This writer’s meeting with Agomoh Paul, a former junior prophet in the Synagogue Church of All Nation, Lagos had to take place in a secret location because of several alleged attempts by Pastor T.B. Joshua’s to kill him. Paul, who was Joshua’s deputy for several years, was brought out of hiding by a Pentecostal pastor, who has been giving him refuge for several months.Paul was cool and calm when this writer met him. He did not show any sign of a man being hunted. He came for the appointment with his wife who was also a former devotee of Joshua’s Church, looking fulfilled. For years, he says he was part of the alleged torture, rape, hypnotism, murder, deceit and occultism in the church. But now, he says he has found Christ; He’s now a true born again and wants to fully expose Pastor Joshua, to put an end to the “deceit called Synagogue Church of all Nation.” Everything about Pastor Joshua is fake, he tells this writer, with so much venom.This decision must have influenced Paul’s key role in the home video, ‘The Rise of the Nigerian Antichrist’, which has been circulating for a couple of weeks. He was one of the ex-devotees who “exposed Joshua’s atrocities.” Paul wants the police to quickly arrest Joshua to save the lives of thousands of people in bondage in the church. In fact, he has sent a petition to the police, detailing Joshua’s alleged atrocities.“Joshua is involved in alarming and horrific activities that require the intervention of the police. Devotees are hypnotized, canned with horse whip and humiliated. Disciples are not allowed any contact with the outside world – no newspapers, radio or television. I lived with the prophet for more than ten years, rising from the position of a disciple before I was eventually made a prophet. We lived under dehumanising conditions before we are finally confirmed as prophets. We are dehumanised, threatened and incarcerated most of the time. In fact, Joshua is running a concentration camp and not a discipleship quarters.“We lived in fear and agony and afraid to leave because those who escaped were either brought back with mysterious sicknesses or end up with bizarre ailments outside the Synagogue. We were brainwashed to deny our parents and relatives and most of us changed our surnames to Joshua. Joshua has committed so much crime against God and humanity. In the beginning, he taught us how to arrange miracles through brainwashing people to accept what they are not.”Paul says Joshua is also responsible for the death of many HIV/AIDS patients who he allegedly stopped from taking medications, with the promise to heal them without the aid of any medication. “A footballer from Liberia who plays in Scotland once brought a sister who is HIV positive, but was on drugs which made her strong. Once in the Synagogue, she was asked to stop her drugs. Soon, her situation became worse and Joshua sent her back to die in her country. When she got home, she died. One prince came to the Synagogue HIV positive, but he was very strong. When Joshua asked the man to discontinue his drugs, his situation became worse and the man died. There are more than a thousand of such cases that I witnessed. I know if an advert is placed in newspapers, calling for the families of those who died through Joshua's spiritual advice to come forward, it will be amazing the number that will turn up,” Paul alleged.Paul is also worried about the Europeans and other foreigners who flock to Joshua’s church. “We enter their rooms with spare keys, search their bags and get their personal details and problems, while they are on tour of the church. We then pass this information to Joshua, which he uses during services to bemuse them. They think he gets these details about them because of his spiritual power. It’s all lies. We steal the information for him.”This ex-devotee also claimed that Joshua consistently abused women and even minors sexually in the church. “Most of the big girls you see around him today came as virgins. They have all been sexually abused by Joshua. None of these girls has been allowed to marry by Joshua and some of them are in their mid or late thirties.”Paul claimed that Joshua often kill disciples who rebel or try to leave the church. “Death means nothing to Joshua,” he alleged, as he (Joshua) “has the machinery to cover up deaths.” Joshua, Paul claimed, maintains a killer squad which he uses to eliminate enemies. “Apart from people who died mysteriously, there are others beaten to death by the squad on Joshua’s instruction. Even Chris Okotie was lucky to escape Joshua's hit men. When Okotie exposed him, I overheard Joshua complaining to some people. After that occasion, Okotie began to complain that Joshua was after his life. Now that I have finally decided to expose this antichrist who parades himself as a man of God, he has left no stone unturned to eliminate me.”Paul alleges that Joshua's philanthropic strides shown on television are deceptive and deliberately done “to court public goodwill and not necessarily as a humane gesture.” Marriage by disciples was also strictly prohibited by Joshua, so says Paul and “Joshua always ensures he stops any blossoming relationship amongst his disciples.” The ex-devotee alleged that Joshua poisoned one prophet Benson who informed Joshua of his proposed wedding. He said his own attempt to marry a Ghanaian lady and Joshua’s opposition eventually opened his eyes to the atrocities in the church and led to his departure. “After a lot of argument over my plans to marry after I had passed 40 years, Joshua eventually asked me to bring the lady to him. She died mysteriously two weeks after she returned to Ghana.”Another ex-devotee that featured in the “The Rise of the “Nigerian Antichrist,” was one Bisola Johnson, who did the voice over in Joshua’s television programmes. Bisola claimed she joined the church at 14 and that she was also sexually abused by Joshua. She also alleges that Joshua practices occultism and bizarre initiation. “We were made to drink strange water during initiation as disciples,” she claimed. She also accused Joshua of false miracles, deceit and fraud.A website, www.antichrist.com has also been opened by “concerned Christians” to “expose” the purported atrocities of Pastor Joshua. The website is flooded daily with confessions of Joshua’s ex-devotees. Comments and articles of other pastors, criticising Joshua abound on the website. The promoters of the website say they are out to destroy “the antichrist called Joshua.”Pastor Joshua has since responded to the allegations contained in the video and the antichrist website, describing them as false. In fact, he has done a counter-video, tilted’ “Beware of Blasphemers,” which is now being widely circulated free of charge, to douse the tension raised by the “The Rise of the Nigerian Antichrist” video. In it, Joshua accused Paul and Bisola of falsehood purportedly aimed at making money. “Don’t just sit down and come to hasty conclusions. What they have produced and packaged are all falsehood,” the synagogue pastor maintained.Joshua claimed Paul left the church because of his misconduct. “He’s another blasphemer. Paul abused his position by getting involved with one of the female members of the church in Ghana,” claimed Joshua. In Joshua’s video, (from the church’s video archive) Paul was shown in the church, in abject poverty and asking for Joshua’s help. He was also shown in another section, begging for forgiveness and apologising to Joshua after his recall from Ghana. In another section, Paul was shown in Ghana, confessing to Joshua’s healing power and claiming that the Synagogue pastor healed his sister. When confronted, Paul claimed he was hypnotized into doing all these. He also disputed allegations that he was a poor man when he joined the church.Bisola was also shown in a video from the church’s archive, claiming to be a witch and tormented by evil spirits. She desperately asked Joshua for help and deliverance. Bisola was shown confessing to all sorts of atrocities, including setting her husband’s home on fire. In another section, she was seen begging Joshua for forgiveness. “It was after this that she left and started spreading falsehood about the church,” said Joshua. Bisola also claims to have been hypnotized when she was made to confess to being evil at the church.However, Joshua’s video failed to answer many critical question raised by Paul and other former devotees concerning alleged occultism, murder, hypnotism, sexual abuse, torture, slavery and deceit. This is not the first time Joshua will be accused of being an antichrist by his former followers. A few years ago, Pastor Chris Okotie of the Household of God waged an all out war with him for several weeks over his deeds, calling him a phony man of God and a dupe.Okotie said: “Joshua is involved in satanic manipulation of adherents and has transferred the same evil power to Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, hence the similarities in their ministries and the emergence of a fake healing ministry for both pastors. Joshua is a practitioner of Shamanism.”Okotie continued: “Joshua is involved in Docetic Gnosticism. I have studied the Bible for over 14 years and I know what I am saying. Joshua is not qualified to talk about Jesus Christ and the Bible. The Bible is also very clear when it said that I should have nothing to do with a person like Joshua.“No one knows his (Joshua) past. All the stories he tells are not verifiable. Joshua claimed that his birth was prophesied, and that he quoted from the scriptures at a very tender age before knowing the Bible. The only way that can happen is by spiritual impartation. So, he is claiming equality with Jesus Christ. There is no way we are going to sit back and allow him to carry on. We don’t want what he is doing to this country. He is more dangerous than Abacha was.”Wale Adefarasin, another Pentecostal preacher said during Joshua’s crisis with Okotie: “On TB Joshua, the PFN makes it clear that any member who fraternises with TB Joshua will be suspended until they repent. We do not believe at this point in time that it is a Ministry of God. What we want people to know and find out is that when somebody says he is as Christian, pastor/minister, you ask him when he became born-again. Most people know when they get born again. But T B Joshua said he was converted from his mother’s womb. We know that is not possible.”Bishop Abraham Olaleye, President, Abraham Evangelistic World Outreach, Lagos also added to the controversy when he said: “I have taken time to watch many of Joshua’s TV programmes and came to the conclusion that there is something not clear, something about him is not clear. I kept watching, so that I can be sure before I make my opinion known. Having watched him over the years, I have no doubt, not even an iota of doubt left in me that this man called T.B. Joshua is not a man of God.”“Due to my personal encounter with T.B. Joshua and my involvement with Bayo Ajede (an ex-devotee) I knew without a shred of doubt that the ministry was diabolical but the actual magnitude of the deception far exceeded my thoughts. Joshua has successfully undermined the Nigerian Church,” said Ladi Thompson, another Pentecostal preacher.Clearly, Joshua has his hands full. Devotees are absconding by the day and “exposing” him. The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria thinks no genuine Christian should have anything to do with him. He would need more than videos to prove that he’s not an antichrist. He would need to show by his deeds that he’s a true Christian.
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