A BBC Africa Eye report has insisted that the late Nigerian televangelist, TB Joshua faked miracles within his Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN).
According to media reports, BBC stated that it had uncovered a web of deceptive practices allegedly employed by the late TB Joshua, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 57, to fabricate miracles and listed ways the late church leader allegedly faked miracles.
It noted that the investigation, which draws insights from more than 25 insiders across various countries sheds light on a series of deceptive tactics employed within SCOAN.
It details ways through which TB Joshua allegedly deceived worshippers, noting that these discoveries came from those who worked with the late church leader.
The BBC Africa Eye report read in part: “The emergency department: An exclusive section of the church, named the “emergency department”, was responsible for making the so-called miracles look real.
“This is where the sick, who came to be healed, would be screened, and where the team would decide who should be filmed and prayed for by Joshua.
“Agomoh Paul, who supervised the department for 10 years – receiving direct instructions from Joshua, told the BBC that the team was trained by medical doctors.“He is a former disciple – one of an elite group of dedicated followers who lived with the pastor inside the SCOAN compound.
“Any cancerous situation, they send them away. Then, people who had normal open wounds that can heal, they bring them in, to present as cancer.
“Only a select group of trusted disciples were allowed to work in the emergency department. They would write placards for each follower to hold, detailing their made-up or exaggerated ailments. When it was time to meet Joshua, they would stand in line in front of the cameras and be healed.
“It was a complicated system. Not all disciples knew what was happening. It was a secret.”
“Brainwashing: Ms Ford says when she was at SCOAN, she never had any doubts: “I honestly thought we were seeing miracles. I literally couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I saw someone walk out of a wheelchair.” The theatricality seemed to draw everyone in.
“The former disciple told the BBC that after being screened, the chosen followers would be told to “exaggerate their problems so that God can heal you and exaggerate your healing”. The people, themselves, are clearly being manipulated,” she says.
“The church had a ready supply of wheelchairs, which followers were coaxed to use. They were warned they would not be healed unless they sat in one when they met Joshua.
“We are telling them: ‘If you come out there and walk with your legs, Papa will not pray for you. You need to shout: “Man of God, help me, I cannot walk.
“Another former disciple, Bisola, who spent 14 years living at SCOAN, accompanied Joshua on his National Healing Campaign at the Church of Our Saviour in Singapore in 2006.
“She says she saw people in wheelchairs try to stand up after the pastor told the congregation “he had released faith into the stadium”.
“However, these people had not been screened, and she saw them fall down. “I was crying. I was crying for them,” she says.
“The emergency department workers themselves were also being manipulated. They were subjected to horrifying ordeals, including rape, physical violence, and torture, and lived by a strict set of rules – forbidden to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.
“Now they struggle to understand how and why they continued to follow the pastor’s orders.
“TB Joshua told me: ‘Don’t worry, we use this thing to build people’s faith in Christ.’ I wasn’t having in mind that I was actually doing something wrong. I thought I was doing something that would help to build the faith of people in the church,” says Mr Paul.
“For Ms Ford, it has meant she has lost all faith in organised religion: “I wish we had known that it was all a farce, that it wasn’t true. I was manipulated into believing that what the prophet was doing was supernatural, miracles, wonders, signs.”
“Video manipulation: The “miracles” were filmed and then edited to make it look like the supposed healing had happened instantaneously. Before and after footage was spliced together to show his purported miraculous powers, but in reality, the films were shot months, or even a year, apart.
“All you see on TV is the before and after, you don’t know the time-space,” says Bisola, who was Scoan’s chief video editor for five years and worked on Emmanuel TV. Like other insiders interviewed by the BBC, she opted to only use her first name.
“What people see… is not real. It is a fraud,” she says about the clips and broadcasts she oversaw.
“I am speaking now as someone who was an insider,” she says.
“Anything they did not want viewers to see was “cut away”. It was all “organised”, she says.
Meanwhile, BBC Africa reached out to SCOAN with the allegations but received no response, although the church denied previous claims against Joshua, stating, “Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated.”
