Adeboye Says Placard Photo Was From 2020 Prayer Walk, Not Protest Against Jonathan
RCCG General Overseer Enoch Adeboye said a photograph of him carrying a placard was taken during a February 2020 prayer walk over insecurity, not a protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan, who left office in 2015.
General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has denied that he organised or took part in a protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan while Jonathan was in office. Speaking to his congregation during the church's November Thanksgiving service, Adeboye said the incident being circulated in the media took place in February 2020, five years after Jonathan had left power.
Adeboye said the exercise was a prayer walk held to seek God's intervention over insecurity, killings and other security challenges facing Nigeria. He acknowledged that he carried a placard during the walk but insisted the activity had nothing to do with opposing Jonathan's government. "True, I carried a placard. I can't deny that. It was important. It was a prayer walk. We wanted to pray," he said.
He expressed disappointment at what he described as the deliberate misrepresentation of the event by a journalist who, he said, presented the prayer walk as a protest against Jonathan's administration. Adeboye said he initially found the report amusing because the circumstances were different from what had been published. He added that the publication portrayed him negatively without establishing the actual date of the incident or the reason for the gathering.
The cleric quoted a recent claim that he was "a very wicked man" because he had once carried a placard against Jonathan. He reminded his congregation that Jonathan handed over power in 2015 after the presidential election won by 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.
Adeboye said the exercise followed an instruction from church leadership asking congregations to organise prayer walks near their respective locations. "The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That's what I did," he said. He also criticised journalists and members of the creative industry who accepted the report without checking it, saying a simple investigation into the date would have exposed the error.
The episode drew on the February 2020 event itself. The walk took place on February 2, 2020, after a three-day fasting and prayer programme declared by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to seek divine intervention over the country's security situation. Adeboye led RCCG members on a procession from the church's national headquarters in Ebute Meta towards Atan Cemetery in Yaba before returning to the church. He was photographed holding a placard reading "All Souls Are Precious to God," while other participants carried messages condemning killings, terrorism and the destruction of innocent lives and calling for peace.
Using the occasion to speak about responsible journalism, Adeboye recalled studying journalism in the 1960s, when investigative reporting was among the subjects taught. He urged media practitioners to look beyond the surface of a story and establish the facts before publication. "That things don't appear as they may seem. Investigate, if you have a story, before you take it to the press," he said.
Source: politicsnigeria.com
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