When he died in June 2021, TB Joshua was hailed as one of the most influential pastors in African history. Born very poor, he built an evangelical empire whose allies included dozens of political leaders, celebrities and international footballers. His “Church of All Nations Synagogue” has a worldwide following, runs a Christian television channel called Emmanuel TV and social media networks with millions of viewers. In the 1990s and early 2000s, tens of thousands of pilgrims from Europe, America, Southeast Asia and Africa traveled to the church in Nigeria to witness Joshua's “miracles of healing.” At least 150 visitors lived with him as students at his property in Lagos, where they sometimes stayed for decades. But now a two-year BBC investigation is revealing Pandora's box of horrors.
Dozens of believers from various countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom, speak of rape and forced abortions, and the allegations – the abuse took place at a secret compound in Lagos – span a period of almost 20 years. The Synagogue Church of All Nations did not respond to the allegations. The BBC has collected dozens of eyewitness accounts of physical violence or torture by Joshua, including cases of child abuse and flogging and shackling people; several women who say they were sexually assaulted by Joshua, many of whom say they were repeatedly raped on the premises for years; Numerous allegations of forced abortions within the church following Joshua's alleged rapes, including one woman who says she had five abortions. Even Joshua's “miracle cures”, the cause of his success, were all faked and the investigation reconstructs this. “We thought we were all in heaven,” sighs a former believer in front of the BBC cameras. “Instead we were in hell.”