Connect with us

Opinion

SCOAN And Misadventure Of Ungrateful Disciples

Published

on

SCOAN Holds First Thanksgiving Church Service On Sunday

By

Dare Adejumo

Without setting the cat among the pigeons, the shameful story of crisis rocking the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) cushioned by some disciples is a pathetic paradox.

A painful irony, the incubus of wickedness orchestrated by ingrates, having been thoroughly well fed decided to bite the fingers that fed them.

Here are predominantly people ‘of nobody’ status coming from battered and plummeted backgrounds in the dregs of life, either picked up in different locations in the world during TB Joshua’s foreign tours and evangelism or brought to the man of God by their wards upon whom they had lost hope and which TB Joshua in love painstakingly and indefatigably remolded and given unimaginable befitting life only to turn 360 degree overnight with the passing of their mentor to fight the family he left behind and also scheming and running helter skelter to legalize their illegality as heirs apparent to the assets and ministries of the very man, their benefactor, to whom by God’s grace they owe the joy of living as true human beings.

There’s no point mincing words.It’s not that they don’t know their mentor was happily married to his only virtuous wife, Evangelist Mrs Evelyn Joshua with grown up well-educated children with whom most of them grew together under the same atmosphere of sound spiritual development as co-desciples but the temptations of their inordinate ambitions and desires beclouded their right senses of judgement!

The admonition of Emeka Anslem, a great man of insight readily speaks here: ‘before you help a person with money, be sure the person is mature enough to deal with greed”. They simply don’t want to face the reality of change. This is their first tragedy. They failed to realize that CHANGE cannot be avoided in life; it is the only thing in nature that’s permanent. As a matter of fact, true progress lies in mobility, in change! They are also scared of losing the absolute freedom and new authority they have been enjoying as lords of the manor without any higher conttoller since Papa’s passing from which they have been living large as queens and kings!

Here’s Mrs Evelyn TB Joshua, a woman that’s brighter, humble, loving, superlatively tolerant and accommodating and significantly more spiritually endowed than most of them, yet they don’t want to see her and her children in the church in which she grew with her husband from the beginning, before some of them were born or even introduced to the church. To them she had suddenly become an obstacle to their possessive agenda. It’s really inconceivable!

Their position is: ” We will take good care of her and children and provide money for their needs but let her leave us with the church to run the way we were doing with the man of God”.

READ ALSO: 18 Foreign Leaders of Synagogue Dissociate Themselves From Suit Against Evelyn Joshua

But where is the man of God who used to keep vigil over them, not trusting them to be left alone in church operations?

Does this their position really make sense? Did they ever remember their individual insufficiency to undertake anything without the man of God’s initiatives and thorough supervisions?

Did some of them remember how many times some of them had received holy slaps or been sent parking from the church for various misdemeanors including pilfering and outright financial impropriety in millions of naira on charity assignments and contract deals including the one leading the infantile and misplaced law suit against the church today? Did they think church members were not aware or probably don’t know them? They are living in the grandeur of illusion and delusion. TB Joshua was a man who no matter your offence would always forgive. Were it not so, most of them would not remain as his aides or degenerate into the present absurdity of a stagnant stinking lake putting the environment in danger, with them still moving about in pretentious faces under the large heartedness of a great man of God.

The question troubling many members across the world is: Could the man of God have cast his pearls before the swine despite his various warnings on trust and betrayals? Pigs, no matter how much you cater for them, once the slightest opportunity comes with you out of sight they will find themselves back in the mire. Right from the word go with Papa’s passing, they have put laws into their hands whereas till the time of Papa’s passing they were still spiritual apprentices. That was why they were still there. Those who believed they had sufficiently been spiritually groomed and were confident of their titulage under TB Joshua had moved ahead to start their own ministries. Some of them are now successful.

Who could ever believe that the same crop of disciples would prevent such former disciples now comfortable in their respective domains from coming to partake or enter the church during the passing ceremonies of the great man even when these desciples knew that Papa was in good relationship with these their former colleagues?

“They are simply over- ambitious”, said Isaac Madingati, member of SCOAN and a world body organization officer from far away Malawi. What could have necessitated them to form a Governing Council for the church with them holding all positions? What could have made them print a new church profile for the church in which they deliberately removed Evelyn TB Joshua and her children from the discipleship as against Papa’s printed ROADMAP in which his wife and children were conspicuously displayed together with them?

They surely have a hidden agenda and it’s not holy!This set of disciples refused all pushes and intimation from the man of God while he was alive for them to go in order for some fresh and younger ones to grow. Three years ago they all signed an undertaking that SCOAN is not their inheritance! Yet they know all this. Now the cat is out of the bag,

READ ALSO: Evelyn TB Joshua Opens Up On Resumption Of Service At Synagogue

Today they littered uninformed media with unpleasant stories some are ten percent true, some are outright falsehood while most of the stories begged the question and completely misleading to the public who are not in the know at all about SCOAN’s internal affairs. They even lied against the Federal Government of Nigeria that it deported 17 foreigners at the behest of Evelyn Joshua. Can you imagine who could have asked God for repentance and retrace their Judasic steps only to be sinking deeper in the abyss?

Anything about SCOAN necessarily magnetizes public attention. SCOAN is a unique church. It has made an uncommon global impact not only in the fundamental teachings of Christianity that are in abeyance in many quarters today but also in the practical demonstration of Christ’s unconditional love to all and sundry beyond human imagination. TB Joshua remains till date the only pastor doing crusades in different countries abroad without collecting offerings. Rather he would go there with unfathomable large-heartedness and towering charity for the foreign communities. Most other pastors would go abroad for the purpose of getting foreign offerings in dollars or pounds from which many derive their wealth. That was never the way of TB Joshua, the man in the Synagogue!

It’s therefore not surprising to see the globally overwhelming ascription of extraordinary spiritual power to the late Prophet TB Joshua.

They also quickly forgot one of the admonitions of the man of God: don’t be carried away by your situation. They fell woefully to the temptations of their own inordinate ambitions and desires.

A prominent partner and member of the Church from Cape Verde who doesn’t want his name in print simply because the church leadership has not directed him to speak said: “Leave them and let them continue, we are watching them. It’s a pity that they are living in self-delusion. We all know them and their various atrocities when the man of God was alive. They drove many foreigners away. Even me I suffered at their hands. It’s God that still makes me belong to SCOAN. We are waiting for them. We foreigners know them very well; they are not better than demons. They are facing God’s judgment. It’s only God that could have made this possible”.

He said further: “They were obviously carried away by the superfluous influence and power they were wielding and luxurious life they were enjoying under the late Prophet and the reality of change in the church leadership will be too uncomfortable for them to face”.

What then could have suddenly led to their discomfort? These are the people excercising tremendous powers. Church members don’t even like them because so many people don’t come to church because of them. They are opposite of TB Joshua. The fear of them is the beginning of admission into the church. Once they are against you for no tangible reason they use the workers to withdraw your card and they wouldn’t allow you to have access to baba since they are the ones you will still have to go through. What could have made them to be that influential and powerful?

They are the only ones with direct access to baba and through whom the man of God carried out his church and charity activities within and outside Nigeria including contracts. Some of them had been to 36 countries and were lavishly catered for by the man of God. Even this year before the passing of man of God, some of them in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic have been to four countries. You can imagine such people with their backgrounds even with some without O’Level certificate suddenly in maximum comfort and authority, they are bound to abuse their privileges.

The need to reorganize the church has become not negotiable. The shoes of TB Joshua were too big for anybody to wear. There’s a need to audit the church. There’s a need to ensure proper structures with transparency and accountability for the people to handle different aspects of the ministry.

This is an offence to them! They only want to account to themselves! No wonder about their sudden metamorphosis. They abandoned their church hostel and completely relocated to the Prayer Mountains as their own residence and new seat of government. All workers were brainwashed to look only on to them for instructions. Papa’s personal servers were converted to their own.

They formed a Governing Council for the church without informing Joshua’s family or any member of the church for that matter. Their nonchalant attitudes coupled with existing bad records provoked church members to use law enforcement agents to make them move back to their official quarters in the church. They were told to go on compulsory leave for one month for the comprehensive audit job to be completed before the church services begin. They were not ready to comply initially until reality dawned on them.

Today they are in their different homes and countries. Nobody was manhandled. It was all done amicably.
You can imagine what it means for some of them to face EFCC to explain the source of their humongous wealth within three months of Papa’s passing.

Eighteen of the disciples mostly foreigners have tendered apologies and dissociated themselves from the law suit instituted against the church by Joseph’s ragtag version of the disciples which comprises him and eights other girls.

The true church members across the world are rejoicing and eager for the reopening of the church and outpourings of congratulatory messages have been coming from Nigeria, the USA, Cameroon, Paraguay, Spain, Bahamas, Ecuador and many others as could be seen on Emmanuel TV.

In the words of Francis Bacon, for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Madingati concluded by saying that “One thing is sure, God will never forsake His own. SCOAN will come out better and stronger.”

 

Read more authentic news on our social media platforms

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Opinion

Fear Of Witchcraft And Politics In Zambia

Published

on

Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State
Dr Leo Igwe

By Leo Igwe

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is concerned over the reported arrest of two men accused of being ‘witchdoctors’ in Zambia. The arrest underscores the potency of witchcraft fears and the connection between occult anxieties and the country’s politics. These individuals were accused of trying to bewitch the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema. The police claimed that they had charms. They planned to use the charms to harm the president. The report says the two persons have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. The Act criminalizes “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft”, and “cruelty to wild animals”. The police found the two with assorted charms, including a live chameleon.

This development is utterly embarrassing and shows that the Zambian government is slowly losing its focus and bearing.The country has many socio-economic challenges. Suspicion of bewitchment or possession of charms should be the least of its worries at this time. There should be no place for witchcraft and possession of charms in modern politics because there is no evidence for these beliefs and practices. Zambian authorities should not weaponize the Witchcraft Act or use it to justify this incident. Zambian law does not recognize witchcraft. Zambia’s Witchcraft Act criminalizes naming or imputing witchcraft. It prohibits accusing or threatening to accuse any person of being a witch or a wizard. In this case, it is the police who are breaking the law.

Otherwise, how did they know the two individuals were ‘witchdoctors’? Did these persons identify as witch doctors? If not, the police are liable because they named and imputed witchcraft and have to prove that these individuals have witch-doctoring powers. The police claimed to have charged these individuals for possessing “assorted charms”, including a chameleon. Really?

The police in Zambia have questions to answer: What are charms? How did they know that what was in their possession were charms, not pets? Is a chameleon a form of charm? What makes possession of a chameleon possession of a charm? When and how does a chameleon become a charm? The police need to answer these questions and more before one takes them seriously.

Again, did the individuals describe what was in possession as ‘charms’? If they did, does confessing or designating something as a charm make it a charm? And if they did not, the police are liable because they need to prove how those possessions translated into charms.

In addition, the police claimed that the duo wanted to bewitch the president. What does that mean? How did they know? Are the police not contravening a provision under the Witchcraft Act by professing knowledge of witchcraft? Can one harm another person using a chameleon? They claimed that the two persons wanted to use the charms in their possession, including the chameleon to harm the president. How did they know that? What is the evidence for that?

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches calls for an end to this state-sponsored witch hunt. There is no evidence of harm through witchcraft or charms. The Zambian government should desist from witchcraft- related infractions and violations including arbitrary arrest, and detention of innocent citizens. These allegations are baseless and absurd. The arrest was politically motivated. This development demonstrates that Zambian authorities are out of sync with their duty and obligation to uphold the rule of law and protect accused persons.

Zambian authorities need to act in compliance with the 2021 UN resolution, which urged states to take measures to combat abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks. End witchcraft allegations in Zambia. End witch hunts in Africa now!

Dr Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.

Continue Reading

Opinion

Burning Issues: (FCT Minister And Paulosa) (2)

Published

on

Readers’ Showers Of Encouragement
Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

The other burning issue, apart from Farotimi and Babalola’s, which I wish to take a look at – and which I am taking a look at now – relates to what is happening in our capital territory. What is this burning issue – which our human rightists and civil society organisations and personages are surprisingly and un-satisfactorily not inclined to focus attention on and examine as they should? I may be wrong, but it surely seems to me that this issue, this burning issue, which is of more importance than Farotimi and Babalola’s – which has been given undue adulation – is deliberately being neglected and depreciated by proclaimers and heroes and heroines of human rights, justice, equity and equality of rights in your country my country our country. Why, why, why and why, why, why? Anyone who has any iota of patriotic sensibility, feeling and judgment well watered and buttressed by a very great influence upon his or her critical judgment will keep on asking the question I am asking.

Mr. Nyesom Wike, as almost everybody who can read and write a little knows, is the current minister of your, my and our Federal Capital Territory. His post or office is akin to that of a governor of a state. As the immediate past governor of Rivers State who was drafted, after his two terms there expired, to continue in the FCT as its new minister-governor or governor-minister under the auspices of a party he is not a true member of, Mr. Wike cannot but be seen as a lucky man. He is in every possible and impossible way. Minister-Governor Wike is a lucky man and a very fortunate one indeed. No former governor of Rivers State (or of any Nigerian state), as far as I know, has achieved what the famed political rouser of rabbles has achieved in one short gubernatorial life-time, and at a relatively young and fertile age. His dual achievement with and in two different political parties at this delicate point of Nigerian politics indicates to our politicians and us all that there is always time for a reminder that there are ready-made high rewards for arch-angels of betrayals. And Mr. Wike may go down in Rivers and Nigerian history as both an arch-angel and an emperor of betrayal of us all if we attempt to indicate what I have defined here as his dual achievement.

We can roughly divide, briefly, Wike’s political development into two periods. During the first, excluding his lower political positions before he became the governor of Rivers State, he quickly adapted his style to that of an emperor who became a rabble-rouser of rabble-rousers whose gubernatorial efficiency moved from stiffness to stiffness. He did not at any time feel that he needed suppleness to govern Rivers State. “Let the heavens fall if they must fall!” We are not there yet in this attempted analysis of the stiff-hearted and stiff-minded one. True? But he is already demonstrating this characteristic in Abuja. False? Judge and give the answer yourself.

Even after he left Rivers State a short while ago as governor, he is still trying to control happenings there to the political discomfiture of his hand-picked successor, his erstwhile “boy” and “son” – with whom he has fallen out. As the minister-governor or governor-minister of the FCT, Wike is occupied with the other taste of the emperor-juggernaut formulator – doing the work of two key political masters in one room and desk of political jugglery. Since his appearance in the FCT, minister-governor or governor-minister Wike has allegedly attempted to recover or transform for Abuja what is not traditionally or socially Abuja’s, for example, the city’s social idiom and landscape and terrain as well as its environs. In doing this he sometimes over-steps his bounds and mark of human/inhuman decency/indecency and psychological understanding of human nature, if you follow well what I am saying; he has so far become at best not really better than a typical pedestrian Nigerian lawyer and officer of political power: in his explorations so far in the Federal Capital Territory we have come to the realization, as T. S. Eliot would say, that “it is so often true that only by going too far can we find out how far we can go.” But one has to be a very negatively obstinate and self-serving emperor and a thorough-bred arch-angel of betrayal of the people and masses to justify such perilous and perfidious expeditions and adventures.

Last week, I saw on Arise Television “The Morning Show” Chief Rita Lori-Ogbebor, the dutiful widow of the late Nigerian supreme patriot and soldier, Colonel Ogbebor (of Benin stock) battling, so to say, to wrest the legacy of her late husband from the tight grip of the adventurous FCT minister-governor who has registered his name and signature in the hearts and consciousness of the people as the depriver of their possessions. The three anchors of “The Morning Show” were in their respective ways splendid in their structures of remarks and questions to Chief (Mrs.) Rita Lori-Ogbebor whom I have had occasions in times past to call patriotically Rita A-K 47 on account of her natural right to fire her beautiful tongue at any person, usually an enemy, of just actions. When she made the case she made to protect the estate of Paulosa Nigeria Limited, her late husband’s aforesaid legacy in the FCT, she was in her natural territory, habitat and element where even at age eighty-four, she never ever loses her stability – although she unusually restrained herself in the Arise Television appearance. Dr. Reuben Abati, Rufai Oseni, and Ayo Mairo-Ese clearly explored seriously but delightfully the mind of the mother-hen of Warri – my other coinage and appellation I gave her in my poetry. Her “The Morning Show” appearance enabled me to see the poignant cry de profundis of the FCT inhabitants whose property and residences in different guises have been demolished. She did not say anything that was out of joint. She spoke and came out as a mother, protector and symbol of the people who have suffered – and are suffering – from the state of affliction and anguish Wike’s demolitions have placed – and are placing – the people.

Ojy Okpe in her delicious and delectable “What is Trending” slot on the same show, showed without exaggeration but with further elaboration what people in and outside Abuja/FCT think of the mighty Wike’s demolitions, a burning issue that the Senate has asked “Let Heaven Fall” minister-governor Wike to halt as the committee the Senate set up on the issue starts its work. Of course, we cannot but assume that Chief Rita Lori-Ogbebor, Mrs. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as well as Mrs. Ireti Kingigbe, the senator representing the FCT in the Senate and other patriotic senators diligently did what they did on the floor of the Senate when the burning issue was tabled for debate with the gracious understanding and authorization of the Senate President.

I need to state further that the “The Morning Show” anchors did well and extremely so by giving the minister-governor the opportunity to air his anti-Paulosa story. His senior special assistant on public communication and social media, Mr. Olalere Olayinka, stood in for him. After he gave the reasons for the clamp-down, his responses to the questions the anchors put to him followed the usual pattern of denials by artificial men in power – denials that they always use to intimidate and betray the people. In fact, Mr. Olayinka’s ploy to ride easily over our dear Rufai Oseni, a wholesome representative of the deprived, that the chap (or is it guy?) and his boss always employ their colloquial speeches and remarks to dishonor, failed. Yes, the ploy failed woefully. In stanza after stanza of the exchanges between Mr. Olayinka and the Arise anchors, he deteriorated – and his deterioration was hall-marked when he unwittingly revealed that the Paulosa land had been acquired by his minister-governor’s close cohort, an act that was nothing short of gross abuse of power and authority.

Because the Senate is already using its authority, power and privilege to resolve the burning issue, hopefully, in a way that the late Colonel Ogbebor’s legacy and family will not be subjected to any kind of degradation, I will utter no more words for now. I trust, however, that the liberties the Senate is taking – or has taken – are for the sake of order to favour the down-trodden.

As for the minister-governor, the PDP emperor at large, here is an immortal quote from Marcus Aurelius, the magnificent and authentic Roman Emperor and philosopher (A.D. 121-180): “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” You lose nothing by giving us a slice of your humanity by your right acts and correct words. Everything changes and passes. Be humane as a human being.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

Continue Reading

Opinion

Questionstorm As A Method Of Teaching

Published

on

Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State

By Leo Igwe

Recently, I facilitated a critical thinking workshop at the Bay Wreath Schools in Lagos. The theme was critical thinking and teacher development. As the theme stated, the workshop was on teaching, about teaching, and for teachers. It highlighted the pedagogical value of critical and reflective inquiry. The workshop exposed teachers to critical mental habits and skills. It emphasized how critical thinking would enhance expertise in the learning and delivery of subjects in classrooms.

I used the opportunity to discuss questionstorm as a method of teaching and learning. Questionstorm is a way that I operationalized critical thinking for primary and elementary schools. Questionstorm is the ability to interrogate all objects and materials. It is a habit of questioning ideas and experiences in all areas of human endeavor. Simply put, questionstorm is a question-driven inquiry. Children are naturally curious. They thirst for knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately, the school system kills children’s curiosity and dampens their interrogative appetite. The school system places much emphasis on rote learning and memorization. It makes the generation of answers not questions or problems the test of knowledge, and the determinant of intelligence. Teaching is largely a drudgery, a monotonous exercise, and a process of depositing knowledge on passive recipients, the students. Teaching entails dumping information on learners whose duty is to cram and reproduce during tests or examinations.

This teaching praxis has been criticized and blamed for the poor performance of students post-school (college and university) and their inability to think independently, creatively, and innovatively. Other teaching methods have tried to address these gaps and limitations. There have been suggestions to make teaching and instruction more active, and more student/learner/child-centered. One such method is the Montessori method. The Montessori method discourages grades and tests as ways of measuring achievement or determining intelligence and excellence. It emphasizes hands-on learning and the development of real-world skills. While the Montessori method stresses the practical approach to learning it says very little about the authoritarian teacher-to-student approach that is the mainstay of teaching and learning in classrooms. Teaching follows a pattern that leaves students and learners in the margins and unable to question and contribute to the learning process. Teachers present what is to be learned such as a text, and then generate questions that students respond or address to demonstrate knowledge of what has been taught. The student’s or learner’s main job is to answer questions, to look for or find answers or solutions. The teacher’s work is to get students to look for, and provide answers, and reproduce what they have been taught or told. But students are answer-depots. Students are not memory banks or reserves. They are active minds and thinking agents.

With questionstorm as a teaching method, the mode of instruction would change. Teaching becomes a cooperative endeavor that actively involves teachers and students. What is taught in the classroom is a collaborative note, not the teacher’s note, not a handout to students. Teachers present or generate texts or objects for learning, in response to intense questioning of the object or material by students, teachers provide information as required for that subject, topic, level, and time frame. No two instances of teaching – of the same topic or subject- are or should be the same because the input of students and teachers is not predetermined.
This is because of an overlooked principle in teaching and learning, that I call the “uncertainty principle”.

The uncertainty principle underlies questionstorm because knowledge is not fixed. Learning is a fluid process. All that is to be learned is uncertain, it is unknown and never determined. No teacher can say beforehand what is to be taught or learned because no one knows exactly the questions and answers or replies that would arise when a topic is presented or taught in a particular class. A topic or learning material elicits unique responses and exchanges that both teachers and students cannot exactly know or predict a priori, before the fact.

Teaching is a shared task and responsibility. Class notes are fluid materials. They are not texts cast on educational stones and delivered by teachers to students to copy, cut, and paste as is often the case. Class notes are not written or produced by teachers for students but by teachers with students. Teachers’ notes are incomplete and insufficient. They account only for a part, not a whole of the learning process and material. Students’ input completes and complements the teaching material and learning process. Thus every class note is unique because it is a product of a specific collaborative endeavor, a product of particular teaching and learning agents and circumstances that cannot be repeated or replicated.

Thus, as a teaching method, questionstorm is set to facilitate teacher development and improve the quality of instruction in schools. Questionstorm will help realize a paradigm shift in education and learning. I hope educators, teachers, and school managers will embrace this method of teaching and learning.

Dr  Igwe directs the Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation.

 

Inline image

Continue Reading

Top Stories