A BBC story on Monday has revealed that late Nigerian pastor T. B. Joshua raped and tortured members of his church.
The BBC said there were evidence of widespread abuse and torture by Joshua it described one of the world’s biggest Christian evangelical churches.
The news report noted that many members of the now defunct Synagogue Church of all Nations members accused Joshua of committing such as and abortions.
According to the BBC, among those who spoke against the late pastor who died on June 5, 2021 were five British – allege atrocities, including rape and forced abortions, by Nigeria’s late TB Joshua.
It said the abuse were carried out in a secretive Lagos compound for almost 20 years.
The Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) 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 spanning 24 months a 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; umerous 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; and multiple first-hand accounts detailing how Joshua faked his “miracle healings”, which were broadcast to millions of people around the world
The BBC named one of the victims, a British woman, called Rae, 21 years old, who 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.
“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 BBC it interviewed over 25 former “disciples” from seven countries which include the UK, Nigeria, US, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia and Germany adding that the respondents gave what it described as 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 said their experiences was like being in a cult.
A Namibian, Jessica Kaimu, said her ordeal lasted more than five years, adding Joshua first raped her when she was 17 years. Kaimu said the pastor raped her several times which 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 of his victims who spoke against the late Pastor include, according to the BBC, said they were stripped and beaten with electrical cables and horse whips, and routinely denied sleep.
The BBC said investigation, which was carried out with international media platform Open Democracy, 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.
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.
