A video has revealed that the young lady, Ajoke Joshua who claimed to be a daughter of Prophet TB Joshua, is actually not his biological child.
The prophet is said to be an avid record keeper to the extent that when electronic information technology was not readily available, he ensured that footages of the then little girl were recorded in cassette tapes and stored for posterity.
The late televangelist and founder of Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), Temitope Balogun Joshua, popularly known as TB Joshua, personally revealed himself on video cassette tapes that he was not the biological father of Ajoke.
The now grown lady claimed in a BBC three-part investigative documentary that she was his daughter whom he fathered illegitimately but constantly abused and tortured. She added that he also instigated his church members and disciples to treat her scornfully and tortured her.
Her full name from the various police reports and adoption documents unearthed from the cleric’s archives is Ajoke God’swill Joshua. The prophet said he personally authorized the police to give her his last name.
In the BBC 3-part documentary, some of TB Joshua’s disciples however, claimed that Ajoke was gotten outside lawful marriage and was subjected to a series of torture and humiliation by the late cleric who viewed her existence as a big threat to his reputation as a man of God.
Ajoke claimed that she never felt fatherly affection from the late pastor and that her father compelled her to be a disciple to ruin her life.
But TB Joshua in the now viral video explained how he adopted Ajoke when she was abandoned as a baby in March 2000, reported the incident at a police station in Lagos, and how the police gave him the go-ahead to adopt her.
According to him, Ajoke became what he described as terrible. He said she engaged in various fraudulent activities, theft and destroying many of his disciples by s*xually harassing them and forcing some of them to leave the church.
During one of his ministrations with what looked like workers of the church while he was alive, the cleric introduced Ajoke and pleaded with them to see what they could do in their prayers to help Ajoke in any little way.
TB Joshua in the video said that he thought Ajoke’s case was what he could handle in his office but it became imperative to let the church know about her case and what she was up to.
He said, “It is such a surprise thing, she has what we call influence on the people, and she doesn’t influence little people. She influences big people, people that matter to the extent that two months ago, I had to call the commissioner of police to trace her file and they brought her file to me and there was a letter in the file demanding that I should return her and I held on to the letter.
“They too felt for me that I have given so much for her and that they should put her where she belongs. In a British school, there is a letter from the school which showed that this girl stole money. She agreed in the letter that she did it.”
TB Joshua narrated how many times she was thrown out of the school he considered one of the best and which his biological children attended. Each time she was suspended, he forfeited her school fees running between $30,000 and $70,000.
Another letter written to Prophet TB Joshua by a school in Togo, Benin Republic dated November 25, 2008, and signed by Gareth Jones on behalf of the academic team read, “We wish to bring to your notice formally this incident of theft perpetuated by Ajoke God’swill Joshua here in school.
“The school management has dealt with it by giving her a suspension and consequently her being put in isolation. It is a three school days suspension and she is allowed no visitors except her House Parent or Form Tutor who gives her some class work to do.
“We wish to assure you of our desire to keep her in school and to help her in various ways to reform and change for the better. We are of the opinion that taking her out of the school to another place could rather compound the situation and allow this habit to go on, but being in one place, getting the needed help from counselors, spiritual and temporal would to a great extent bring about the needed result.
“We acknowledge the fear you have of your name being tarnished but this we assure you once again it has been contained and would not be allowed to spill over. We have spoken to your delegation and given them a copy of the letter of plea as well as the statement of acceptance of wrong doing written by her which clearly indicates her being sorrowful for the situation she has created and remorse for it.
“We will continue to support in any way possible and be grateful for vice versa.”
One of the letters in which Ajoke admitted to the crime which was read by one of the church workers read, “I Ajoke Joshua is hereby admitting that I stole a sum of 41,000 CFA from (name of the school was hidden).
“This was a very criminal act and also something that should have not been done at all in the first place. I was so tempted by the money and I do not have any idea of whatsoever prompted me to do this. I am so sorry and I promise that in my whole entire life that this will not happen again. Please do not suspend me. I am sincerely sorry.”
TB Joshua said that after the school wrote the letter to him. According to him, “to them because nobody ever knew that she is not my biological child, we then showed them the letter of the day we found her when she was a baby. I took her to the police station and they told me to take care of her, and I felt, let her live with us.”
The cleric said the video of how Ajoke was found and picked up when she was a baby was recorded.
TB Joshua’s wife who went to the Togolese school with Ajoke to show the documents of her adoption said that the teachers in the school were surprised after the video was played to them.
TB Joshua lamented that “Ajoke has been a terrible thing that the police said they want to take her back to the orphanage home and they had taken her name and photocopies of the documents but I said no.”
A letter from the Ikotun Police Station, Lagos requesting the release of Ajoke who was adopted in March 2000, back to the police was read before the workers in the church.
TB Joshua said that if not that he had Ajoke, he would have had thousands of adopted children “but I warn you, they are very dangerous. They will never be grateful to whatever you do.”
He said that Ajoke “is now destroying the disciples here,” citing an example of one of the disciples who called him from Ghana and said that he had to go because Ajoke had destroyed him.
According to the disciple, “he cannot say no to Ajoke.” A document was also read on how Ajoke sent a message to the disciple saying she wanted to marry him and have a sexual affair with the disciple and that no matter what TB Joshua said, she was ready to die because of the disciple.
According to TB Joshua, this made the disciple to leave the church and go back to Ghana.