A former female disciple of Pastor Temitope Balogun Joshua, better known as TB Joshua has narrated how she was allegedly raped by the cleric when she was still underage.
Joshua died on June 5, 2021. As part of its investigation, the BBC interviewed at least 30 former members and workers of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN). The first instalment of the documentary was released on Monday.
The woman who was featured in the investigative documentary alleged that the late pastor first had unlawful carnal knowledge of her when she was 17 years old and kept doing so till the time she left his synagogue.
“He was telling me that, you know, I’m your father and I’m delivering you. We went into his room and I stood there and he said off your clothes. So I removed my clothes and then he just pointed. So I lied down and then he raped me.
“He broke my virginity. I was screaming and he was whispering my ear. That should stop. Stop acting like a baby. Better shut up. You want to make noise. You want people to hear? I felt like there was a beast. Like this beast? I was 17 years old. I was underage,”
She continued: “He grabbed me and he held me very close to him and he, he literally then pushed me down to the bed and he got on me. I was still so shocked. I was still bleeding to his pit on the floor and he held my hands and he looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘I can see you are my child now. Don’t betray me’.
“If any of us got pregnant, he said you cannot betray the men of God. We have to do something about it. Women that he rapes, he forces them into abortion. I never had a choice whether I could keep a potential child or not. I felt like I didn’t own my body.”
Explaining the late pastor’s motive behind the repeated molestation of women and young ladies, a disciple who claimed to have spent 14 years in the synagogue claimed he was doing so to strengthen his spiritual power.
The woman said, “He was a sexual predator. He was a ritualist. Joshua asked me to find virgins for him to bring young girls into the disciple fold.
“In the midnight, this person will be called into his bedroom so that he could ‘disvirgin’ (deflower) them. When those girls come out, he usually takes all the bed sheets and everything. You pack them and take them to the prayer mountain.”
The woman further said that the pastor compelled other ladies and women who were victims of his rape to have abortions if they became pregnant in the process.
She said, “I witness a lot of abortions. Lots of abortions. It can’t be counted. They started doing it inside the synagogue. There’s a place they called the Medical Department. We went out through the back door of his office. We went downstairs.
“There’s an area that visitors would never see. You’re given a concussion to drink. You get sick. Or they put these metal pieces in your vagina and they extract whatever and you don’t know whether they pulling out your womb or something’s going wrong.”
“He’s somebody used to painting a picture that he loves children. But behind closed doors, it’s a nightmare. I had three abortions at Synagogue. And from speaking to other women, I’m not the only one,” another victim said.
The allegations of abuse in a secretive Nigerian compound span almost 30 years. More than 25 former members 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, spanning three decades up to 2019. The British victims were all between 15 and 21 years old when they joined the church. Multiple BBC interviewees compared their experiences to like being in a cult.
Upon his death in June 2021, TB Joshua was hailed as one of the most influential pastors in African history. Rising from poverty in Nigeria in the 1990s, he built an evangelical empire stretching across the globe, and counted among his associates dozens of political leaders, celebrities and international footballers.
The BBC said it contacted the current leadership of the Synagogue Church of All Nations with the allegations in this film. They replied: “Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence.”
“None of the allegations was ever substantiated,” the leadership was quoted as saying.
They did not respond to the details of the allegations, the BBC said.