The BBC found proof that the leader of one of the largest Christian churches has been abusing and torturing many people.
Many former members of the Synagogue Church of all Nations, including five from Britain, say that they experienced terrible things such as rape and forced abortions by the church’s leader, TB Joshua, who has since died.
There have been reports of abuse in a private area in Lagos for almost 20 years.
The Synagogue Church of All Nations did not reply to the accusations, but said that previous claims have been untrue.
TB Joshua was a popular and successful preacher who had a lot of fans all over the world. He passed away in 2021.
The BBC studied something for two years and found out some things.
Many people saw Joshua hurt or torture others, including hurting children and tying people up.
Many women say Joshua sexually hurt them. Some say it happened many times for years in the compound.
Several claims of women being made to have abortions in the church after being raped by Joshua. One woman says she had five abortions.
Many people have said that Joshua pretended to heal people in a special way and this was show non TV to many people.
A British woman named Rae, who was 21 years old,dropped out of university in 2002 and joined the church. For 12 years, she followed Joshua in his complex building in Lagos with other followers.
“We thought we were in a good place, but it was really bad, and bad things were happening,” she said to the BBC.
Rae says that Joshua hurt her and kept her alone for two years.
The Synagogue Church of All Nations [Scoan] is very popular worldwide and has a Christian TV channel called Emmanuel TV.
They also have social media pages with lots of followers. During the 1990s and early 2000s, many people from Europe, the Americas, South East Asia and Africa went to a church in Nigeria to see Joshua do “healing miracles”. Over 150 people stayed with him as students in his place in Lagos for many years.
Over 25 former followers talked to the BBC from different countries like the UK, Nigeria, US, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia, and Germany. They shared their stories about their time in the church, with some experiences happening in 2019. Many of the people who were hurt were in their teenage years when they first became involved. Joshua and other UK churches paid for some British people to go to Lagos.
Rae and many other people said their experiences were like being in a cult.
Jessica Kaimu, from Namibia, says she suffered for more than five years. She says that when she was 17, Joshua raped her for the first time, and that he continued to rape her, which resulted in her having five abortions.
“We were receiving unsafe medical treatments that could have killed us,” she told the BBC.
Other people who were interviewed said they were undressed and hit with electric cables and horse whips, and were never allowed to sleep regularly.
When TB Joshua died in June 2021, people said he was one of the most important pastors in African history. He came from being very poor and built a big religious group with lots of famous people and politicians involved.
During his lifetime, he caused some trouble when a guesthouse for church visitors fell down in 2014, and at least 116 people died.
More about the claims made by TB Joshua
The BBC and Open Democracy worked together to investigate for the first time multiple former church insiders speaking out about their experiences. They have been trying for years to warn others, but they have been stopped from doing so.
Some people in Nigeria say they were hurt or shot at after speaking out about abuse and posting videos on YouTube.
In March 2022, a BBC team tried to film the church’s Lagos compound from a public street but the church’s security shot at them and they were held for several hours.
The BBC talked to Scoan about the claims in our research. It did not answer them, but said that the things people said about TB Joshua before were not true.
“Accusing Prophet TB Joshua of things with no proof has happened before. None of the accusations have been proven true,” it said.
Four British people told the BBC that they told the UK authorities about the abuse after leaving the church. They said nothing more was done.
Also, a man and his wife from Britain sent email about what they went through and videos showing them being held at gunpoint by men who said they were police and members of Scoan, to the British High Commission in Nigeria in March 2010 after leaving the church. The man said in an email that Joshua had sexually assaulted and raped his wife many times. He told the commission that there are other British people still in the building and they are facing terrible things.
He also says that nothing was done.
The UK Foreign Office did not answer these claims, but they told the BBC that they take all reports of crime against British people in other countries very seriously, including sexual assault and violence.
Scoan is still doing well today, with Joshua’s widow, Evelyn, leading the way. In July 2023, she guided a group of people on a trip to Spain.
Anneka, who moved from Derby to the UK to join Scoan when she was 17 years old, told the BBC that she thinks there are many more people who have been hurt but haven’t said anything yet. She wants more action to be taken to find out what Joshua did.
“I think we need to investigate why this man was able to do what he did for so long at the Synagogue Church of All Nations,” she said.