More reports of violence at TB Joshua’s church

Since publishing Nosa Osaghae’s horrific account of the violence he suffered at TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations, we have been inundated with feedback, including several other reports of violence at this so called church. We present them here without commentary.

One visitor to SCOAN reports:

Saturday night people line up from 10pm to attend church as day visitors. The “police” occupying the post at the entry to the church parade the line with their long batons, not to keep order but to seek a victim to beat up, an act that is repeated every Saturday night. The unfortunate victim is beaten up to an extent that he can not go to church because of his blood stained clothes. Everybody sees and nobody talks!! After lunch, I was in the service, hidden at the back of the church by the usshers because I was a “problem” to the disciples because I speak out about their dishonesty, I decided to leave and at the one entrance found the usshers punching the people trying to get in. The police also threatening the people with their batons. I will not be told that TB Joshua does not know about it, in fact, I believe he allows it. This I personally experienced and think it is disgusting!

An ex disciple reports:

I saw two examples of violence by the guards when I was there.

The first was when one of them pulled over a truck driver along that road going down the length of the church. It used to be gravel back then, and he was driving too fast so that it was making a lot of dust that was blowing into the building. When he was pulled over and got out, I saw them talking (I was watching from the upstairs visitor’s kitchen), and then arguing, and then the guard shoved the driver, and made him do the ‘duck walk’. If you can imagine squatting down and having to walk like that with your legs bent, walking like a duck. It gets very difficult. The driver was made to walk like that with the guard slowly walking behind him. Eventually the driver broke down and cried. He was let go after that.

The other occasion was at a youth event. One of the youth leaders had been the victim of a “sucker punch” – where the assailant had punched him out of the blue and then made off. Fortunately he was caught. When we, the youth disciples, got to the guard room – the one at the back as you cross from the car park to the newlands – we saw the assailant on his knees in the middle of the room. Two or three guards were around him waiting for I think it was the police. They were shouting at him in Yoruba, I think asking him what he did that for. One of them then took a long wire and whip him right across the face. He was standing behind the kneeling boy – who looked around 16 – and the boy was looking defiantly up at him, and he took it right on the face. I am not exaggerating, he did not even blink. At that point, one of the disciples (one of them currently running whats left of the UK branch), told us to all leave (there were two of three others as well).

Another ex-disciple reports (note this is about TB Joshua, not the security guards):

I saw TB Joshua slap disciples, both men and women incredibly hard in the face. I saw him whip disciples until they bleed and urinate on the floor. He’d make disciples walk around naked to disgrace them, and numerous times he would make disciples kneel for three days as a punishment.

Another visitor to SCOAN reported:

On one of my visits as a guest at scoan, I personally heard a man screaming on the top of his voice, with blood chilling screams. It sounded as if a car drove over him. I was in the dining room at that moment and left everything running towards the sound, to go and help the person. I was physically stopped in my tracks by a disciple, standing in front of me.
I asked; “What is going on”? The disciples assured me that it is one of the congregation’s naughty children that tbj is disciplining? I thought by myself; “Wow, it sounded more than the are killing the person”. I was very, very disturbed by that throughout my visit that week.

Another time that I visited – tbj gave us an interview in his office. The 2 minutes ones. His disciples made the mistake of letting me go and sit again on a chair just out of the office, after the interview. Tbj thought that I left. TB Joshua started shouting like a basilisk, to one of his disciple. I could not believe my ears, as he was just so sweet, honey dripped of his lips. Our eyes met and he felt very uncomfortable.
I also had the privilege to meet one of his security guards, who left him after 8 years. He said to me; “That he personally took a person’s ear of, by hitting him, because tbj wanted that person disciplined!