By Dare ADEJUMO
WITHOUT setting the cat among the pigeons, the shameful story of crisis rocking the Synagogue Church Of All Nations SCOAN cushioned by some disciples is a pathetic paradox.
A painful irony, the incubus of wickedness orchestrated by ingrates, having been thoroughly well fed decided to bite the fingers that fed them.
Here are predominantly people ‘of nobody’ status coming from battered and plummeted backgrounds in the dregs of life, either picked up in different locations in the world during TB Joshua’s foreign tours and evangelism or brought to the man of God by their wards upon whom they had lost hope and which TB Joshua in love painstakingly and indefatigably remolded and given unimaginable befitting life only to turn 360 degree overnight with the passing of their mentor to fight the family he left behind and also scheming and running helter skelter to legalize their illegality as heirs apparent to the assets and ministries of the very man, their benefactor, to whom by God’s grace they owe the joy of living as true human beings.
There’s no point mincing words. It’s not that they don’t know their mentor was happily married to his only virtuous wife, Evangelist Mrs. Evelyn Joshua with grown up well educated children with whom most of them grew together under the same atmosphere of sound spiritual development as co-disciples but the temptations of their inordinate ambitions and desires beclouded their right senses of judgement!
The admonition of Emeka Amsalem, a great man of insight readily speaks here: ‘before you help a person with money, be sure the person is matured enough to deal with greed”. They simply don’t want to face the reality of change. This is their first tragedy. They failed to realize that CHANGE cannot be avoided in life; it is the only thing in nature that’s permanent. As a matter of fact, true progress lies in mobility, in change! They are also scared of losing the absolute freedom and new authority they have been enjoying as Lords of the manor without any higher controller since Papa’s passing from which they have been living large as queens and Kings!
Here’s Mrs. Evelyn TB Joshua, a woman that’s brighter, humble, loving, superlatively tolerant and accommodating and significantly more spiritually endowed than most of them, yet they don’t want to see her and her children in the church in which she grew with her husband from the beginning, before some of them were born or even introduced to the church. To them she had suddenly become an obstacle to their possessive agenda. It’s really inconceivable!
Their position is: ” we will take good care of her and children and provide money for their needs but let her leave us with the church to run the way we were doing with the man of God”. But where is the man of God who used to keep vigil over them, not trusting them to be left alone in church operations?
Does this their position really make sense? Did they ever remember their individual insufficiency to undertake anything without the man of God’s initiatives and thorough supervisions? Did some of them remember how many times some of them had received holy slaps or been sent parking from the church for various misdemeanors including pilfering and outright financial impropriety in millions of naira on charity assignments and contract deals including the one leading the infantile and misplaced law suit against the church today? Did they think church members were not aware or probably don’t know them? They are living in grandiose of illusion and delusion. TB Joshua was a man who no matter your offence would always forgive. Were it not so, most of them would not remain as his aides or degenerate into the present absurdity of a stagnant stinking lake putting the environment in danger, with them still moving about in pretentious faces under the large heartedness of a great man of God.
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The question troubling many members across the world is: could the man of God have cast his pearls before the swing despite his various warnings on trust and betrayals? Pigs, no matter how much you cater for them, once the slightest opportunity come with you out is sight they will find themselves back in the mire. Right from the word go with Papa’s passing, they have put laws into their hands.
Whereas till the time of Papa’s passing they were still spiritual apprentices. That was why they were still there. Those who believed they had sufficiently been spiritually groomed and were confident of their tutelage under TB Joshua had moved ahead to start their own ministries. Some of them are now successful.
Who could ever believe that the same crop of disciples would prevent such former disciples now comfortable in their respective domains from coming to partake or entering the church during the passing ceremonies of the great man even when these disciples knew that papa was in good relationship with their these former colleagues?
“They are simply over ambitious”, said Isaac Madingati, member of SCOAN and a world body organization officer from far away Malawi. What could have necessitated them to form a Governing Council for the church with them holding all positions? What could have made them print a new church profile for the church in which they deliberately removed Evelyn TB Joshua and her children from the discipleship as against Papa’s printed ROADMAP in which his wife and children were conspicuously displayed together with them?
They surely have a hidden agenda and it’s not holy! These set of disciples refused all pushes and intimation from the man of God while he was alive for them to go in order for some fresh and younger ones to grow but they all refused. Three years ago they all signed an undertaking that SCOAN is not their inheritance! Yet they know all this. Now the cat is out of the bag,
Today they littered uninformed media with unpleasant stories
Some are ten percent true, some are outright falsehood while most of the stories begged the question and completely misleading to the public who are not in the know at all about SCOAN’s internal affairs. They even lied against the Federal Government of Nigeria that it deported 17 foreigners at the behest of Evelyn Joshua. Can you imagine who could have asked God for repentance and retrace their Judaic steps only to be sinking deeper in the abysmal.
Anything about SCOAN necessarily magnetizes public attention. SCOAN is a unique church. It has made an uncommon global impact not only in the fundamental teachings of Christianity that are in abeyance in many quarters today but also in the practical demonstration of Christ’s unconditional love to all and sundry beyond human imagination. TB Joshua remained till date the only pastor doing crusades in different countries abroad without collecting offerings. Rather he would go there with unfathomable large heartedness of towering charities for the foreign communities. Most other pastors would go abroad for the purpose of getting foreign offerings in dollars or pounds from which many derive their wealth. That was never the way of TB Joshua, the man in the Synagogue!
It’s therefore not surprising to see the globally overwhelming ascription of divine extraordinary and operational spiritual plenipotentiary to late Prophet TB Joshua as a towering Man Of God which actually he was.
They also quickly forgot one of the admonitions of the man of God: don’t be carried away by your situation. They fell woefully to the temptations of their own inordinate ambitions and desires.
A prominent partner and member of the Church from Cape Verde who doesn’t want his name in print simply because the church leadership has not directed him to speak said: “leave them and let them continue, we are watching them. It’s a pity that they are living in self delusion. We all know them and their various atrocities when the man of God was alive. They drove many foreigners away. Even me I suffered in their hands. It’s God that still makes me yo belong to SCOAN. We are waiting for them. We foreigners know them very well; they are not better than demons. They are facing God’s judgment. It’s only God that could have made this possible”.
Speaking further, he said
“They were obviously carried away by the superfluous influence and power they were wielding and luxurious life they were enjoying under the late Prophet and the reality of change in the church leadership will be too uncomfortable for them to face”.
What then could have suddenly led to their discomfort?
These are the people excising tremendous powers. Church members don’t even like them because so many people don’t come to church because of them. They are opposite of TB Joshua. The fear of them is the beginning of admission into the church. Once they are against you for no tangible reason they use the workers to withdraw your card and they won’t allow you to have access to baba since they are the one you will still have to go through.
What could have made them be that influential and powerful?
They are the only ones with direct access to baba and through whom the man of God carried out his church and charity activities within and outside Nigeria including contracts. Some of them had been to 36 countries and were lavishly catered for by the man of God. Even this year before the passing of man of God, some of them in spite of Covid-19 pandemic had been to four countries. You can imagine such people with their backgrounds even with some without O’Level certificate suddenly in maximum comfort and authority, they are bound to abuse their privileges.
The need to reorganize the church has become not negotiable. The shoe of TB Joshua was too big for anybody to wear. There’s a need to audit the church. There’s a need to ensure proper structures with transparency and accountability for the people to handle different aspects of the ministry.
This is an offence to them! They only want to account to themselves! No wonder of their sudden metamorphosis. They abandoned their church hostel and completely relocated to the Prayer Mountains as their own residence and new seat of government. All workers were brainwashed to look only on to them for instructions. Papa’s personal servers were converted to their own. They formed a Governing Council for the church without informing Joshua’s family or any member of the church for that matter. Their nonchalant attitudes coupled with existing bad records provoked church members to use law enforcement agents to make them move back to their official quarters in the church. They were told to go on compulsory leave for one month for the comprehensive audit job to be completed before the church services begin. They were not ready to comply initially until the reality dawned on them.
Today they are in their different homes and country. Nobody was manhandled. It was all done amicably. You can imagine what it means for some of them to face EFCC to explain the source of their humongous wealth within three months of Papa’s passing.
Eighteen of the disciples mostly foreigners had tendered apologies and dissociated themselves from the law suit instituted against the church by Joseph’s ragtag version of the disciples which comprises him and eights other girls.
While the true church members across the world are rejoice rejoin rejoicing and eager for the reopening of the church, outpourings of congratulatory messages support have been coming in multiples from Nigeria, USA, Cameroon, Paraguay, Spain, Bahamas, Ecuador and many others as could be seen on Emmanuel TV.
In the words of Francis Bacon, for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Mr. Madingati concluded by saying”
“One thing is sure, God will never forsake His own. SCOAN will come out better and stronger”.
*Mr. Dare Adejumo, a veteran Journalist and stakeholder in SCOAN writes in from Lagos.
