Among many Nigerian
and other African Christians, TB Joshua is a prophet, a healer and a man
of God. On Thursday, however, the Nigerian televangelist is due to
appear in a Lagos courtroom, alongside two engineers, charged with
criminal negligence that resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people.
The
case relates to a tragic incident on September 12, 2014. A Lagos
guesthouse belonging to Joshua’s church, the Synagogue Church of All
Nations (SCOAN), collapsed, killing at least 115 people, including 84 South Africans who had traveled across the continent for one of Joshua’s renowned healing services.
The
South African government reacted angrily to the event, calling on
Nigeria to conduct a thorough investigation. Eventually, in July 2015—10
months after the incident—a Nigerian coroner ruled
that SCOAN was culpable of criminal negligence, since the structure had
more floors than the foundation could hold, and that those who built
the guesthouse should be investigated. The Lagos state ministry of
justice indicated its intention in November 2015 to charge the SCOAN’s trustees, of which Joshua is one.
For their part, Joshua and the SCOAN rejected the coroner’s findings
as “unreasonable, one-sided and biased.” The Nigerian mega-preacher and
his church maintained the collapse was connected to the presence of a
mysterious aircraft, which they alleged had been circling the building
prior to its collapse.
Even if Joshua is found guilty of criminal
negligence, his reputation will not be damaged among his legions of
devoted followers, according to Maria Frahm-Arp, an expert in
Pentecostal Christianity at the University of Johannesburg. “Right from
the beginning, he’s been spinning this story of this mysterious airplane
and the idea that this was an attack by Satan,” says Frahm-Arp. “The
court can find whatever the court finds, but it’s going to be seen
[among Joshua’s followers] as an attack by Satan to try and undermine
and discredit him.”
Born in June 1963
to a poor family in a rural part of Ondo state, southwestern Nigeria,
Temitope Balogun Joshua claims to have been in his mother’s womb for 15
months before he was born. He says he received his divine calling early
in life, when he had a vision in which he was commissioned by God to
teach, preach and carry out miracles. The SCOAN was allegedly founded
with just eight members; the Lagos’ HQ now reportedly attracts 50,000 worshippers
each week, with many traveling from as far afield as South Africa to
see the charismatic preacher in the flesh. TB Joshua’s popularity
extends online: his Facebook page has more than 1.9 million likes and
his Twitter feed 135,000 followers.The church even has a television
channel, Emmanuel TV, that broadcasts Joshua’s sermons and publicizes his miracles to millions.
And it is miracles that are central to Joshua’s ministry. Videos on SCOAN’s website
include testimonies from church members concerning all kinds of
healings, from the exorcism of demons to financial prosperity and
fortune to the restoration of a man’s private parts. Joshua also claims
to have prophesied in advance the occurrence of multiple world events,
from the death of Michael Jackson, to the shooting down of MH17 in
Russian airspace, to the November 2015 attacks in Paris. Yet some of
Joshua’s prophecies have not yet come to pass: the pastor prophesied in May 2014
that 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram from their dormitories in
Chibok, northeast Nigeria, would be returned safely to their families.
To date, 219 of the girls remain missing.
Joshua’s “health and wealth gospel” has a particular resonance in
places like Nigeria, says Frahm-Arp, where people are inclined to turn
to miraculous healers in the absence of the state adequately meeting
their needs. More than 60 percent of Nigeria’s population—almost
100 million people—live on less than $1 per day and parts of the
country, such as the northeast, lack decent infrastructure due to the
ravages of the Boko Haram insurgency. “They are drawn to something
outside of the public and governmental domain to try and find answers,”
says Frahm-Arp.
The Nigerian preacher has found plentiful earthly rewards for his ministry. In June 2011, Forbes estimated Joshua to be have a net worth of between $10-15 million.
He has also developed friends in high places, including the late former
Ghanaian president John Atta Mills and Julius Malema, the leader of
South Africa’s left-wing opposition the Economic Freedom Fighters. His church has given much to charity: Forbes estimated that Joshua gave more than $20 million to causes including the rehabilitation of former Niger Delta militants
between 2008 and 2011, and Joshua founded a Lagos football academy
named My People FC, one of whose graduates, Ogenyi Onazi, now plays for
Italian club Lazio.
According to Manji Cheto, Nigeria analyst at
political consultancy Teneo Intelligence, “pastor-preneurs” like Joshua
have struck a chord among Nigeria’s lower classes, who long for the
lifestyles that their preachers have. “A lot of people that he attracts
are working-class Nigerians, some very poor, and middle-class Nigerians
either aspiring to retain or increase their wealth,” says Cheto. “That
sort of miracle-working pastor, who has gained notoriety and is a bit of
a celebrity, those are the sort of people he would appeal to.”
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