The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has dismissed viral media reports claiming he staged a protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan during his administration.
Addressing his congregation during a sermon this morning, November 1, Adeboye clarified that the event in question took place in 2020—a full five years after Jonathan left office in 2015. He maintained that the procession was strictly a spiritual intervention aimed at combating the severe insecurity and bloodshed plaguing the nation.
The cleric lamented that the misrepresentation has unjustly painted him as a malicious actor who deliberately targeted the former president.
He further expressed disappointment that the false narrative was widely circulated and accepted by the public without any journalistic verification of the actual timeline and context
“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.
“True, I carried a placard. I can’t deny that. It was important. It was a prayer walk. We wanted to pray,” he said.
Explaining the origin of the event, the clergyman noted that the demonstration was carried out in compliance with a collective directive issued to various Christian denominations.
“The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That’s what I did,” he said.
The general overseer pointed out that the actual date of the walk completely invalidates the narrative that his actions were directed at the Jonathan administration.
“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 strongly rebuked the reporter responsible for distorting the timeline and criticized the media’s failure to conduct basic fact-checking before running the story.
“But a journalist twisted it. I said, I did what I did in 2015. And everybody swallowed it,” he said.
On February 2, 2020, Adeboye led millions of RCCG members in a peaceful walk across Lagos to protest the relentless killings and insecurity in Nigeria. The spiritual exercise was part of a corporate declaration by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which called for a three-day fasting period ending in a nationwide prayer walk against terror.
