TB Joshua’s Many Battles, Victories

Whenever the history of Christendom in Nigeria is written, the story of the late Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua, popularly known as TB Joshua, and his church, the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, will get a mention.

From the outset, TB Joshua was rejected even by the majority of Nigeria’s Christendom. In the eyes of many, he was a wolf in sheep’s skin. Even his miracles, which drew many to his church, were considered fake.
Despite Joshua‘s exploits, the Christian bodies in Nigeria, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), never accepted him into their folds on the ground that he was an exorcist or a charmer.

Almost daily, stories of one attack or another from fellow pastors who never saw anything good in him filled newspaper pages. Perhaps, the most notable of his many battles was with the founder of Household of God, Reverend Chris Okotie, who once described Joshua as the vicar of the devil on earth.

Senior men of God like Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer, Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, Bishop David Oyedepo and many others also refused to acknowledge him as one of them.

Sometime in 2009, Adeboye was quoted to have said, “If he wants me to come and minister in his church, we will sit down, discuss the issue of salvation the way I understand it, according to the scriptures.
“If we agree on that and he now wants me to come and preach the same message of salvation in his church, then I will go.”

While he was the PFN President and CAN Chairman, Oritsejafor had reportedly said the body would not admit Joshua into its fold because he did not convince them he was a child of God. He had said then that before Joshua could even qualify to be a PFN member, he should show who tutored him as a pastor in the first place.
“Jesus did not say by their words you will know them; he said by the fruit you shall know them. If T.B. Joshua can show me his pastor who pastored him before he said he was called into the ministry; if T.B. Joshua can tell me when he got converted and how he got converted, then we would consider him. Anybody who is a Christian is a Christian because he received Jesus Christ at a point.

“I gather he said he was converted in his mother’s womb and I don’t see anybody like that in the Bible. It is a conscious decision you make and it doesn’t happen in your mother’s womb,” argued Oritsejafor.

Oritsejafor, who emphasised that healing and miracles were not criteria for admitting anyone into the PFN fold or CAN, had added, “We are not taking T.B Joshua. But like I said, he too can repent and be converted tomorrow. T.B Joshua can say I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal saviour. I repent of my sins. Then he can say, come check me out and see what I am doing. Then we can consider accepting him. PFN is for all; nobody is really excluded.”

As part of his travails, the guest house of his church collapsed, killing more than 100 people, most of them foreigners who were in Nigeria to attend his services. While the government claimed the building collapsed because of structural defects, he insisted a bomb blew up the building dropped from a small plane that flew over it shortly before it came down.

Surprisingly, he rose above all the condemnations and tribulations to become widely known across Africa and Latin America. His large social media presence with 3,500,000 fans on Facebook and YouTube channel, Emmanuel TV, with over 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers, resulted from concerted efforts in the face of serious challenges.

He earned several accolades, notably the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) by the Nigerian government in 2008. He was voted the Yoruba man of the decade by Pan-Yoruba media outlet Irohin-Odua and was called one of Africa’s 50 most influential people by Pan-African magazines The Africa Report and New African Magazine.

As of 2011, TB Joshua, according to Forbes, was Nigeria’s third-richest pastor, although the claim was immediately denied in a statement by the church. His church, the SCOAN, is described as “Nigeria’s biggest tourist attraction” and “the most visited destination by religious tourists in West Africa,” with thousands of foreigners flocking to attend the church’s weekly services.