BY DARE ADEJUMO
Without setting the cat among the pigeons, the shameful story of crisis rocking the Synagogue Church Of All Nations SCOAN cushioned by some disciples is a pathetic paradox.
It is a painful irony of wickedness orchestrated by ingrates; having been thoroughly well fed, who now decided to bite the fingers that fed them.
Here are predominantly people ‘of nobody’ status coming from battered and plummeted backgrounds in the dregs of life. Some were either picked up in different locations in the world during TB Joshua’s foreign tours and evangelism or brought to the man of God by their wards upon whom they had lost hope.
TB Joshua, in love had painstakingly and indefatigably remolded and given them unimaginable befitting life, only for them to turn 360 degree overnight with the passing of their mentor.
They are now fighting the family he left behind and also scheming to legalize their illegality as heirs apparent to the assets and ministries of the very man, their benefactor, to whom by God’s grace they owe the joy of living as true human beings.
It’s not that they don’t know that their mentor was happily married to his only virtuous wife, Evangelist (Mrs) Evelyn Joshua, with grown up well educated children with whom most of them grew together under the same atmosphere of sound spiritual development as co-disciples. But the temptations of their inordinate ambitions have beclouded their right senses of judgement.
The admonition of Emeka Anslem, a great man of insight readily speaks here, “before you help a person with money, be sure the person is mature enough to deal with greed.” They simply don’t want to face the reality of change. This is their first tragedy. They failed to realize that CHANGE cannot be avoided in life; it is the only thing in nature that’s permanent.
They are also scared of losing the absolute freedom and new authority they have been enjoying as Lords of the manor without any higher controller since Papa’s passing.
Here’s Mrs. Evelyn Joshua, a woman that’s brighter, humble, loving, superlatively tolerant, accommodating and significantly more spiritually endowed than most of them, yet they don’t want to see her and her children in the church she grew with her husband from the beginning.
To them, she had suddenly become an obstacle to their possessive agenda.
Their position is, “We will take good care of her and her children and provide money for their needs but let her leave us to run the church the way we were doing with the man of God.”
Does this their position really make sense? Did they ever remember their individual insufficiency to undertake anything without the man of God’s initiatives and thorough supervisions? Did some of them remember how many times they had received holy slaps or been sent parking from the church for various misdemeanors, including pilfering and outright financial impropriety in millions of naira on charity assignments and contract deals including the one leading the infantile and misplaced law suit against the church today?
Did they think church members were not aware or probably don’t know them? They are living in grandiose of illusion and delusion.
TB Joshua was a man, who no matter your offence would always forgive you your transgressions. Were it not so, most of them would not remain as his aides or degenerate into the present absurdity of a stagnant stinking lake putting the environment in danger.
The question troubling many members across the world is: could the man of God have cast his pearls before the swing despite his various warnings on trust and betrayals? Pigs, no matter how much you cater for them, once the slightest opportunity come with you out in sight they will find themselves back in the mire. Right from the word go with Papa’s passing, they have put laws into their hands.
Until the time of Papa’s passing they were still spiritual apprentices and that was why they were still there. Those who believed they had sufficiently been spiritually groomed and were confident of their tutelage under TB Joshua had moved ahead to start their own ministries.
Today, they have littered the uninformed media with unpleasant stories.
Some are ten percent true, some are outright falsehood while most of the stories begged the question and completely misleading to the public who are not in the know at all about SCOAN’s internal affairs.
They even lied against the Federal Government of Nigeria that it deported 17 foreigners at the behest of Evelyn Joshua. Can you imagine who could have asked God for repentance and retrace their Judaic steps only to be sinking deeper in the abysmal.
Anything about SCOAN necessarily magnetizes public attention. SCOAN is a unique church. It has made an uncommon global impact not only in the fundamental teachings of Christianity that are in abeyance in many quarters today, but also in the practical demonstration of Christ’s unconditional love to all and sundry beyond human imagination.
They also quickly forgot one of the admonitions of the man of God: don’t be carried away by your situation. They fell woefully to the temptations of their own inordinate ambitions and desires.
What then could have suddenly led to their discomfort?
These are the people exercising tremendous powers. Church members don’t even like them and many people don’t come to church because of them. They are opposite of TB Joshua. The fear of them is the beginning of admission into the church. Once they are against you for no tangible reason they use the workers to withdraw your card and they won’t allow you to have access to baba since they are the one you will still have to go through.
What could have made them be that influential and powerful?
They are the only ones with direct access to baba and through whom the man of God carried out his church and charity activities within and outside Nigeria, including contracts. Some of them had been to 36 countries and were lavishly catered for by the man of God.
Even this year before the passing of man of God, some of them, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, had been to four countries.
The need to reorganize the church is not negotiable. The shoe of TB Joshua was too big for anybody to wear. There’s a need to audit the church.
There’s a need to ensure proper structures with transparency and accountability for the people to handle different aspects of the ministry.
You can imagine what it means for some of them to face the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to explain the source of their humongous wealth within three months of Papa’s passing.
Eighteen of the disciples, mostly foreigners, had tendered apologies and dissociated themselves from the law suit instituted against the church.
While the true church members across the world are rejoicing and eager for its reopening, outpourings of congratulatory messages support have been coming in multiples from Nigeria, USA, Cameroon, Paraguay, Spain, Bahamas, Ecuador and many others as could be seen on Emmanuel TV.
*Adejumo is a veteran journalist and public affairs analyst.
