A Zimbabwean woman who came to Nigeria to visit T.B. Joshua’s church in search for healing of her hospitalized daughter was among the dead victims of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) collapse.
According to the local Chronicle, Catherine Ndlovu from Bulawayo, second largest city in Zimbabwe, allegedly paid thousands of dollars to enable her travel. However trying to help her child, the woman lost her life, but the family narrates how they were told the truth.
Yesterday the relatives of the 40-year-old accused famous Nigerian clergyman of erecting a “wall of lies” following the collapse of his church building, which claimed at least 115 lives, on September 12.
Catherine’s sister told the journalist:
“We called them [TB Joshua church] every day, asking where my sister was and they said she had boarded a plane back to South Africa and would be back on Sunday last week.”
In a separate interview the victim’s brother also said:
“We became suspicious when other Zimbabweans who had travelled to Nigeria came back via South Africa and she wasn’t part of the group. It became clear they’d been lying to us and withholding information from us all along.”
Catherine’s relative narrated that she left Zimbabwe the day before the tragedy, shortly after her teenage daughter, who has experienced bad seizures for years, was admitted to the hospital.
The woman was sure her child suffered because of evil spirit and hoped to find divine intervention in T.B. Joshua’s church.
Hours after landing in Nigeria the mother of two allegedly died in the tragic incident.
The uncle of her orphaned children accuses the church of cover-up lamenting they were not told the truth for several days:
“When we heard news of the collapse, we feared the worst. There was no communication from the church until my cousin, who lives in South Africa, called them. They just put up a wall of lies and kept telling us she was safe. It would be only several days later that they confirmed our worst fears.”
Even the family’s hopes to receive the body of the deceased were reportedly dashed after TB Joshua’s aides asked them to provide a DNA sample for positive identification.
“We don’t even know if that’s true, and our only hope now is that our government can get to the bottom of this. Who knows how many other Zimbabweans have been kept in the dark about their relatives’ fate?”
It would be noted that the tragedy aftermath sparked hot discussions and caused several scandals.
The first confusion concerns the reason of collapse. Some claim it could happen because of the allegedly unapproved reconstruction of the church building and adding of 3 extra floors. However the renowned prophet said that it was an attack as some aircraft was hovering above the building on the fateful day. This claim was later substantiated by the video, showing the unidentified aircraft.
Then, Joshua was accused of hindering the rescue workers from accessing the site, but the prophet debunked this information saying they were fully cooperating with the rescuers’ team.
Finally, the journalist identified as Nicholas Ibekwe disclosed that Joshua had offered the correspondents covering this story a bribe for writing positively about the cleric and provided the audio proof of the allegation.
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