A former follower of the late Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua, commonly known as TB Joshua, named Paul Agomoh, has revealed that he had to go into hiding for nearly eight years after his initial attempt to expose the activities of the late presiding Pastor of the Synagogue Church of All Nations.

Agomoh shared this information with journalists following a screening of a 150-minute-long investigative report conducted by BBC Africa Eye titled “Disciples: The Cult of TB Joshua.” The event, which took place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja on Monday evening, featured testimonies from former followers and church workers accusing the late prophet of manipulation and physical abuse.

While mentioning that he was the first Prophet under the SCOAN, Agomoh mentioned that he was pursued across Cotonou, Lagos, and Ghana by loyalists of Prophet TB Joshua, who believed that his revelations were blasphemous against the prophet.

“I was the first prophet of the Synagogue church, and I spent more than a decade in the Synagogue between 1995 and 2006. And I just want to thank the BBC. This is a journey I started in 2009. I released a video with Sister Bisola, ‘The Deception of the Age’. When I left there, the incident that led to my leaving is not a story I can finish here. It is a terrible experience. I decided to leave. When I left, I could not sleep, I could not rest. The burden was so much on me. I had to move out with the help of some pastors in ministry, and my friends.

“We brought this out, but a lot of people said ‘Agomoh has come, he is blaspheming against our man of God’. They started chasing me everywhere. For a good eight years, I laid low, not doing any ministerial job, not doing any public jobs. I laid low, just with the help of a few pastors. About three years ago, was when I started coming out gradually. I was pursued everywhere, from here to Cotonou, you know these are the nearest places you can run to, from Cotonou to Ghana, back to Lagos, I was running,” he said.

The investigation report, according to Peter Ogunmuyiwa, the Archbishop of the African Church in Abuja, was not an indictment against the church but rather against the late Pastor TB Joshua. He pointed out that Joshua could not be considered a criminal because no court had brought charges against him prior to his death.

“It is not an indictment on the church, it is an indictment on who is accused. And it is quite unfortunate that he is not alive to defend himself. All this would have been very good if he was still alive. And when he was alive, what moves were taken to confront these issues and get him convicted? So, he is a dead person now, he is gone, and it is not for us to say he died as a criminal, because no state law convicted him while he was alive.”

Ogunmuyiwa added that while such reports saddened bodies like the Christian Association of Nigeria, of which he was a member, the body did not have legislative powers or a law that covered CAN, to deal with such persons or church. He however called on the government to make laws to regulate churches and license seminaries to tutor pastors.

“I also believe that, if possible, let there be legislation to regulate. So that people will not just be behaving anyhow. You can’t just come out today and say you are a Pastor, which institution, which seminary, which college of theology did you go to before you say you’re a Pastor? And then the government should find a way of registering and then licensing those schools to regulate them, just like we have the university commission. I think it is high time they introduced that into religious bodies also so that we will be getting ministers that are well trained, and that are recognised by the state,” he said.