, identifying the group which was informally known as the “fishing department.”
A former South African disciple, Sihle, narrated that she had three forced abortions in the church.
Sihle said, “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.”
The investigative report noted that the disciples served Joshua’s every need, from massages to helping him dress, and spray his perfume when he entered the room.
They also placed plastic gloves on his hands so he could eat his food without touching a crumb.
A man once regarded as Joshua’s number two in the church, Agomoh Paul, who left after 10 years in the compound, revealed that the whole miracle thing was scripted.
“That guy [was] a genius. Everything… [he did was] planned out,” Paul stated.
A major part of this planning was the faking of the “miracles” said Paul, which he noted 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.
Paul also noted that Joshua “wanted to control everybody, everything. What he was really scrambling for [was] the control of people’s minds.”
The disciples said 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, the report stated.
The church, which is still in operation today, is led by his widow, Evelyn.
In his lifetime, Joshua attracted dozens of politicians and celebrities to his church.
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