Demola writes
It was sometime in 1994/95 when we first started hearing the name of a new preacher somewhere in the then outskirts of Lagos – Ikotun. We heard rumours that followers were asked to pray in his name and not he name of Jesus, the Christ which Christians generally use in prayer. I never got to find out whether that was true but a few years after, only few ministries have remained as controversial as that of Temitope Balogun Joshua, the beard prophet popularly known as T.B. Joshua. Personally, I wouldn’t even like to get into any religious argument but as always when I have a strong opinion on issues, I can’t but let it out and this is just such an occasion.
I’ve never held much fascination for Nollywood and it’s a low point for my value of patriotism but the arts is one area I feel taste can never be compromised for anything so I crave forgiveness for not knowing Camilla Mberekpe, one of the many talents that Nollywood has bred and who is right at the centre of the latest T.B. Joshua headlines. It is said that she as recently as last Sunday, she was delivered of a witchcraft spirit by one of T.B. Joshua’s elite team of exorcists. The exorcist allegedly made it clear to the audience that it wasn’t Camilla speaking but the spirit in her which revealed that it had entered into her to ruin the career of another Nollywood actress whose name wasn’t revealed by the loquacious spirit.
Some swear by T.B. Joshua – I recently met a lady who had come all the way from Port-Harcourt to visit his Synagogue for a problem she couldn’t tell me but I suspect it is possession related because that’s what T.B. Joshua seems to specialize in the most. Indeed, Karl Maier in his famous book THIS HOUSE HAS FALLEN writes about how T.B. Joshua as far back as 1997/98 was performing an exorcism on a lady and was invoking fire on her. Maier quotes T.B. Joshua with accents and all as saying “faya, faya all over di bodi!” asking “fire to burn her” or something like that. Only those who are familiar with the rituals of exorcism can understand stuff like that …
His credibility soared with the visit of urbane and charismatic evangelical Pastor Chris Oyakhilome but that visit drew much flak for the softspoken man of God at the time with Pastor Kris Okotie leading the attack squad. Kris Okotie at that point too was going through a major phase of fascination with demons and dark arts that he could accurately pinpoint the exchange of evil powers going on between T.B. Joshua and Oyakhilome, according to him though.
From my tone I guess it’s obvious: I have issues with T.B. Joshua but not with him as a person or as a minister but with this section of my religion that emphasises mysticism, demon possession, fall-by-fire, sorcery and other stuff like that and T.B. Joshua is the most prominent of such in Nigeria but there are very many of them and in the process, I find that many of these exorcists have themselves become more familiar with darkness than with the light of their Saviour. How else can one explain a servant of God who preaches more about demonic possession than about Jesus and can even mention the names of many demons? In fact, there is an arm of informal religion these days that focuses on the study of demons – demonology it is called.
The other challenge I have with the bearded prophet is that he has no obvious lineage of faith which is almost a sine qua none in Christian ministry. If people can trace your mentors or spiritual fathers, it makes it easier to trust your theology: all Pastor Oyakhilome had to do at the time of the controversy was to state that he came from a verifiable lineage of servants of God with the Assemblies of God church. T.B. Joshua has no ministerial affiliation other than his personal claims that he had been a teacher of the Bible from his youth.
Another major headache for me is the predictions that nobody hears about until just after it comes to pass. That smacks a lot of charlatanism if you know how it works: claiming to have predicted an event in the presence of your followers after the event has occurred; in an era of digital video manipulations, I’m still a little skeptical about his prediction. Curiously, these videos only surface on youtube some hours after the prophecy has come to pass but the dates on the video usually carry a prior date. It is said that T.B. Joshua predicted this recently past Boston bomb blast and my question is: how does this help anyone since this “spiritual intel” wasn’t passed on to the FBI before the event happened? The predictions of who will win football tournaments almost spoilt business for the new entrepreneurs in the lucrative business of sports betting in Nigeria but thankfully, the bearded prophet has promised to stop predicting football matches.
Beyond all these doubts though, one may not be able to successfully deny the claims of healing that come from his ministry and having reviewed some of them via news reports, I find the evidence incontrovertible in many instances: even Tonto Dikeh is alleged to have claimed she stopped smoking when she laid hands on the television while watching a T.B. Joshua ministration: how can anyone fault that? His records as a humanitarian stands him out above many other pastors in Nigeria – he sponsors scholarships, rehabilitates prostitutes, former militants etc and famously established the Clinique Emmanuel in Haiti after the country was hit by earthquake in 2010. Sani Emmanuel, the MVP of the 2009 FIFA Under-17 World Cup used to live at the Synagogue premises as a member of T.B. Joshua’s football team – My People.
I won’t be surprised if the Koffis and Kwames start attacking this blog today: the bearded prophet has a very strong following in Ghana after the president claimed he had predicted political victory for him. Like Karl Maier pointed out in his book, the decay of our nation has eaten also into the religious portions of our national fabric and I guess T.B. Joshua and other pastors and charlatans are only an offshoot of this and there’s little we can do about it: in a land of poverty and superstition, it can’t be all that hard to get a Camilla Mberekpe to act a Nollywood script without calling it a reality show can it? Several people have come out to say that they were paid to act scripts of having one ailment or the other in the past.
I’m not playing judge here, just rendering my own opinion about the issue and the fascination of the social media with it. In the long run, only God can determine the truth about much of our religion (as we conclude all matters in Nigeria) but seriously speaking, as one of my friends would insist: may one never have a challenge that would push one to run to the bearded man’s synagogue sha!
Meanwhile, today is the birthday of the talismanic National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples’ Congress Otunba Gani Adams. He hails from Arigidi-Akoko in Ondo state. The same place T.B. Joshua hails from. #JustSaying
Have a splendid day!
“Nollywood actress, Camilla Mberekpe claims she was exorcised of a witchcraft spirit”
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