I just received this report written by CNN African
Journalist of the Year Award Winner, Adewale
Adeoye.
Amazed. Amazed. Pastor Temitope Balogun
Joshua amazed me. I was part of a
delegation that visited him two days into
the newyear, on the platform of the human
rights community. Our mission was to find
out more about the six layer building that
collapsed with upsetting death toll.
Many
of us on the delegation were fuming prior,
but had a completely different impression
at the end of the encounter.
We were seated in a glistering restaurant
located downstairs. Several visitors, like
the rhythmical movement of a millipede,
strolled gently into the restaurant where
they had their breakfast and then left.
We
spent the time watching his Emmanuel TV
said to be
available in close to 100 countries.
I had
taken time to walk through the huge
estate, soaked in some angelic aura.
Thousands of people milled around; whites,
Asians, and many more whose red colours
made it difficult to place their ancestral
homesteads.
I saw a completely different community, far
away from the Nigerian rot: electricity
supply was 24/7, residents were generally
calm, cool and collected, not with the
usually hasty and stiff-neck idiosyncrasies
of the average Nigerian.
A white man that looked like his personal
assistance came to usher us into the living
room; simple, immaculate setting. On the
wall were framed pictures of several world
leaders that had either visited him or had
invited him into their country.
At least, I
saw him with the step mother of the
President of the United States, Barrack
Obama.
One of Africa’s most powerful
Kings, Goodwill Zwelithini, was also there.
Years back, I had met the daughter of the
Zulu King of South Africa.
She told me she
had epilepsy. She would be caught by the
bug, almost every time during colossal,
ceremonial events where she was to play a
key role.
She had visited so many countries
in the world and met the best neuro-
surgeons without success. She visited the
church, and according to her, she was
healed. There was also the picture of
Pascal Lissouba, the former President of
Congo amongst many other world leaders.
We were all waiting, speaking in low tones,
perhaps, to meet the defined aura of some
spiritual holiness and order. He walks into
the living room in T-shirt on short nicker.
He looks young, feminine and his eyes are
like little comets. He has a piercing look.
If
he had not been a clergy, maybe, I thought
in the realm of my cobweb of hallucinating
imaginations, he probably could have been
a farmer, or a diligent carpenter, if he had
remained in his Arigidi homestead in Ondo
State.
He has the look of an ordinary man, but as
he walks into the room, some sort of
extraordinary spirit in him caste in the
space like a silhouette.
As he opens his
lips to reveal a set of what looked like milk
teeth, in a charming smile, more like a
reflex action, we all stand up to salute
him.
In the recent past, I did not envy the so
called men of God. I grew up as an
Anglican. Later in life I became an atheist,
having studied maxism, which places
materialism at the center of human
relations.
It was not until after attending
the bigger University of life and the
tribulations thereof, that I sought a route
back into the invisible creator of man, of
plants, of animals, of the stars, of the
creeping and flying things. So, for a long
time, I saw religion as the opium of the
masses, a set of people exploiting the
gullibility of the poor, malnourished
masses. A visit to the Synagogue Church
of All Nations has now even rekindled some
sort of conundrum.
He chooses his words, carefully.
“I do not see myself as special. I’m just a
man of God,” he says. He waits to see if
you wanted to puncture him.
On the collapsed building, Pastor Joshua
insists the church was bombed. His logic
is premised on the mystery plane that
hovered around the building for some
minutes before the big bang. What is
shocking remains the fact that till date,
neither the Federal Government nor the
Federal Civil Aviation Authority, (FCCA) has
come out to unravel the mystery plane.
Who owns the plane? What was the
mission of the plane? Where did the plane
come from? Why should Nigeria allow this
underlining dilemma to be swept under the
carpet?
We went on an inspection of the collapsed
building.
The sight is gory.
Worst still, the
FG has refused to make public the report of
its findings. However, apart from the issue
of the collapsed building, I was personally
touched by the economic stories of the
church.
I’m not a member of the church. I do not
intend to be a member, but im simply
fascinated by the living stories built around
the activities of the church, little wonder it
appears the church is the biggest tourist
attraction in Nigeria today.
Though the
purpose of our visit was on the collapsed
building, we were enthralled by the
humanitarian sector of the church’s multi-
faceted fiefdom. I took time to investigate
this inspiring enterprise.
One of the most intriguing is the
monument of charity he has built in Nigeria
and across the world. I watched and I was
amazed at the effectiveness of his
kingdom:
the neon lights, in thousands and
none is faulty; the orderliness of the
people; the street lights and the
effectiveness of his in-house economy.
Our guide revealed storming stories of
affection flowing from the church.
Perhaps
Pastor Joshua was the only African clergy
that contributed immensely to the revival
of afflicted souls after the earthquake that
hit Haiti, killing many, and submerging
hundreds of houses including the
Presidential palace.
The death toll was
230,000. The world held its breath in awe.
Two cargo planes were chartered by Pastor
Joshua
. The planes flew from the United
States to Haiti. They landed on a UN
airstrip in Cap Haitien, northern Haiti just
ten days after the tragic disaster.
In history, most blacks in Haiti are
originally from West Africa, mainly Nigeria.
Nothing could have drawn this nostalgia
than the news that a man from Nigeria flew
in two cargo of planes filled with relief
materials, bringing succor to the afflicted
and putting an end to anguish, gnashing of
teeth and mourning. Apart, he assembled
medical doctors, nurses, engineers, pilots
and evangelists spanning three continents
to assist Haiti. They took a 10-seater
plane from Ft Lauderdale to Cap Haitien.
He also set up his team with relief clinic in
Arcahaie, a fishing and farming town of
roughly 150,000 locals. He had visited
Surabaya in Indonesia where he addressed
hundreds of poor people.
He fed them and
doled out hot meals of Kentucky Fried
Chicken and money to them. He also gave
10,000 dollars to the Hana Ananda centre
where the poor and the vulnerable shelter.
He visited the poor in Colorado, US and fed
thousands of people. He had discovered
the homeless camp at the banks of the
Colorado river with the welcoming
inscription: “Cold, Hungry and Homeless,
Anything helps.” From the account given to
me, the charity covers about 50 countries
and over 10 million families around the
world.
For the communities in the US, he
was the first person in the world to have
spent such a huge amount on the poor
community in a country rated as one of the
world’s richest.
A Muslim P.h.d student from Asia who was
on a research visit to the center told me
her findings indicated that Pastor Joshua
provides for the needs of an average of 1
million people daily all over the world. “I’m
here as a Ph.d student. I’m doing a
research on modern religion and poverty
alleviation. My findings indicate that Mr
Joshua runs the biggest and most selfless
charity in the world,” he told me. I saw the
physically challenged. I saw the blind. I
saw widows. I saw thousands of students,
Muslims, Christians and freethinkers alike
going home with goodies on their
shoulders.
I saw armed and defenseless
people alike, I saw the have-nots in
thousands, during the new year festivity.
One of the most interesting aspects is his
programme aimed at reviving armed
robbers, commercial sex workers and the
dregs in the society.
“I was a hardened criminal. I used to kill.
In fact, I came to this church, I was revived
through preaching. I was given money to
go and start a new life. I’m now a business
man and will never go back to criminal
activities again.
I have been doing my
business now for 10 years”, Andero, from
Oyo state told me.
Marvis, a former informant to armed
robbers, one of which was his boyfriend,
after a period of reformation; she was
given 200,000 to start a new life with her
husband, who was also rehabilitated.
“I have a list of 300 armed robbers
rehabilitated this year alone,’ the Asian
student told me, adding that she had
verified all of them, including checking out
with the police and discovered that it was
real.
There was a particular armed robber who
attended the church with a gun in his
pocket. He became one of the people to be
rehabilitated in an extensive programme
that has psycho-counselors on board. The
numbers of beneficiaries in the education
sector who obtain scholarship is countless,
spreading across all the states of the
federation and running through all ethnic
groups without discrimination.
I met many of his caregivers, whose
responsibility is to move from one home to
the other, attending to the elderly and the
sick, giving to them medicine and food.
His
community development programme is
unparalleled. He runs a football club
referred to as My People Football Club
where hundreds of talents are frequently
discovered. This is apart from a tourist
haven that has been built at the church’s
starting point, located in a swamp which
has now been turned into a global magnet,
drawing an average of 2 million people to
Nigeria yearly.
I now recollect.
On my visit to Costa Rica, I was at first
perturbed by the gale of revolting stories of
drug, violence and corruption pinned on
Nigeria by many. I had a similar experience
during my visit to many countries including
Thailand and Paragua and the United
States.
My consolation only came from the
other side of the story when many who had
visited the Synagogue Church began to talk
about Nigerian in glowing terms.
Though the Church seems to have brought
grandeur and honour to Nigeria, the
country does not seem to appreciate this.
One source told me that during Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo’s reign, instructions
were given to TV stations to block out
Pastor Joshua’s programmes prompting
him to start the Emmanuel TV that now
features in several countries all over the
world. Yet, the roads leading to this great
enterprise that has drawn global attention
remain an eyesore. The government has
definitely failed in seeing the golden offer of
uplifting a crestfallen nation offered through
the demagogue of the Synagogue
spirituality and political economy.
For me, from the economic and cultural
perspective, let us even leave out
spirituality, the Synagogue Church has
become a fortune of tourism, perhaps with
no equal in Nigeria. It has become one of
the few iconic comets that brightens
Nigeria’s darkening images.
Unfortunately,
there seems no institutional backing. I ask
myself, if millions of Nigerians can go to
Mecca and Jerusalem, with keen
government interests on the visitors given
the great impact on the local economy,
why can’t the various governments of
Nigeria tap from the Synagogue metaphor
and thrill?
Written by Adewale Adeoye. Mr Adeoye is
CNN African Journalist of the Year Award
Winner, former West African Regional
Secretary of International Alliance on
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the
Tropical Forest, (IAITPTF) based in
Thailand and alumni of the United Nations
Institute of Training and Research,
(UNITAR)
