1. The interviewees elevated TB Joshua to the status of a god.

TB Joshua was a man. He wasn't a god. He was only enjoying God's grace to do all he did while alive because God was with him. He started his ministry in the 80s. Hence, if there were some evil things he knew or was doing, he would have been beaten in his game by higher evil forces. Don't forget that Satan's business is to destroy men and there's no way he can elevate you and keeps you in that position for so long.

Nobody should try to make it look like the man was all powerful. Remember, the devil cannot deliver or heal anyone, but TB Joshua through God prayed for the sick and they received their healing. He prayed for the demon-possessed and they were delivered—not just in Nigeria but all around the world. During COVID-19, he prayed for people via Interactive Prayer sessions and they received their healing.

TB Joshua practically had nothing when he started SCOAN. His church came down several times and rose again. All the things and money you see continously came from people who believed in what he was doing. They believed God was using him because they could see the result, and God kept using him, and the healings and deliverances kept happening in the SCOAN even till today, because it wasn't about him but God.

Do you think the BBC documentary will bury SCOAN or stop international visitors from visiting the church?

2. It's Paul and Bisola again! Then others.

I see it like the BBC were simply trying to use anything to tarnish TB Joshua's image and legacy so they had to employ some failed disciples, especially Paul and Bisola. These people had rebelled and left the church long ago. What are they going to say again that they haven't said about this man in the past?

Let's not forget how the duo went back to apologize to the man of God and asked for forgiveness. Today, they are talking again. So, at best, these guys are hungry and anybody can pay them to talk. They are unrepentant.

Then, we have people like Ajoke, the family members of Mr. Tonge from the UK, and others.

For the record, Ajoke was an adopted daughter of the Prophet. She was never a biological child of TB Joshua. Her biological parents had abandoned her as a baby around the church and she was taken to the man. The man of God, instead of taking her to the orphanage decided to raise her and even gave her his name. She was treated like any other child in the house, including getting a quality education from the man of God outside Nigeria.

Sadly, the young girl began to misbehave when she was a teenager and at a point she opted to leave the church. The Prophet said since you don't want to be part of us again, you are free to leave but you won't go with my name. Subsequently, a process was initiated and the man detached his name from her, then she left.

Today, she's claiming to be the Prophet's biological daughter when she's not and talking all manner of rubb!sh about the Prophet.

Mr. Tonge, his wife and children left the UK to the SCOAN some years ago. At the time, one of their son, Bro. Chris who later became Evangelist in the church was thereabout 16. His elder brother was also there, with Chloe and Ruth who's now the wife of one of the first five oldest disciples of TB Joshua, Wiseman Racine.

A whole family, over six persons were in the church. The man of God fed, clothed, gave them shelter, and security for several years. They were at the forefront of the church's activities. The two brothers from the family used to minister to the sick and also give messages during church service.

Today, they are still doing the work, especially Bro. Chris. They still have the anointing. Bro. Chris now organizes Interactive Prayers for his viewers all over the world. You can check out his channel on YouTube.

Today, Mr. Tonge allows some of his children to say stup!d things against the man of God of blessed memory. But they were there for many years and if the man actually abused her, why didn't she leave the place and scream to the world that she got abused in the SCOAN? Why did she continue to stay with someone that abused her? Did she tell her dad or mom about the abuse at the time? What did they do? These are the questions. One word, fake!

These are all for the money just like Judas betrayed Jesus.

3. SCOAN is born afresh

I got to know about the TB Joshua and the SCOAN around 2009 because of then trending video of Paul and Bisola about the man of God at the time.

It was a Sunday afternoon and after service, my friend brought the CD and talked about the devil in it—referring to TB Joshua. I said, wow, let's see. I carefully studied everything and even realized the man had prophesied about his own people that will begin to talk stup!d things about him. Right there, I knew he was a true man of God and started following him.

Even with this one from the BBC, it's only going to reshape the church for good. In the nearest future, some of those new guys will still come back to recant their words about the man and the church as a whole just like Paul and Bisola once did.

As such, there's no big deal about what they are saying right now. It's only going to promote the church to new heights. Remember, the SCOAN doesn't have a signboard like other churches do. They feel the campaign of calumny is going to kill the church. However, if other attempts in the past never killed the church, this one won't.

Even though it feels bad listening to these people, I don't really feel bad about it because I know the glory that's coming as a result of this movie. The world is going to investigate the church directly and indirectly and with time, they'll realize the stories were fake.

4. The fruits of TB Joshua and SCOAN

You don't merely sit to condemn someone. You don't merely judge people because of what you hear about them. You have to also look at the fruits that have grown from those people because the Bible says by their fruits you shall know them—not by what others have to say about them. Don't sit there to judge TB Joshua because of the BBC documentary. Look at his fruits. They are everywhere. Whether the people condemning him are two or twenty, it makes no difference. They are fake. They are the descendants of Judas Iscariot.

The first fruit of the SCOAN is the SCOAN itself. After the man passed on, the church was closed for over a year. Eventually, it was reopened by the woman of God, Pastor Evelyn Joshua—a very strong woman standing in the gap.

Today, it's like there was no break in the church. How many churches can survive being closed for over a year, then the church bounces back again and members returned as though nothing of such happened? You should reflect on that.

We keep talking about people being hypnotized by the man. At least, one year would've been enough for them to recover and run far away from the church, but they came back in their numbers and the church kept matching on.

You really think the BBC documentary would pull the church down?

Another fruit of TB Joshua and SCOAN is his disciples. How are they doing today after the man passed on and they left the church? Generally, up to 99% are doing so well in ministry. Even the brother of one of the accuser of the man of God, Bro. Chris, also known as Christopher Tonge is doing very well in ministry. The guidance and anointing of TB Joshua is still working for him mightily.

He organizes interactive prayers now and then. People around the world connect to him online and he prays for them and they receive their miracle. What can you say about that? Would you say what he's doing is fake because people have said and you believe that TB Joshua was fake and demonic?

Mind you, the same tap cannot give cold and hot water. That's a parable.

How about Apostle John Chi in Cameroon, Wiseman Daniel in Abuja, the man of God, Christopher in Enugu, Wiseman Harry in Thessalonica? How about Prophetess Yinka and Anne? How about Racine? And so many others within and outside of Nigeria.

You need to go on YouTube and see how these people are doing. They all have their root in the SCOAN. Would you say the prophecy they give, deliverances and healing they do are all fake? Would you say all of them are demonic just like you have believed their master, TB Joshua was demonic? It's time to think!

It's time to reflect on everything around the SCOAN. Do you honestly think TB Joshua anointed these guys with demonic powers and they have been standing firm and doing so well for a long time? Don't just subscribe to what you hear. Think! It's the same thing I have been doing.

Again, the same tap cannot give cold and hot water. That's a parable.

5. The testimonies! Were they real?

A greater part of the documentary shows people giving testimonies after the man of God had prayed for them. Even the comment section on YouTube are filled with people testifying about how the man of God had prayed for them or their loved ones to get well and the healing remained till today.

Would you say all these testimonies are fake or the people were forced or hypnotized to testify? How about those testifying now?

At least, TB Joshua had attended a god status at the time so he could control everything or do anything. Hahaha!

Now, let's be serious, if people were not really getting result, do you think more people would be coming to the same place? C'mon. Think. Don't just hate. Don't forget, he started this in the 80s. Probably, he used demonic powers to deliver and heal the people. Well, even Jesus was accused of that too.

One of them in the documentary even said that there was electricity in TB Joshua. Hahaha!

So, for years you've been with this man and you believe he was demonic but he never used you for ritual. Till today, nobody has ever been reported missing in the church—not even a soul, since the 80s that he started SCOAN.

There was no time you had headache and a doctor never attended to you. You ate well. You were clothed. You were safe—both day and night—Nothing absolutely happened to you and finally, you went back to your country and started talking rubb!sh about the man. On what grounds exactly?

One of the Evangelists, Angela from the US got healed of a spinal cord problem after TB Joshua had prayed for her. As a result, she decided to join the SCOAN as a young woman then. She said that herself and eventually, she became an Evangelist. She went back to the US after the man of God passed on still healed and in sound health.

6. What is this all about?

BBC did not investigate the controlled demolition of one of the church's buildings in September 2014 and publish their findings. They did not investigate the man's philanthropy and good works around the world. They decided to gather people to assassinate the man's character three years after he passed on.

And I ask you, what exactly do you think this is all about?

Well, this isn't just about TB Joshua or the SCOAN. This is about Christianity. I'm not writing this to try to defend TB Joshua or the SCOAN. After all, how many people can see my writing but I'm writing this for the sake of Christianity. I'm writing to encourage your faith in God. Right now, it's very easy for you to dismiss the idea of God and choose not to believe in anything God.

You could say, if someone like TB Joshua did all these things, then there's no point worshipping God or going to church any longer. You could backslide and become Atheist or whatever thing. So, I admonish you to keep your faith in God. I admonish you to still hold TB Joshua in high esteem. He fought a good fight. He kept the faith. Let's respect that as children of God. Let's all come together for the sake of the gospel of Christ. Let's not join the world to destroy the church.

They've done this to men of God in the past. Today may be TB Joshua, tomorrow may be another man of God. It's not about the man but what he left behind and represented—physically and spiritually.

Watch and pray, my people. Be strong in your faith. We live in perilous times and the days are evil.

Let love lead.

TB Joshua exposé: How the disgraced pastor faked his miracles
The BBC unmasks, for the first time, how the late Nigerian televangelist TB Joshua faked the miracles that drew millions of people to his church.

The preacher, who is accused of widespread abuse and torture spanning almost 20 years, founded his Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan) in Lagos more than three decades ago. His meteoric rise to fame was closely tied to his self-professed divine powers and his supposed ability to heal the sick.

The theatrical healings - showing the physically disabled walking and on one occasion purporting to resurrect a dead person - were filmed. Along with testimonies of those he claimed to have cured, they were then sent on VHS tapes to churches across the world.

In 2004, Nigeria's broadcast regulator banned stations from airing the supposed miracles of pastors on live terrestrial TV, prompting Joshua to launch Emmanuel TV on satellite and then online. His global television and social media empire became one of the most successful Christian networks in the world. His purported miracles were broadcast to millions across Europe, the Americas, South-East Asia and Africa. His YouTube channel had hundreds of millions of views.

But Joshua, who died in 2021 aged 57, was a fraud. The BBC's investigation, involving more than 25 church insiders from the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, the US, South Africa and Germany, unpicks six ways in which he tricked worshippers.

1: The emergency department

An exclusive section of the church, named the "emergency department", was responsible for making the so-called miracles look real.

Agomoh Paul, who supervised the department for 10 years - receiving direct instructions from Joshua, told the BBC that the team was "trained by medical doctors".

He is a former disciple - one of an elite group of dedicated followers who lived with the pastor inside the Scoan compound.

"Any cancerous situation, they send them away. Then people who had normal open wounds that can heal, they bring them in, to present as cancer," he says.

Only a select group of trusted disciples were allowed to work in the emergency department. They would write placards for each follower to hold, detailing their made-up or exaggerated ailments. When it was time to meet Joshua, they would stand in line in front of the cameras and be "healed".

"It was a complicated system. Not all disciples knew what was happening. It was a secret," Mr Paul says.

This is where the sick, who came to be healed, would be screened, and where the team would decide who should be filmed and prayed for by Joshua.

2: Drugs

Every foreign visitor who came to the church to be healed had to fill out a medical report, detailing their illness and the medication they were currently prescribed.

They would be told to stop taking them, but Joshua would order pharmacists to procure the same medicine.

Without their knowledge they would "put those drugs in their fruit drinks," explains Mr Paul, who said people would be urged to drink the cocktail that had been blessed by Joshua.

This meant while visitors were residing at Scoan they would not become unwell and would believe in the divine healing powers of their pastor.

In the 1990s when HIV/Aids had reached epidemic levels across parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Joshua told visitors to stop taking their antiretroviral medication when they returned home.

"I know people died because they didn't take their medicine, and it's difficult to live with that," admits a former disciple, who asked not to be named.

Tash Ford, now 49, who went to Lagos from the South African city of Johannesburg in 2001 in the hope of having her failing kidney healed, was told to stop taking her drugs.

"It was the promise that… you could supernaturally receive a new kidney," she told the BBC.

At the time she had already had two kidney transplants. Ms Ford says the disciples said: "Stop taking your medication and just believe."

She did believe she had been healed. But when she got home, after four weeks of not taking her medicine, she went into renal failure and was admitted to hospital.

The medics initially managed to save her kidney but eventually it stopped working and she had to have kidney dialysis for more than six years before having a third transplant in 2011.

3: Brainwashing

Ms Ford says when she was at Scoan she never had any doubts: "I honestly thought we were seeing miracles. I literally couldn't believe what I was seeing. I saw someone walk out of a wheelchair."

The theatricality seemed to draw everyone in.

The former disciple told the BBC that after being screened, the chosen followers would be told to "exaggerate their problems so that God can heal you and exaggerate your healing".

"The people, themselves, are clearly being manipulated," she says.

The church had a ready supply of wheelchairs which followers were coaxed to use. They were warned they would not be healed unless they sat in one when they met Joshua.

"We are telling them: 'If you come out there, and walk with your legs, Papa will not pray for you. You need to shout: "Man of God, help me, I cannot walk,"'" says Mr Paul.

Another former disciple, Bisola, who spent 14 years living at Scoan, accompanied Joshua on his National Healing Campaign at the Church of Our Saviour in Singapore in 2006.

She says she saw people in wheelchairs try to stand up after the pastor told the congregation "he had released faith into the stadium".

However, these people had not been screened and she saw them fall down. "I was crying. I was crying for them," she says.

The emergency department workers themselves were also being manipulated. They were subjected to horrifying ordeals, including rape, physical violence and torture, and lived by a strict set of rules - forbidden to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

Now they struggle to understand how and why they continued to follow the pastor's orders.

"TB Joshua told me: 'Don't worry, we use this thing to build people's faith in Christ.' I wasn't having in mind that I was actually doing something wrong. I thought I was doing something that would help to build the faith of people in the church," says Mr Paul.

For Ms Ford, it has meant she has lost all faith in organised religion: "I wish we had known that it was all a farce, that it wasn't true. I was manipulated into believing that what the prophet was doing was supernatural, miracles, wonders, signs."

4: Bribes

Some disciples allege they were charged with finding people who needed money to pretend to be sick.

When they performed healing crusades in countries outside Nigeria, they would go to the poorer areas of a city to search for people living in poverty.

"We would say: 'We need you to just act out this particular scene and we will pay you,'" another former disciple told the BBC.

"We get them into hotels, we get them cleaned up. They come, they do what they do. We give them their money and the rest is history," she says.

Before the service, they would tell Joshua which rows they had planted these people, and what clothes they were wearing, so he would know who to perform his supposed miracles on.

"People would be brought in just to pretend that they were healed," she says.

5: Fake medical certificates

The "healing miracles" broadcast to millions regularly included medical reports stating people had been cured of HIV/Aids and diseases like cancer.

Doctors were interviewed on camera confirming the cures.

In 2000 Nigerian journalist Adejuwon Soyinka reported that these medical certificates were fake, but Joshua quashed his investigation and it went nowhere.

To this day some people believe they were healed, but insiders say it was all a performance on the late preacher's part.

"The whole thing is stage-managed and faked. It's faked," says Mr Paul, describing Joshua as an "evil genius".

There was nothing that took place in the compound that Joshua did not know about, he explains.

"TB Joshua was the one who masterminded the whole manipulation," he says.

6: Video manipulation

The "miracles" were filmed and then edited to make it look like the supposed healing had happened instantaneously. Before and after footage was spliced together to show his purported miraculous powers, but in reality the films were shot months, or even a year, apart.

"All you see on TV is the before and after, you don't know the time space," says Bisola, who was Scoan's chief video editor for five years and worked on Emmanuel TV. Like other insiders interviewed by the BBC, she opted to only use her first name.

"What people see… is not real. It is fraud," she says about the clips and broadcasts she oversaw.

"I am speaking now as someone who was an insider," she says.

Anything they did not want viewers to see was "cut away". It was all "organised", she says.

Short presentational grey line
The BBC contacted Scoan with the allegations in this investigation. It did not respond to them, but denied previous claims against Joshua.

"Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated," it said.

This Africa Eye investigation was conducted by Charlie Northcott, Helen Spooner, Maggie Andresen, Yemisi Adegoke and Ines Ward.

Journalists, congregants, and unaffiliated Pentecostal leaders have been questioning the authenticity of those alleged healings since at least 1999.

Nigerian journalist Adejuwon Soyinka was part of one of the earliest investigations into TB Joshua’s claims of miracle cures for people infected with HIV/AIDS that had been broadcast on Nigerian cable channels.

The reporting in Nigeria’s Tell Magazine revealed that the address for a “hospital” issuing medical reports that backed claims Joshua had healed people of HIV was, in fact, the location of an apartment owned by SCOAN. The supposed address of a nearby hospital lab was an empty shop front. “There was no lab. There was no hospital at all,” Soyinka told openDemocracy.