Nigerian Prophet T.B. Joshua has launched a scathing attack against the verdict of the coroner’s court in Lagos which ruled the tragic collapse of a building within his church last year was due to structural failure.
A coroner on Wednesday said a megachurch run by popular Nigerian preacher TB Joshua should be prosecuted after a building collapse killed 116 people, most of them South Africans.
“The church must be investigated and prosecuted for not obtaining the relevant approval before embarking on the construction of the building,” Chief Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe said in his ruling on last year’s tragedy.
“The church was culpable because of criminal negligence resulting in the death of the victims.”
The coroner’s inquest was called to determine the circumstances of the collapse of the guesthouse for foreign followers of Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations on September 12 last year.
Joshua, a self-styled faith healer known to his followers as “The Prophet” and “The Man of God”, claimed in the immediate aftermath that aerial sabotage or an explosion may have caused the collapse.
But a string of expert witnesses ruled out the theory.The hearing was told the guesthouse did not have planning permission and that extra floors were being added to the building at the time.
A statement by TB Joshua’s church released via their official Facebook page read, attributed to Barr. Olalekan Ojo, lead counsel to The SCOAN rejected this verdict.
The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) rejects the verdict of the coroner on the grounds that it is unreasonable, one-sided and biased,” a statement released via their official Facebook page read, attributed to Barr. Olalekan Ojo, lead counsel to The SCOAN. The church maintains its stand that the incident was as a result of sabotage,” the statement continued, further adding that the public should not be misled by media reports casting sensational headlines suggesting the church was liable for prosecution over ‘criminal negligence’.
“There was no finding that connected the incident with the lack of a building permit,” the statement proceeded, adding that the process of procuring the necessary approval was well underway and had been assessed and accepted by relevant government agencies before the incident.The church disagrees most vehemently with the finding that the incident was due to structural failure,” continued the strongly worded statement, insisting the verdict failed to consider substantial evidence which pointed to sabotage and ruled out structural failure.“It was a one-sided verdict which left many issues unaddressed and questions unanswered.”
Joshua’s supporters were vocal in their support of the ‘prophet’ in the thousands of comments posted beneath the statement, many insisting the verdict was the work of ‘the devil’.
“If you bury a lie, it will rot. If you bury the truth, it will rise,” wrote Opeyemi Oduwole. “We South Africans know what happened to the building; we know the truth. No matter how they lie, the truth will prevail,” added Bridget Mkhonto.
Joshua followed up on the statement by posting a video on Facebook highlighting the differences between controlled demolition and structural failure with the caption, “No matter how fast a lie runs, the truth will someday overtake it.
However Chief Magistrate Komolafe also dismissed Joshua’s claims in his ruling, which recorded that the victims likely died from multiple injuries, including fractured skulls, caused by the collapse.
“The collapse was as a result of structural failures,” he said, calling for the prosecution of the two engineers used by the church.
Chief Magistrate Komolafe noted that of the 32 witnesses called, TB Joshua, who counts powerful politicians across Africa among his flock, was the only one not to turn up.
“Among the individuals and organisations summoned, only Prophet TB Joshua refused to testify,” he told the court.
“He went to court, challenged the jurisdiction of the coroner to summon him and the high court ruled he should come. But he still went ahead to the appeal court to challenge the ruling.”
Source: Ihechukwu Njoku, a freelance journalist, Lagos, Nigeria/ENCA
Even prayers won’t help you out of this one you con artist!
The bible says you shall know them by their fruits. No matter how anointed you are your fruits will reveal the true character of a person.
This same Devil will sue some of you at the rate you are accusing him. But what is important here are the damning findings of the coroner. Those of you condemning the coroner please learn to be objective. T.B. Joshua blames a terrorist attack and points at a plane circling above! This is just short of saying it was witchcraft. Let him be man enough and accept that mistakes were made!
Take that con-man to jail where he rightly belongs. Let’s see how he will like preaching for free.
Dear Brother Mwaba
I think being anointed doesn’t make us immune to tragedies.
I’m not agreeing with TB JOSHUA 100% But when things like happens it’s wise to be silent because we don’t know what’s happening and next thing you know it might be a punishment coming your way. Jesus Christ was the son of God but he was tortured and killed people who claimed to know God mocked him. Well so are his followers today. God can allow all kind of things to happen for a reason then we won’t be able to know why until it’s too late.
So here we now have a case of expert findings involving as one might expect engineers of various persuasion being disputed and or disregarded in favour of spiritual interpretation of events. This is bizzare, we rely on science and engineering to build things and ensure those things work and perfume to safety and comfort so designed for but we are now being asked to disregard all that so that ‘men of God’ can tell us what really happened? What is wrong with Africa? Is it really the case this very God you worship has cursed you? How can this even begin to make sense after so many years of education and TV? I don’t know, there has to be something fundamentally wrong with African people, sorry to say but this is not normal animal behaviour!
I will tell you what is wrong with africa. The same reason you are asking this question in a language foreign and I answering you in it is what is wrong with us. the same reason you choose to name your children edgar, frederick, levy, michael, rupiah, kenneth is what is wrong with us.So,did a god somewhere curse us or someone did this to us.My opinion favors the latter reason. Imagine a child locked away in solitary confinement for 20 years, then suddenly released to society one day, without any psycho therapy or counselling. Do you expect that person to function as expected in that society? while they developed a behaviour in solitary confinement which got them through, thru all those years, it might not be appropriate in the new imposed “free society”.Thats what happened to africa
Open your eyes you people and begin to see this man for what he is. Do NOT deliberately choose to be ignorant, please!
Religion is a scam since 20BC
This a pure case of criminal negligence. I am surprised someone is not yet in Jail. Because of the love of money 116 people lost their lives. Also these brain washed people what does the bible say about the likes of TBJ?
Even men of god behaving like politicians refusing to take responsibility. This is what their lawyer says “the process of procuring the necessary approval was well underway” this means they had no approval simple.
Arrest the thieiving bastard.
This is a pure case of criminal negligence.I like the US for one thing,this man would have been behind bars by now.You cannot be so arrogant when lives have been lost. You brain-washed followers..lol,go there and DIE
Religion is the stupidest thing in the world and people who believe in jesus, god and what these money hungry preachers say need urgent education.
Just because a man has “Prophet” added to his name does not make him a holy man or so-called “Man of God”.
Why didn’t this con man’s powers of prophesy enable him to foresee this tragedy? And what has he done to help the families of the dead? Come 2018 this same con man will be busy prophesizing the outcome of football matches at the world cup. Like a damn gambling bookie in Las Vegas.
It’s just how he fails to apologies to the deceased and their families that’s disconcerting. That’s what says he is a fake.
Bizarre spin on the cause of the collapse of the building. It only matters it did collapse, and how do people in Africa build while approval permission is
on going?
Some even build on deceased estates before the right heirs have been awarded their portions! Especially in intestate estates cases. What can Africa do about out Mammoth man mentality?
Poor and uneducated Africans are very gullible. When a machine like a car is made a prototype is taken for testing to make sure it will perform as designed. Buildings use safety factors to make sure they will work. It is easy to see whether enough steel reinforcement bar was used to support upper structure. TB Joshua has no clue in building codes. And yet he wants to argue against real data. TB Joshua is the typical person who always says “Don’t confuse me with the facts because I have already made up my mind”. You will not convince him therefore hand out the necessary indictments to the culprit and move on. I wil bet he will be more careful next time.
Structural failure meaning more waits were being added, we need to know the original tonage the building and how many floors were earmarked firsts. Steel weights can be calculated. So that is not a problem.
No just the 2 engineers, the gang leader, criminally and 419 “prophet “TB Joshua should also be prosecuted. He belongs to jail.
The most annoying of all is when his brain washed blind followers call him DADDY.