Ajoke, the late Temitope Balogun Joshua’s daughter, claims that when she was only seven years old, her father was the one who physically abused her.
Founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, was the late pastor. He went by the nickname “TB Joshua.”
On June 5, 2021, TB Joshua passed away. He was 57 years old.
The preacher, whose church is located in the Ikotun neighborhood of Lagos, was a well-known and controversial figure.
Because of his techniques and healings, he was involved in a number of controversies prior to his passing.
The BBC Africa Eye released a documentary consisting of three episodes on Monday. The documentary features testimonies from the deceased cleric’s former church members.
Some of the former churchgoers, referred to as TB Joshua’s disciples, described in the documentary how the cleric allegedly coerced, raped, tortured, and forced them to have abortions.
The documentary also included a feature on Ajoke.
The BBC reports that not much is known about Ajoke’s birth mother, who was presumably a member of TB Joshua’s congregation.
The widow of Joshua, Evelyn, raised Ajoke.
She told the BBC that she traveled to Dubai for vacations with Joshua’s family and had a very happy upbringing.
The cable reports that, She was described as the cleric’s “illegitimate” child in an article written by a local journalist after she was suspended from school for a misdemeanor. This was when things started to change for her.
She said she was pulled out of school and taken to the church in Lagos at age seven.
HER EXPERIENCE AT THE CHURCH
Ajoke told the BBC that she was taken to the disciples’ room in the church and forced to be part of the group.
In the documentary, the cleric’s daughter said her father brainwashed the disciples to the point that nobody could question his actions and instructions.
“The disciples were both brainwashed and enablers. Everybody was just acting based on command — like zombies. Nobody was questioning anything,” she said
My father was afraid, always afraid. He was terrified that someone would raise an objection.
READ ALSO: BBC investigation reveals allegations of abuse and torture against late TB Joshua
Because “my existence as a child from another mother undermined everything he claimed to stand for,” Ajoke described how she was abused by her father on a regular basis while they were in the church.
When she was seven years old, she was beaten for wetting the bed, and she was made to walk around the compound wearing a sign around her neck that said, “I am a bedwetter.”
Ajoke was chastised by the cleric for sleeping too long, according to Rae, a former disciple of TB Joshua. Another disciple then led Ajoke to the shower where she was “whipped with an electrical cord and then turned the hot water on.”
When Ajoke was seventeen, she confronted her father in his office over his alleged sexual abuse of the church’s disciples.
“This was more than I could handle. That same day, I walked right into his office. I yelled, “Why are you doing this?” at the top of my lungs. What is the purpose of injuring so many women? She enquired.
I no longer felt the slightest bit afraid of this man. He attempted to intimidate me with his stare, but I could not look away.
She claimed that the cleric had attacked her after she had challenged her father, and that he had then started hitting her.
She was taken to the office after the attack and placed in a room apart from the church, where she spent several years living.
She was taken by security guards to the church’s front gates at the age of 19, where she was left. She was informed by the guards that she would never be permitted inside the church.
She later lost her house and had to rely on the streets for survival.
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