Synagogue Church: My 20 Years Relationship With Prophet TB Joshua And Politics Of Tourism In Nigeria

By August 2020, it was exactly 20 years that I have been covering the Synagogue Church of All Nations [SCOAN]. I recollect vividly that it was Wednesday, 20th of September 2000 that I first visited the church as a reporter and by the following Sunday 24th of the same month, I attended a full service.

Later on, I became a friend of the church and Prophet Joshua. We discussed tourism in Nigeria and most especially the contribution that the church is making and by extension putting the name of Lagos and Nigeria on the world’s tourism map as an emerging religious tourism destination.

The rare, but occasional personal relationship with TB Joshua grew by the month, year, and decade. He’s a generous man and does often extend his generosity to me; giving money for fuel, most times well above what I would need to fill my car tank.

However, my relationship with him was no doubt a symbiotic one and I am a true friend and was prepared to pay any price just to obtain very scarce information about visitors’ profiles; of where they come from and how long they stay for my newspaper then.

In fact, sometimes when I visit, I often see some of his high-profile visitors. It was in the era when high profile Nigerians will go there and deny ever visiting the church, much more soliciting for his spiritual help and I can mention names.

As a travel and tourism journalist, I have no doubt that I was building myself as an authority in religious tourism, and for the past 20 years, I became TB Joshua’s apostle. Everywhere I go in the name of tourism, Synagogue Church is always the product. In America, the UK, Germany, Spain, and across Africa, I travel with the church brochures that I distribute.

From being an apostle, I became the church un-appointed ambassador, that should anyone need tourism information about the church, they would always reach out to me of which I have been able to avail such person with the necessary information in my custody.

That was the case from my days in BusinessDAY to BusinessWorld Newspapers respectively.   The freedom to do much more came in August 2011, when I started my travel and tourism monthly publication, African Travel Times Magazine. Through my publication, I was able to write and dedicate space as much as I can to Synagogue’s stories.

In fact, there was no edition that the church story did not make my cover. Sometimes, it is because I just want to feature their story and sometimes due to scarcity of tourism stories.

However, all the aforementioned came at a cost because most of my subscribers are members of other churches and for that reason, whenever there is a Synagogue story on the cover, they have all told me, we do not want that edition and so does some of the hotels that were buying copies for their rooms across the country.

The cost was huge and the benefits were most times in the negative. Like I said on a radio interview some time ago, ‘’every risk must deliver maximum benefits’’ which in my case, was always maximum regret most times.

Sometimes, to get simple information from the church could take months, not even minding that I have been a regular face and a friend of the pastor. I know the Prophet’s wife one on one; I know the sister one on one and, some of the old faces.  Despite the familiarity, the protocol can be tiring and cumbersome.

I have been thoroughly ignored, embarrassed, and sometimes worked out on just because I wanted information for myself and sometimes for people who believed that I am an aficionado when it comes to tourism information about the church.

Sometimes, I could stay away for months without going there except when it’s necessary. But because I have invested in making myself an authority in religious tourism in Nigeria, I could not just walk away.

My trip to Jordan and to Israel were not to seek salvation, but to ask questions and see how religion tourism is developed, marketed, and promoted by those countries to give me a better understanding of how the sub-sector can work here in Nigeria.

Those trips also afforded me the opportunity to up my game because I do engage the Prophet on tourism discussions and I am about the only one that can say to him he’s right or wrong. From my body language, he must also have noticed or ‘smelt’ it spiritually that I am not a good Christian, hence my relationship with him was tourism based.

As a friend of a very spiritual personality, many also expected me to be prosperous. Besides not being prosperous, my relationship with TB Joshua also robbed me of possible deliverance that I would have visited the church for; but I also ponder whether should I go that route, but many will no longer believe anything I write and say about the tourism contributions of the SCOAN to Lagos State economy. It would have been seen by many as mere propaganda!

For me not to lose that credibility, I bottled my problems to save my brand. One of the major regrets that would stay with me forever was my inability to get an appointment for my mother-in-law that has been down with ‘stroke’ for years now and now draining my wife financially. She could not see the Prophet for prayers.

Shamefully, Mama tried several times with my brothers-in-law to see the Prophet. They never succeeded in the usual service days. Yet, I am a friend of the church and the Prophet. Selfish many of you would say!

With these two decades of my friendship with the church, I still cannot visit the church to book an appointment to see the Prophet, I would be asked to go back and send a mail that they would never reply to. Regretfully, this is their style and when they need you to help them out, they know your number to call and better on how to reach you, but at the point of my need, they are never there for me.

To people working with the Prophet, the relationship is nothing to them and for people like me, we are being forced to redefine our relationship because I have lost many contacts that could have been my saviours at the point of my needs.

Yet month in and out, I kept writing and promoting the church. In fact, it’s already affecting my relationship with my wife who will always bail me out when the printer refused to release copies of my magazine due to my inability to pay them their balance.

Because she realized that the magazine is already part of me and I would not want to let down a few people that have supported in sustaining the publication, she’s always my last hope.

Sometimes, she had to go borrowing just to ensure that I am happy by getting the magazine out of the printing press. There are also instances where I would deposit my international passports that have my US, UK, and Schengen visas, some time for just N100.000 or even less.

I recall one occasion that my wife jokingly said to me that I need deliverance and I must talk to Prophet TB Joshua to pray for me. In reply, I told her that every time I have been privileged to see him, I have always requested he prays for me, and on all the occasions, he would hold my hands and say to me’ it’s well with me.’

Responding angrily, she said, ‘’why don’t you tell him that it’s not well with you’’ she screamed. To her, I struggle with the business of publishing that has consistently drained the family account.

As a trained journalist herself, she understood what I was doing and her thinking is that putting all my eggs in one basket brought me to where I am now.

I am sure many people will ask, why writing about my relationship this time; for me, the time is now because we have always criticise our leaders that they don’t get to correct things; and I‘m of the opinion that they would only get to correct things that they get feedback on.

I have sent several emails and I can confirm that in 20 years of relationship with the Synagogue church, I have only gotten 2 email replies. Sending letters is even worst as the people in in-charge won’t deliver it.

The most recent painful loss was the refusal of the outgoing Ethiopian Airlines, General Manager in Nigeria to renew my barter contract with her airline because she could not meet the Prophet TB Joshua as directed by her bosses in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian.

When I was approached to helped out, I refused to know how difficult it would be.  My relationship with the Prophet is purely a travel and tourism issues, nothing outside that. This was after the airline on its own had tried to book an appointment to see Prophet TB Joshua for almost a year without a result.

Sadly, when the renewal of my barter contract was tied to them seeing TB Joshua which I must broker, I agreed because I needed the airline’s tickets to travel around the world as a travel and tourism publisher with some conditions.

The official letter was handed over to me and I tried everything possible to hand it over to one of the inner staff to deliver to the appropriate department for the appointment. Once I delivered the letter and based on their protocol, they started dealing with the airline directly, and luckily, a date was given.

Upon securing a date, I was informed and invited to come with them for the courtesy call. The general manager, sales manager, and one sales executive made the trip to SCOAN.

On arrival and after refreshment, some of his aides came and engaged us as to the reason for the visit and they were briefed. After some minutes, they retreated in and came back only to apologised and inform us that the Prophet was not available and that the airline’s reason for the courtesy call would be conveyed to the Prophet and even encouraged them to come for service the next Sunday and there could just be a window of them possibly seeing the Prophet.

With the disappointment of not seeing the Prophet, my barter was not renewed and the unused tickets from the previous years were also cancelled.

When I approached the airline’s media consultant in Nigeria, I was offered a return ticket as a reward for my unsuccessful effort the airline said to me.

Despite my tribulations, TB Joshua is still, no doubt, one of the reasons I remain in the business of travel journalism. In Nigeria, as we know it today, our tourism industry is hospitality and Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions [MICE] and maybe family reunion for burial and wedding ceremonies, the latter is a form of tourism that is growing in Nigeria.

From my occasional interactions with the Prophet and personal observations, SCOAN alone has the capacity to attract at least a hundred thousand visitors to Lagos monthly, a figure that would fill all the hotels in Ikeja, Ikotun, Ejigbo, Igando, Festac among others.

Without mincing words, most of these tourists are high spending visitors, and 1 million more visitors into Lagos in a year will do so much to the economy of the state. Sadly, those running tourism at the state and federal levels have displayed nothing, but a lack of understanding of how tourism works, yet they all go to Israel and Mecca every year for pilgrimage.

My experiences in Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and by extension what I have read about Saudi Arabia, are ever-popular and important today not because they want people to visit their countries to seek God, but the international influences they get and more importantly the tourism dollars.

The hotels developed near major religious sites in the aforementioned countries are not for charity, but core business and the jobs they generate.

As for our dear Synagogue Church, Lagos State must take the bull by the horn in providing social amenities and infrastructure around Ikotun for the community to benefit more from the church presence in their domain.

TB Joshua’s followers are real and are willing to do anything for him. For all these years that I have covered the church, the economy of Ikotun and its surrounding communities have benefited so much.

Truly, TB Joshua deserves more accolades for what he has done for the people of Ikotun, Lagos State, and Nigeria at large and for the tourism authorities at the state and federal levels, my many years of agitation has earned me more enemies’ than friends.

Like Mohamed Rachid Rida, Syrian Arab Reformer said: “To revolt on behalf of an ignorant people is to set yourself on fire or to light the way for a blind man!”

Lagos State and the federal government get all the taxes and positive images therein.

By Lucky Onoriode George 

Publisher: African Travel Times Magazine 

Winner 2006 European Commission Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalists Reporting Human Rights and Democracy.

Phone:                +234-8033546608

Email:                 info@africantraveltimes.com

Website:             www.africantraveltimes.com