ABUJA – Nigeria’s influential pastor TB Joshua, who has died aged 57, was considered a pariah among the country’s mega-televangelists and struggled until his death to be accepted within their circles, despite amassing millions of followers across Africa.Ostracised by both the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) he was described as an “impostor” who belonged to a group of “occults” that had infiltrated Christianity.But Joshua was no different from the other televangelists who have held many Nigerians in their grip with their “prosperity messages” since the early 1990s.Most of them are more dramatic and perform the same “miracles,” but Joshua – who headed the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) – was not part of their clique.“He was rough. He was crude. His methods were unorthodox,” says Abimbola Adelakun, assistant professor in the African Studies Department at the University of Texas.‘They thoughthe was fake’Joshua came from a poor background […]
TB JOSHUA: THE NIGERIAN OUTSIDER WHO BECAME A GLOBAL TELEVANGELIST STAR
