An ardent member of the hugely popular Synagogue Church of all Nations, SCOAN megachurch in Nigeria, has alleged that Pastor TB Joshua raped her as a teenager and forced abortions on her, on five occasions.
Jessica Kaimu, from Namibia, stated that the late televangelist abused her for five years.
“These were backdoor type…medical treatments that we were going through…it could have killed us,” she told the BBC.
Mourners thronged from across the world to Lagos for his burial service, when he died on June 5, 2021. He died of an undisclosed ailment after one of his evening services in Lagos, Nigeria, just one week before his 58th birthday.
Other victims of his assaults said they were undressed, flogged with electrical cables and horse whips, and made to stay awake at night for long hours.
The televangelist who styled himself as a seer, claimed to have predicted numerous events, including the results of football matches and the disappearance of the Malaysian plane MH370 in 2014.
Despite making bizarre claims, Joshua had numerous high-profile followers including prominent African leaders like the long-time Zimbabwe opposition leader, late Morgan Tsvangirai, former president of Ghana, the late John Atta Mills, leader of the EFF in South Africa Julius Malema, Malawi’s former President Joyce Banda.
The founder of one of the world’s biggest Christian evangelical churches garnered lots of following through proselytising on Emmanuel TV, a television station run by SCOAN.
The station also televised purported accounts of people who said their lives changed for the better because of the preacher’s ministry.
A British woman known as Rae, said she was 21 years old when she abandoned her studies at the Brighton University in 2002 to join the church. She spent the next 12 years as one of Joshua’s so-called “disciples” inside his concrete compound in Lagos.
“We all thought we were in heaven, but we were in hell, and in hell terrible things happen,” she told the BBC.
Rae says she was sexually abused by Joshua and locked up in confinement for two years. The assaults were so severe, she contemplated suicide multiple times inside the compound.
Joshua had at least 150 residents with him as disciples within his premises in Lagos, sometimes for decades. From financial breakthroughs to mysterious recoveries from terminal illness and even people supposedly being woken from the dead.
Joshua was also known for his charity work, for which Nigeria’s former president, the late Umaru Yar’Adua honoured him with the Order of the Federal Republic, one of the country’s highest award. The SCOAN is now shepherded by his wife, Evelyn Joshua. They had three children. The church says precious previous allegations have been unfounded.
Several others including eyewitness accounts of five British citizens and dozens of other Africans have attested to the allegations of widespread rape, physical abuse and torture.
SCOAN attracted some controversy when a guesthouse for church pilgrims collapsed in 2014, killing at least 116 people.