Since Joshua died in June, there have been concerns over the leadership of the church.
All foreign prophets and evangelists working at the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) founded by the late Temitope Balogun Joshua, aka T. B. Joshua have been deported to their various countries, SaharaReporters has gathered.
Since Joshua died in June, there have been concerns over the leadership of the church.
His death led to a leadership crisis involving his wife, Evelyn Joshua and some of his disciples, who felt she was not qualified to lead SCOAN.
However, the church denied the reports and said it was focused on giving Joshua a befitting burial.
Documents seen by SaharaReporters showed that during the lifetime of the world-renowned preacher, he kept his wife and family away from the public eye and the politics in the church.
He also removed Evelyn from SCOAN’s Board of Trustee, BoT. She was also not very visible in the church activities.
While Mrs Evelyn was not visible, Prophet Racine Bousso from Senegal, Prophet Joseph David from Nigeria, and Prophet Christopher Dennis Tonge from the United Kingdom mostly stood in for T. B. Joshua before his demise.
Sources told SaharaReporters that the leadership limbo has degenerated to a point where Joshua’s prophets and evangelists were attacked and harassed by some members loyal to Evelyn.
They were evicted from their official residences in SCOAN, while others were held hostage in their rooms and their phones forcibly retrieved from them.
It was gathered that the Evelyn-led leadership also dragged some church officials, including the prophets mentioned above, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over alleged misappropriation of funds.
Amid the tussle, Evelyn initiated a move to force her way back into the church’s leadership.
This could be seen in the fact that she secured a court injunction returning her to SCOAN’s Board of Trustees, BoT.
Justice Tijjani Ringim of the Lagos Federal High Court had ordered the appointment of Evelyn as a trustee of SCOAN in line with the church’s Constitution, which prescribes a minimum of three trustees for the church.
Her appointment is said to be contrary to the action of her late husband who allegedly removed her from the board before his death.
In an attempt to lay the succession tussle to rest, SCOAN confirmed Evelyn as the new leader of the church over the weekend.
SaharaReporters gathered that about 17 foreign prophets and evangelists of the church have been deported to their countries due to a petition written against them by Evelyn.
Those deported include Annette Easting (United Kingdom), Catherine Ann (United Kingdom), Ruth Christina Tonge (United Kingdom), Christopher Dennis Tonge (United Kingdom), Seunghwa Lee (South Africa), Cindy Elizabeth Widjaja (Indonesia), Elizabeth Botouna (Greece), Angelique Nyinawintwari (Holland) and Angela Patricia Quintero (Colombia).
Others are Allison Polo Sandoval (Colombia), Flor Perez Rodriguez (Mexico), Fanny Elma Alfred (France), Racine Bousso (Senegal), Angela Marie Brandt (USA), Nadine Graham (South Africa), Eugene Rademeyer (South Africa) and Stella Cambrone (France).
“Some security operatives whom Mrs Evelyn Joshua had hired and put on standby invaded the church and the prayer mountain simultaneously. The prayer mountain which is a few minutes drive from the main church has been the residence of the late Senior Prophet, the five junior prophets and some of the evangelists, while the remaining evangelists stayed at the church.
“The five prophets who include an American, a Briton, a French and two Nigerians were swooped upon and forcibly ejected from the prayer mountain and carried to the church. Their rooms were broken into and ransacked. Meanwhile, the evangelists in the church were also rounded up and manhandled by the security operatives with the church security personnel as they pulled them out of their various departments and some ex-workers and ex-disciples were immediately drafted in to take over those departments which include the accounts, studio and Emmanuel TV transmission room.
“The five prophets and the disciples, both Nigerians and foreign nationals were held hostage the whole day and their handsets seized from them. Currently, all the Nigerian disciples have been shamefully evicted from the church and the foreign ones have also been deported to their various countries. She also petitioned 20 of the evangelists and prophets, both Nigerians and foreign nationals to the EFCC for alleged theft, fraud and money laundering. The allegations are absolutely baseless. The case has been filed in court and EFCC has been served a restraining order since September 2021.
“Despite the restraining order, some EFCC officials with some security operatives still stormed the residence of the evangelists and prophetesses whose names are on the alleged list and arrested one of the evangelists yesterday.
“Mrs Evelyn Joshua has also deported those foreign prophets and evangelists whose names are on the EFCC list to their countries without the matter being investigated. Even though they insisted that they wanted their names to be cleared of allegations before leaving Nigeria, they were however forcibly deported on one-way tickets. Currently, the entire discipleship of the SCOAN has been disbanded and flushed out of the church by Mrs Evelyn Joshua who has now fully taken over the church administration as the new General Overseer.
“All the disciples she accused of fraud were not charged to court but surreptitiously deported from the country on the 9th of October. Two days after she deported all of the foreigners claiming that she had withdrawn the EFCC case against them without any investigation, the EFCC officials started hunting the Nigerian disciples,” a source told SaharaReporters.