BBC News investigation finds televangelist T.B. Joshua over decades raped, tortured, whipped and chained worshippers forced to undergo multiple abortions.

by Thinus Ferreira

A shocking investigation by BBC News in Africa is revealing that the late televangelist T.B. Joshua whose Emmanuel TV channel is shutting down on 17 January on pay-TV, over a period of decades raped, assaulted, tortured, whipped and chained worshippers in a secret compound in Lagos, Nigeria where he also ordered forced abortions.

BBC Africa's Africa Eye investigative unit did a 2-year investigation unearthing the shocking and numerous atrocities committed by the televangelist of the Synagogue Church of All Nations. 

The Synagogue Church of All Nations didn't respond to the allegations unearthed by BBC News' Africa Eye of T.B. Joshua who died in 2021.

The BBC's investigation found that T.B. Joshua carried out physical violence and torture - including child abuse and people who were whipped and chained - abuse corroborated by dozens of eyewitness accounts.

Multiple women on the record said they were brutally raped by T.B. Joshua - some for years in his secret compound in Lagos, Nigeria. Multiple women say they were forced to undergo abortions inside the church, with one woman saying she was forced into 5 abortions. 

One woman from Namibia was 17 when T.B. Joshua raped her the first time and she subsequently had 5 abortions.

Multiple witnesses have come forward to explain how T.B. Joshua did hoax "miracle healings" which were faked for the broadcasts on Emmanuel TV to viewers watching across the world.

ALSO READ: Emmanuel TV going dark on MultiChoice's DStv.

BBC shutting down its news bureau in Bujumbura in Burundi after the Burundi government's draconian media censorship and ban of the BBC and Voice of America.

The BBC is closing its bureau in Burundi following a ban imposed on the BBC in March 2019 by that African country's government.

BBC Africa journalist Nick Erickson wrote on Twitter that the BBC is "going to close down its office in Burundi after the BBC's failure to sort out the issue that soured relations between the Gitega government and the BBC".

The BBC correspondent Will Ross working for the African Edition said on Twitter that "In March the government banned BBC transmissions and anyone in the country from providing information to the BBC."

The Burundi government accused the BBC of broadcasting a documentary that allegedly damaged the country's reputation in which the BBC exposed how intelligence agents of the Burundi government abused the human rights of Burundi citizens.

In 2018, the BBC's investigative current affairs programme, Africa Eye in its insert "Inside the Secret Killing House" documented the killing and torture of opposition members by security forces in secret detention facilities".

The BBC's Africa Eye asked the Burundi government for comment before broadcast but it declined to comment for the investigation that was produced and directed by Charlotte Attwood and Maud Jullien.

America's Voice of America (VOA) had also banned.

The draconian clamp down on press freedom in Burundi has seen the country plunge to the 159th spot out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index that is compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

Burundi's media censorship board, the National Communication Council (CNC), revoked the BBC's licence for allegedly broadcasting content that "put national cohesion and reconciliation at stake" and CNC chairman Nestor Bankumukunzi said at the time that "The CNC has decided to withdraw the operating licence for BBC and VOA programmes will still be suspended until further notice".

"All Burundian and foreign journalists who are in the country are forbidden from reporting or giving information directly or indirectly to the BBC and VOA," said Nestor Bankumukunzi.

The BBC's Africa Business editor Larry Madowo on Twitter said that "The BBC is closing its Bujumbura bureau and ceasing operations in Burundi. In March, the government banned BBC transmissions and blocked journalists from providing information to the BBC".

Watch the BBC's Africa Eye report, "Inside the Secret Killing House" that Burundi and its corrupt government doesn't want the rest of Africa and the world to see:

The BBC rolls out its new weekly, 30-minute, syndicated sports show, BBC Sport Africa, across the African continent.

The BBC's new weekly syndicated sports show, BBC Sport Africa, launched across Africa on Tuesday that will try to cover some of the issues and personalities as well as key moments and trends in sport from across the African continent.

The BBC says BBC Sport Africa will cover many different sports, including those that are little-known, and will be featuring personalities from famous sports stars to rising stars as well as fans.

BBC Sport Africa will  interview sports stars sharing their greatest sporting moment and look at big questions facing African sports with experts exploring issues like why African swimmers are not winning medals in the pool, or how Africa can maybe become the host of the World Cup 2026.

The show will also include inspiring stories of sports stars who have beaten the odds and used sport as an opportunity to create a better life for themselves.

The BBC plans to roll out editions of BBC Sport Africa in French and Swahili later this year.

BBC Sport Africa joins the BBC's new investigative TV journalism strand Africa Eye that also launched this week.

BBC Sport Africa can now be watched weekly on KTN News in Kenya; One Africa TV in Namibia; on NTA, NTA Sports 24 and ABS Anambra in Nigeria, SLBC in Sierra Leone, NBS TV in Uganda and QTV in Zambia.