NIGERIA: General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has faulted media reports accusing him of carrying a protest placard against former President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that the exercise was a prayer walk against insecurity conducted five years after Jonathan left office.
Adeboye spoke on Sunday during the church’s November Thanksgiving service, where he criticised journalists for allegedly distorting the circumstances surrounding the 2020 exercise and publishing claims without verifying the facts.
The cleric recalled how a media report portrayed him as a wicked person for allegedly protesting against Jonathan while he was president.
According to him, although he indeed carried a placard, the exercise was organised to pray against killings and insecurity in Nigeria, not to protest against any president.
“Recently, just one mischievous somebody wrote in the papers, or said somehow, ‘Pastor Adeboye is a very wicked man. After all, we know that not too long ago, he carried a placard against President Goodluck Jonathan,’” he said.
Adeboye said he was initially amused by the report, stressing that the event was a prayer walk organised in response to a directive asking churches to hold similar exercises within their communities.
“True, I carried a placard. I can’t deny that. It was important. It was a prayer walk. We wanted to pray,” he said.
“The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That’s what I did.”
He maintained that the date of the exercise alone should have exposed the inaccuracy of the report, noting that Jonathan had left office in May 2015, while the prayer walk took place in February 2020 under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
“But I carried the placard in 2020. Jonathan ceased to be president in 2015. I carried the placard five years in the second term of Buhari,” Adeboye said.
He accused the journalist of deliberately twisting the account and expressed disappointment that the publication was accepted without proper verification.
“But a journalist twisted it. I said, I did what I did in 2015. And everybody swallowed it,” he said.
Reflecting on the responsibilities of journalists, the RCCG leader recalled taking courses related to journalism in the 1960s, when he learnt about investigative reporting and the importance of establishing facts before publication.
“I remember in those days in the Department of Journalism, when you go there and you take a course, they talked about something called investigative journalism,” he said.
He urged media practitioners to investigate claims rather than rely on appearances or unverified accounts.
“That things don’t appear as they may seem. Investigate, if you have a story, before you take it to the press,” he said.
Addressing members of the creative industry, Adeboye expressed disappointment that nobody appeared to have made efforts to verify the circumstances surrounding the prayer walk.
“I’m talking to those of you in the creative industry. Nobody checked,” he said.
On February 2, 2020, Adeboye led RCCG members on a prayer walk in Lagos to express concern over rising killings and insecurity across the country.
The exercise followed a three-day fasting and prayer programme declared by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which called for divine intervention and renewed government efforts to tackle terrorism and other security challenges.
Media reports at the time said the procession began at the RCCG national headquarters in Ebute Meta, moved towards Atan Cemetery in Yaba and later returned to the church.
Photographs from the exercise showed Adeboye holding a placard bearing the inscription, “All Souls Are Precious to God.”
The prayer walk took place during Buhari’s administration, nearly five years after Jonathan handed over power in May 2015.