Self-proclaimed prophet TB Joshua dies at age 57

His Synagogue, Church Of All Nations organisation said in a statement: “God has taken his servant Prophet TB Joshua home – as it should be by divine will. His last moments on earth were spent in the service of God. This is what he was born for, lived for and died for.”

Joshua became notorious in South African media after one of his church’s buildings collapsed and killed several of the faithful, including South Africans. More than 80 people died when a guest house in Nigeria collapsed.

South African families were advised last year that the applicable prescription period in Nigeria for a civil claim is six years, which meant that the civil claims prescribed.

In July 2015, a coroner’s inquest found the collapse was as a result of negligence. No one was successfully prosecuted for the negligence.

Joshua was a self-proclaimed prophet. He also courted controversy for claiming to be able to “cure” gay people, that he could cure Covid-19 and he made numerous predictions of future events, with mixed success.

The Synagogue, Church of All Nations, is a Christian megachurch that runs the Emmanuel TV television station from Lagos.

Joshua was known for his popularity across Africa and Latin America and had a social media presence with 3,500,000 fans on Facebook. His YouTube channel, Emmanuel TV, had over 1 million YouTube subscribers and was the world’s most viewed Christian ministry on the platform before it was suspended. He was sometimes described as the “Oprah of Evangelism”.

In 2011, according to Forbes, Joshua was Nigeria’s third-richest pastor, although the church was quick to deny this.