Mrs Evelyn Joshua
* Exposes inner workings and relationships in the Synagogue
* Says Evelyn has full share of Joshua’s anointing
Bishop Steven Ogedengbe is the founder and General Overseer of Wisdom Chapel, a Pentecostal denomination located in Shasha Lagos. A kinsman of the late Prophet T. B. Joshua who shares a lot in common with him, Bishop Ogedengbe, in this interview with TAI ANYANWU gives more insight into the crisis that is rocking the church
Should succession in church leadership be a family affair as events in our clime suggest?
This is not a question of family affairs now. It is a question of the institution. Every institution has a founder, and when you talk about an institution, it requires the services of more than one person, who will locate people and put them to work to achieve the vision of the institution that the founder is building. Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua, to the glory of God, founded the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN). His wife, Pastor Evelyn Joshua, came in 31 years ago.
The ministry is about 32 years old today. So he encountered the wife almost the same time he began the ministry. For about 31 years, they lived together as husband and wife while the ministry was about 32 years old. It goes without saying that the wife is closest and privy to nurturing the vision of that ministry. He shared the vision with the woman when he had nothing but the woman accepted all during that humble beginning.
There was no journey in the ministry that TB Joshua undertook both in Nigeria and abroad without taking the wife along. It’s on record. It is obvious that the first person that bought into the vision of building Synagogue Church of All Nations is Evelyn. Prophet Joshua had a way of induction too. He has three daughters, to the glory of God. When they were in secondary school, he made them be involved in church activities.
After graduating from secondary school, he got the children to be part of the field workers. He traveled with them, the wife inclusive, to some of the programmes he held in the country and outside the shores of Nigeria.
Sera, the first daughter, served as one of the disciples before she went to university; when she finished from university and before she went to Harvard for her postgraduate degrees; she served three years as a Disciple, doing all that the Disciples and Prophets are doing.
So also Promise did; because it is a condition for their training. That is how disciplined the man of God was. Before they went to Harvard, they had to serve in the SCOAN’s system as Disciples.
Before their master’s degree, they compulsorily served inside and knew everything they needed to know. There are videos of his family members serving like any other person. So from the beginning, he has involved them.
How much do you know about Evelyn and her ministerial gift?
Pastor Evelyn is gifted with the power of dreams. There are so many dreams and revelations done by the woman which she gave to her husband. Many of such revelations and dreams came to pass.
But that is an internal synergy between husband and wife. Prophet TB Joshua made that known to us and personally told us that his wife has been a pillar behind this vision. Let me put it on record that Prophet T B Joshua is my brother. He doesn’t take nonsense. He is very humble, but his humility thrives only when you don’t mess up.
So if a woman could live with him for 31 years and we the family members have not come to settle any quarrel you can then imagine the level of the humility of that woman. We are from the same kindred in Arigidi Akoko. We are not distant brothers; we are close brothers.
We are both in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we share a lot in common. When I was being ordained Bishop in 2007, he played the most important role. All his gadgets, ministry resources were made available for the success of my ordination. I remain very grateful to him for that.
Why then does a faction of the church feel that Evelyn Joshua isn’t gifted enough to run the affairs of the SCOAN?
If you watch many of the videos on Emmanuel TV, you will see her preaching to the congregation. Many times, Prophet T. B. Joshua will come on Sunday and hand over the microphone to his wife to preach.
She preaches and who are they to gauge or question the level of the Holy Spirit in any individual? The Holy Spirit manifests His power in any person that is willing and committed. Those people are just behaving like shareholders; they are not behaving like Disciples or workers of T B Joshua.
Unfortunately, immediately after the Prophet died, they took advantage of the fact that his wife and children were mourning and seized the system.
They began to loot and search his private room, his private prayer room, the sanctuary and the prayer mountain. They carted away money, all kinds of documents, falsified documents, and transferred things away. All of this is now known and it’s unbelievable.
Would say that these are the group that is described as a faction that is opposed to Evelyn taking over the reign after her husband?
There is no faction issue in the SCOAN. Rather they are hired hands who T. B. Joshua raised as Disciples, Prophets, Evangelists and so on. They are just being rebellious here. It is rebellion, it is disobedience. What kind of faction is that? T. B. Joshua is the founder and the father of the ministry. If rebellious servants and workers now constitute themselves to an unnecessary authority that should not be, it is wrong.
The Bible says that Jesus is the Head of the Church just like the husband is the head of the wife. The Bible refers to Jesus as the husband and
church is the wife. With the pronouncement as husband and wife, they are no longer two but one.
So if we have Prophet T.B. Joshua who was married to his wife for 31 years and they are one then when you see Mrs. T B Joshua you also Prophet T B Joshua. Who can be so familiar to him more than the wife and his children? While the grace to serve in the field is given to any of his aides, it does not remove the fact that the demised prophet is closest to his family.
And the secret of the ministry is with the family unless someone wants to deceive himself and say I am closer to T. B. Joshua than his wife and daughters. That is a lie. I am a fonder, Bishop, and a Prophet too. My wife and our children are the closest people to me. Many times my wife and I share the vision of the ministry in bed and discuss it. Many ideas come from my wife but when I stand at the altar and implement the ideas everybody thinks they are all from me because I am the father figure of the ministry.
She shares her ideas with me and I present them and that’s how it gets on between husband and wife. That doesn’t mean that we are two, we are one and that’s why we don’t contradict each other. The fact that a woman submits in honor of her husband does not mean that she is deaf and dumb. That is called submission; that is what the Bible teaches, and that is how it should be. It is awful for the errant disciple to say Mrs. Evelyn Joshua is not gifted enough to carry on from where her late husband stopped.
Who are they to measure the gift of the Holy Spirit in another person? Philippians 1:1 says ‘Not by man, never by man but by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit.’ They are just being abusive.
They are mocking Mrs. Joshua, but even their mockery can make God multiply His anointing on the woman of God because when you mock someone God gets angry and can make the person you are mocking greater than you. The Bible says God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
I was on the burial committee. Rather than submit the plans to Mrs. Joshua, the disciples shrouded everything with secrecy and sidetracked her in every way. That’s not how to treat their employer’s wife and children who are mourning their husband and father. If not for some of us that came and began to open their eyes that it’s not how to relate; it is not done.
They have to behave themselves and know that things have changed.
The right thing for these Disciples to do is simply submit to the new leadership. There are many elders and influential people in the church leadership hierarchy that these Disciples do not also respect.
For instance, there are too many senior members of the church who have been there from the inception of the SCOAN, like former Director-General of Road Safety Commission, Dr. Olu Agunloye.
These disobedient Disciples neither cared about them nor did they bother to refer to them. Yet the socalled Disciples, Prophets and young ladies in the service of the ministry are people of Prophet T. B. Joshua graciously carried along.
They now portray themselves as if they have the whole anointing; a power and no other person should raise his or her head up. And they were looting. Money was found in their bank accounts, they should deny it. The case is already with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Could you be more explicit Sir?
What happened was that Evelyn was in the church mourning her husband and she should be mourning. You know the tradition. If a woman loses her husband, she puts on mourning clothing, stays in seclusion; restricts herself that even if visitors come she can’t escort the visitors.
So she was restricted to the church but these disciples were free to move around. They relocated to the mountain even though the mountain is not meant for anyone to live in. It is rather a place of prayers. They moved to the prayer mountain and started to have caucus meetings against Evelyn and the family.
The Disciples, Prophets, and Evangelists began to do things, collecting money, spending money, doing a sort of stuff, and never reporting back. Even when Mrs. Evelyn called for their attention and they never showed up. The woman felt okay that they were doing everything in honour of their boss, no problem and just faced mourning her husband.
She didn’t take it seriously until reports started coming out and monies including hard currencies started flying from bank accounts. It was unexpected that they would ever behave in such an ungrateful manner. It is not believable. But the truth is they never respected the institution of marriage because none of them is married, and none of them is less than 50.
The oldest among them is 58 years old. Racine, a Senegalese is not married, Christopher Thonge is not married. Joseph is not married even Emmanuel is not married. So they do not understand the institution of marriage; that is why they do not respect the home of the spiritual father, his wife, and children.
The eldest daughter of Prophet T. B. Joshua is happily married. T. B. was married to his wife for 31 years and he never stopped anyone from getting married. That says it all.
How do the Arigidi kinsmen of Prophet T.B Joshua feel about the treatment the disciples are giving to daughter-in-law and her children?
We are very disappointed. My traditional ruler, the Zaki of Arigidi, Oba Yunisa Olanipekun, is so disappointed. He called me and asked me what we the men in the collars were doing about it. He told me that they are feeling so bad about the whole thing, that it is a big insult to the traditional rulers and Joshua’s kinsmen.
All the traditional rulers in Akoko respect Prophet T.B. Joshua very much even the Ondo State government. So we are so disappointed because Evelyn has always been an obedient and submissive wife to our late brother.
We don’t have any reason to challenge her leadership or authority. You know we would have been the people to back the opposition against leadership of the woman had she been recalcitrant.
She has never shown any interest in wealth all her life. She is so modest, she is never flamboyant, she is not extravagant and she has never been found wanting in any way.
And her late husband also never for once reported her of any wrongdoing, to any of us his brothers. Even throughout the burial period, she was very humble and submissive, so what else.
Mrs. Evelyn has been accused of forcefully taking over leadership of the SCOAN against the will of other church leaders. What is your take on that?
Let me say categorically that what Evelyn did recently can best be described as a rescue mission. If she hadn’t, that ministry could have sunk by now. The so-called Disciples and T.B. Joshua’s aides have a terrible agenda to snatch the ministry from the late founder and to take over everything.
There is a family (the Thonge family) that is said to be very influential in the SCOAN and having a lot to do with foreign partners of the SCOAN. What is their position in this whole crisis?
Garry Thonge is from the UK and the head of the Tonge family. He was one of the officiating ministers during Prophet Joshua’s burial. His son is Chris Tonge, the young man that preached during the burial.
They have been so ambitious. The mind of Garry Thonge is that his son, Chris Thonge, should take over the ministry and divert the partners’ funds and the institution’s assets. I think that is why they have created another international account for them to divert the international followers to themselves.
That has been an issue between the Thonge family and Wiseman Racine, the eldest of Prophet Joshua’s disciples
So why do you think Racine has joined forces with them against Evelyn Joshua?
It is so because Racine himself has an ambition to succeed Prophet Joshua. Racine has been the one at the vanguard of putting T. B. Joshua’s private Jet up for sale. But he was not honest and open to the family.
The receipt of the private jet bears the name of Prophet T. B. Joshua and it was bought with the support of SCOAN’s partners, to help the ministry of the demised prophet.
When we talk about the partners, who are they?
The partners are many individuals across the world that support Prophet Joshua’s ministry. One cannot even say that they are concentrated in one part of the world. They are just different individuals and organisations all over the world that support the humanitarian services of Prophet Joshua’s ministry.
They felt that he should have a private jet to enhance his ministry globally and supported him with their contributions. You know Joshua was not flamboyant. He didn’t have time for the extravagance. He didn’t use the biggest car.
He didn’t live in the biggest house nor stayed in the biggest hotels. He was a very humble man of God.
Would you describe the cliques that are jostling for the leadership of the SCOAN as partners, shareholders, or workers?
They are just servants, workers. They are not shareholders and not partners. They work at the SCOAN, they live there and they are paid. They came in with different kinds of afflictions, some of them were sick, some were rejected and some were fighting drunkenness and drug issues. After they were delivered and T. B. Joshua assisted them to live a new life, they submitted themselves to work in the ministry for which they earn a living. From being workers, Joshua upgraded them to the level they are now.
They are not partners but people who came to Joshua because they were in need. And they were delivered of their afflictions; he assisted them and graciously allowed them to become his followers.
He raised them, trusted them with his telephone contacts, gave them free hands to handle sensitive positions. Because of language specialisation, these servants were given charge to handle translations and interpretation during international programs of the church.
You can imagine that after Prophet Joshua’s burial a call for an audit of the church’s finances was made and the disciples refused. They don’t want accountability
In your opinion, who do you think Evelyn is better placed to carry on the legacies of T B Joshua?
It is simple. His wife, of course, knows everything from beginning till the end. It is nothing new.
Evelyn has been so engrafted in her husband’s anointing. TB Joshua touched people and the anointing performed miracles, but Evelyn slept with T B Joshua for 31 years, between the people he touched and the wife who shared his bed with for 31 years who carries a larger portion of Joshua’s anointing?
Evelyn had access to his clothes, shoes, coats; his underwear, towel, everything was with the woman and he was in the same bed with Evelyn every day for 31 years. So what are we talking about here?
Mrs. Margaret Idahosa succeeded her husband Archbishop Benson Idahosa and there is no regret about her succession till date.
There is nothing new about it and I can assure you that Evelyn will do better; watch out in the next few years and see that the church will become greater than it is now.
Why do you believe that?
I believe so because I was privy to some crucial decisions that Evelyn made during the challenging times. She chose the burial place, time, and type of coffin that was used. They all were adjudged the best.
She was the one who said that TB Joshua must be buried in a transparent coffin so that the world would see that his parts were intact and know that he was not a cultist. It is all the wisdom of the woman.
Evelyn knows what she is going into; that it is of God and she will not compromise. And no one can steal what belongs to her.
Everything TB Joshua has belongs to the wife. The so-called disciples are the ones who want to loot and take everything they can take before people wake up.
Source: New telegraph
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