Another deadly stampede at SCOAN

Back in 2013, 4 people lost their lives at an anointed water service at SCOAN in Ghana. In 2014 around 116 people died when SCOAN’s illegal building collapsed on them. Now reports are coming out that 3 are dead after a stampede at SCOAN in Lagos. The incident happened before their annual healing and deliverance service, a stampede took place while visitors rushed to get through the door. As expected, SCOAN are denying anything has happened, a reporter quotes their spokesperson as saying “Nothing happened on the church premises yesterday. Nobody died. Nobody. Thank you.” however, the local police public relations office confirmed the incident.

These three incidents should serve as a warning to the public – SCOAN is not a safe place to visit, their crowd control is woefully insufficient and they completely ignore government regulations regarding building safety. SCOAN may try and present themselves as a place of healing, but events like these show the reality is tragically different.

Our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones in this latest SCOAN disaster, and just before Christmas too. It’s likely that they spent a significant amount of their life’s savings to get to SCOAN in desperate search of a healing. Instead they have returned in a coffin. We call on the local authorities to fully investigate this incident, to enforce appropriate controls on SCOAN and to complete the building collapse trial. The SCOAN death toll must be brought to an end.

Must read post: Are TB Joshua’s miracles real?

Nigerian blogger Peter Adeosun has just published an excellent article examining one famous “healing video” put out by Emmanuel TV “Walking Dead Returned to Life”, a video we never got round to watching until now. Adeosun points out that the video is actually a composite of 3 videos, video 1 is inside video 2 which is in turn inside video 3.

It’s a video of the full congregation in the church auditorium watching another video on a big screen. The video they’re watching is the recording of a miracle healing session that took place sometime ago. And in the video they’re watching, TB Joshua is talking to a very small group of people (40? 50?) in another venue, a smaller room. The people probably came for healing too. And he himself is talking to this small group of people, running commentaries on the healing of a man afflicted with a skin disease, the healing he did sometime ago.

This kind of complexity makes it difficult to follow along and piece together the timeline, in other words, you are totally at the mercy of their narrative, and it is a perfect way to bury what might otherwise be obvious deception. What honest reason could they have for telling the story in such a convoluted way?

If that’s not suspicious enough, Adeosun goes on to allege (with good evidence) that the man before and after is not in fact the same man. In his article he shows a side by side comparison of the before man’s face and side of head with the after man’s face and side of head, comparing some of the facial features. It is indeed very hard to believe it is the same person. Click the link to go to Adeosun’s site and let us know what you think?

These are the kind of videos that help feed the myth of TB Joshua, slowly people are coming to realise that, much like his edited prophecy videos, there are a lot of tricks at play in these healing videos. Follow the links below for more information.

• The miracles of TB Joshua
• Anna’s story – another victim of TB Joshua’s bogus healing
• TB Joshua’s “raising a man from the dead” video debunked
• Fake claims of healing HIV at SCOAN
• http://peterkeyz.com/tb-joshuas-miracles-real/

Cameroonian General Tumenta allegedly dies at SCOAN seeking healing

Here’s one celebrity visit to SCOAN you won’t be hearing about on official SCOAN channels.  Martin Tumenta Chou, Major General and Commander of the United Nations Multi-Dimensional Integrated Stabilization Unit in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) has died at the age of 61. It has been widely reported that he passed away at SCOAN while seeking healing.

There’s not much more we know about the situation, but you can read more in the links that follow. We’re not commenting at all on the rumours that he was killed, the links below are just evidence that his death happened at SCOAN. Our sympathies go out to his friends and family.

http://themedianpaper-yde.blogspot.com/2015/12/death-of-gen-tumenta.html
http://cameroonjournal.com/national-news/was-gen-tumenta-martin-killed/
http://www.cameroonweb.com/CameroonHomePage/NewsArchive/Did-the-French-kill-Gen-Tumenta-347088

Many people who seek healing at SCOAN die soon after. An investigative journalist named Jacques Pauw produced a documentary on TB Joshua a few years ago . He tells of the fate of several people “healed” by TB Joshua:

“Wium Basson died within days of returning to South Africa. Maxie Claasen, suffering from brain, liver and breast cancer but declared healed by TB Joshua, also died shortly after returning home…

John Rindel went for an AIDS test at a private clinic in Johannesberg. He called me minutes after he had recieved the results. “I’m still HIV positive,” he said. “I’m sure it’s a mistake. They make mistakes with these tests, you know?”

“I hope they did, John,” were the only words of consolation I could think of.

“I might go back to Lagos,” he said. “I want the prophet to pray for me again.”

John Rindel never made it back to Lagos. He died a few months later.”

We’ve also told the story of Anna who died after being “healed” of breast cancer, and ex-disciple Giles lost his mother again after “healing” by TB Joshua. Even TB Joshua’s (former) evangelist John Zavlaris lost his wife after she was prayed for by TB Joshua. All of the cases listed above are in addition to the 3 deaths reported by the BBC and Sky News. Others such as Judith and Beth would have died if it wasn’t for last minute intervention by medical professionals. If you are considering visiting SCOAN for healing, we strongly advise you to not waste your life and your money. 

A reminder on #WorldAIDSDay: Nobody has ever been healed of HIV at SCOAN

Thousands of people flock to SCOAN with the misplaced hope that they will be healed

A couple of years ago you may have read the exciting news that a 2.5 year old girl has been cured of HIV. What caught our attention when following the story was the fact that this girl is reported to be the second person in history to have been cured of HIV. Here is how some of the big news agencies are reporting it.

Researchers say the only other documented case of an HIV cure is that of Timothy Brown, known as the “Berlin patient.” In 2007, Brown, an HIV-positive American living in Germany, was battling both leukemia and HIV when he underwent a bone marrow transplant that cured not only his cancer but his HIV. CNN

Dr Persaud thinks her patient, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl whose identity is confidential, has joined Timothy Brown, a man known to many as the “Berlin patient”, as a human being who was once definitively infected with HIV and now no longer is. Economist

The only fully cured AIDS patient recognized worldwide is the so-called “Berlin patient,” American Timothy Brown. He is considered cured of HIV and leukemia five years after receiving bone marrow transplants from a rare donor naturally resistant to HIV. The marrow transplant was aimed at treating his leukemia. Discovery

In 2007, Timothy Ray Brown became the first person in the world believed to have recovered from HIV. BBC

What about all those supposedly healed of HIV at SCOAN? On their website currently they have multiple testimony videos of people claiming they were cured of HIV at SCOAN. Multiple identical news articles (usually proof that it is the work of SCOAN PR rather than genuine a journalistic piece) on African news sites state that “HUNDREDS of people from across Africa have said they were healed of HIV/AIDS after visiting Nigerian Prophet TB Joshua” (e.g. here and here).

Whatever the real number of people SCOAN claim have been healed, it is a lot more than what some of the biggest and most respected news agencies in the world are aware of.

What can we make of this discrepancy? Simple:

Nobody has ever been healed of HIV at SCOAN or by TB Joshua

How can we say this with such certainty? Consider the following:

1. Proving that someone once had HIV and no longer does is a fairly simple process.
2. “Hundreds” of people being healed of HIV is world-shaking, front page news.
3. If people really were being healed at SCOAN they would have flown in world-renowned experts in the virus to validate their claims instead of showing dubious ‘before and after’ medical certificates (who knows whether they are genuine or if the doctor signing them was bribed?).

HIV is an epidemic in Africa. False healing only spreads it faster and more widely. This must be stopped. If SCOAN are to continue claiming people are healed of HIV, they should open their doors to any researcher who wants to come and investigate and validate their claims, in fact they should actively encourage it and publish the findings in full. The fact that they have not done this is strong evidence that the claims would not stand up to this kind of scrutiny. For this reason we have no choice but to assume it is all a lie.  It is too important an issue to sit on the fence.

If you are a supporter of SCOAN, you should encourage this call for transparent and independent research into their claims. If the claims are true, TB Joshua will become the most well known and celebrated minister on this planet, if the claims are not true – anyone involved in upholding them is contributing to the death and misery of many.

An excellent resource on TB Joshua and SCOAN

One of our regular commenters “General” has compiled an invaluable resource on Youtube about TB Joshua. As we said in our introduction to Anel’s story, many people on first exposure to SCOAN are both impressed and disturbed. The sensible thing to do would be to follow your concerns and see if there is any substance to them. That’s one reason “TB Joshua Watch” exists, and this video resource also gives a very thorough and in depth look into the ministry of TB Joshua. If you want to have a deeper understanding of the concerns we have about SCOAN, this is a great place to go. There are 8 videos of varied length, you can pick any of them to watch below – we particularly recommend “TB Joshua a false messiah“. Thanks General for this valuable resource!

• TB Joshua – another fulfilment of Matthew 24:24 – Introduction (4:03)
• TB Joshua, Adewole & Moon – a trio of false prophets (19:14)
• False Jesus (13:18)
• TB Joshua’s failed prophecies (24:23)
• Anointing water & stickers (17:28)
• TB Joshua comes to people’s dreams (9:58)
• TB Joshua a false messiah (32:38)
• Closing commentary (the gospel in a nutshell) (11:49)

Documentary on TB Joshua available online

Back in 2001 South African Journalist Jacques Pauw did a documentary on TB Joshua. We have featured quotes from Pauw in several articles, but until recently the full documentary was not available to watch online. The documentary particularly focuses on the fake resurrection video that SCOAN were widely circulating a number of years ago, but it also reveals a number of people who have died after being “healed” by TB Joshua. To this day, we have no evidence, verified by third party medical professionals of any genuine healings taking place at SCOAN.

2014 – the year TB Joshua’s credibility died

2014 was a year of spectacularly wrong prophecies from TB Joshua and a terrible tragedy that claimed the lives of 116 people and permanently injured many more. It was a year when TB Joshua’s credibility as a prophet and healer was severely undermined (how did he fail to see the SCOAN disaster? Why were the victims not healed/raised from the dead?), and SCOAN attendance plummeted, even to the extent of having an impact on national tourism revenues. It was a year he was caught bribing journalists, and was threatened with arrest for continuously refusing to turn up to court.

It is our prayer that the events of 2014 will help open the eyes of those held captive by this cult so that in 2015 they may find their freedom, and the abuse and deception will end.

Below we present TB Joshua’s 3 most obvious prophetic failures, but we present this with sadness. In all three cases we wish he had been right, we wish MH370 was found, the Chibok girls were released and Ebola was written off, but sadly the words spoken were not God’s, they were just a deceitful, callous man trying to please his audience.

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” 2 Timothy 4:3

Ghanian pastor: Do not rely on anointed water for protection against Ebola

Reported in peacefmonline.com

President of the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), Apostle Dr. Opoku Onyinah, has cautioned Ghanaians not to rely on Anointing Oil and Water for protection against the fasting spreading deadly Ebola virus since proper observation of sanitation is one of the core values God has instructed mankind to practice to stay healthy.

The whole article is well worth reading.

TB Joshua’s cowardly U-turn

TB Joshua pledged 2000 bottles of anointed water to any affected country who would request it. He also said (multiple times) that he would personally deliver and administer the anointed water. See this video, and the timings below.

8:25 – If they invite me in the capacity of government, I will not only send the anointed water, I will carry it myself.

8:55 – I will not only send 2000 anointed water, I trust the anointed water. I will go myself there.

9:34 – here is TB Joshua, ready to go anywhere, not only sending, [inaudible] I will carry the anointed water, I will even spray it everywhere.

10:00 – Not only 2000 anointed water, but I, TB Joshua, that is my calling.

A few days later, Sierra Leone put in an official request (or so SCOAN would have us believe). The anointed water was duly loaded onto a chartered jet (someone should explain to this millionaire pastor about Fedex, think of what the $50,000 spent on the jet could have contributed to the fight against Ebola), and sent with great fanfare to Sierra Leone, but without its master.

The press in Sierra Leone are reporting that “A female representative of the Nigerian pastor, [is] in Freetown to oversee the administration of the ‘Holy Water’”.

Why did TB Joshua, who “trusts his anointed water” forsake his “calling” and send an associate on this potentially deadly mission instead?

Sadly, anointed water or not, the situation in Sierra Leone is not getting any better. The chart below shows the number of new confirmed cases and new confirmed deaths each day. Please pray for wisdom for the government and officials in these countries as they battle with this difficult situation.

source: WHO and Ministry of Health, Sierra Leone

Zimbabwe health minister warns people not to visit TB Joshua

The Associated Press are reporting that Zimbabwe health minister David Parirenyatwa is warning citizens to not go to Nigeria to visit faith healers such as TB Joshua, for fear of catching Ebola and bringing it back to Zimbabwe.

Interesting that when the rubber hits the road, there’s really not a great deal of belief in the healing claims of TB Joshua, otherwise why avoid a famed “healer” to protect yourself from a dangerous sickness?