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Disgraced Nigerian televangelist TB Joshua’s supposed ‘miracles’ have been laid bare in a BBC expose that details how the miscreant fooled millions into thinking he had divine powers.

The pastor, who is accused of abuse and torture over a nearly 20-year period, established his Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan) in Lagos more than three decades ago and has fleeced huge amounts of money from his believers.

Part of his show was ‘theatrical healings’, which were filmed on VHS tapes and distributed to churches all around the world, along with testimony from those he claimed to have treated. Along the way, the supposed ‘prophet’ healed disabled people and even on occasion (and at a price) raised the dead.

When Nigeria’s broadcast regulator eventually banned stations from airing the supposed miracles of pastors on live TV in 2004, TB Joshua did what many wealthy kakpraters do, and launched his own online TV channel – Emmanuel TV. The money-making miracle machine rolled on and pretty soon his social media empire became one of the most successful Christian networks in the world, broadcasting his ‘miracles’ to millions across the globe.

God apparently got fed up with his name being used as an ATM, and on the morning of June 6, 2021, the pastor was found dead in his apartment. His cause of death remains unknown, but what has become known is how he fooled millions into thinking he was close to the man upstairs.

A recent BBC investigation, involving more than 25 church insiders from the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, the US, South Africa and Germany, has now unpacked how he tricked worshippers.

The church is said to have had an “Emergency Department’ which would assess the sick congregants beforehand, sending away genuine cancer cases and using people with normal wounds that could be healed as “cancer patients” to be cured.

A former disciple, Bisola, who spent 14 years living at Joshua’s compound, says that she saw people in wheelchairs try to stand up after the pastor told the congregation “he had released faith into the stadium”. Some of these poor people had slipped through the screening process and fell down when they tried to stand. This was of course not televised.

Joshua messed with people’s prescription medication as well. Every overseas visitor who came to the church to be healed was required to fill out a medical report detailing their sickness and the medications they were now taking.

When it came time to see Joshua, these poor persons would be paraded in front of the cameras and “healed.”
They’d be told to stop taking them, but Joshua would urge pharmacies to get the same medication. Without their knowledge, they would “put those drugs in their fruit drinks.” Believers would be compelled to consume the Joshua-blessed concoction.

Despite not taking their medications, they did not become sick while under Joshua’s ‘care’, further proof of his ‘divine powers’

In addition to these underhanded tactics, TB Joshua also went with the tried-and-trusted route of bribing poor people to pretend he healed them, explaining that ‘We use this thing to build people’s faith in Christ.’

Another way around having to perform ‘real’ miracles was to simply bribe doctors to hand out fake medical certificates to unsuspecting patients. These poor souls would flock to the preacher and following a stage-managed miracle, the doctors would declare their malady ‘cured’ in follow-up visits. Evil, but very effective.

Following the revelations by insiders, the BBC did try to contact Scoan, but as can be expected, the group replied with “Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated.”

As one member said: “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, and signs. The whole thing is stage-managed and faked. It’s faked,” says Mr Paul, describing Joshua as an “evil genius”.

You can learn more about the shyster’s shenanigans on Disciples: The Cult of TB Joshua: A shocking journey into a maze of manipulation and terrifying abuse perpetrated by one of the most powerful religious figures of the 21st Century.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

[source:bbc]