The Nigerian evangelical church attended by Constance Marten as a teenager oversaw a harrowing culture of violence and sexual abuse by one of the world’s most famous preachers, survivors have claimed.
Temitope Balogun Joshua, known as TB Joshua, founded an evangelical Christian church called the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in 1987, and soon began recruiting followers across Africa, Europe and around the world.
The church appeared to perform miracles – healing cancer, ridding people of AIDs, exorcising ‘demons’ – while recruiting thousands of young people, including many who were British, to travel to its headquarters and become Joshua’s ‘disciples’.
British aristocrat Constance Marten was among hundreds of women to stay at the church for months or even years at a time.
But behind closed doors Joshua used his international fame to abuse, sexually assault and rape young women whom he indoctrinated into his ‘cult’, survivors say.
Speaking out about their ordeal for the first time, more than a dozen have told the BBC’s The Disciples documentary how they were systematically broken down and indoctrinated by a cult more than 3,000 miles away from home.
Temitope Balogun Joshua, known as TB Joshua, founded an evangelical Christian church called the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in 1987
Rae realised she was gay at the age of 12, hiding it from her family out of fear and shame.
Growing up in a Christian family, Rae said she tried to resist her sexuality: ‘I just pushed it down, I was terrified. I thought I can’t have god if I’m gay and I can’t be gay because it’s wrong. So I started searching for a solution to that.’
As a teenager, it was then that Rae first saw a video of TB Joshua supposedly performing magical ‘healings’ on a VHS tape at her church.
‘Nothing was ever the same again,’ she said. ‘What I saw wasn’t something that you could forget. I thought maybe this is the answer I’ve been looking for.’
Across the country Anneka, from Derbyshire, stumbled across similar VHS tapes several years after losing her mother to breast cancer at the age of ten. She also heralded from a religious background.
She told the documentary: ‘Seeing my mum go through that pain I had a deep rooted fear inside me [from] watching my mum die of that disease.
‘We believe in miracles, we believe in healings but I would ask myself where are these miracles?’
After watching tapes in which TB Joshua appeared to cure people with cancer, Anneka knew she had to meet him. In reality the church is accused of drastically exaggerating sick people’s illnesses, including falsely claiming people had cancer, so that they could later be ‘cured’ of the disease they never had in the first place.
‘Here was somewhere where breast cancer wasn’t a death sentence,’ Anneka said. ‘Here was hope.’
TB Joshua’s compound was usually guarded by gunmen and access was strictly controlled (pictured surrounded by mourners after his death in 2021)
Rae, now 43, was drawn into SCOAN after struggling with her sexuality as a teenager
The ‘prophet’ TB Joshua is accused of sexually abusing hundreds of women in a BBC documentary
Anneka travelled to Nigeria after watching videos of TB Joshua’s ‘healings’ from cancer
Like many British women, Rae and Anneka both travelled to Lagos, Nigeria to meet TB Joshua and visit his church in the hope of experiencing the power of God. Rae, aged 20, was desperate for a ‘cure’ for her sexuality when she made the journey in 2001 – while Anneka, just 17, was eager to see how people like her mother were being saved.
Both describe being told by ‘prophet’ TB Joshua and his associates on arrival that they were ‘meant to be’ in Nigeria and that it was ‘what God wanted’. Neither would return home for years.
Like the other survivors to speak out, Anneka recalled a gruelling routine which saw them kept in the compound all the time, with armed guards patrolling the area.
The young women lived in a large dormitory which slept up to 100 people on bunk beds with no privacy. At the beginning, they were encouraged to be entirely naked when inside their sleeping quarters, despite the presence of security cameras everywhere.
The SCOAN survivors all describe a similar experience of life upon becoming ‘disciples’.
Once welcomed into the church, the young women were systematically broken down by violence, abuse and chronic exhaustion, while being indoctrinated into worshipping TB Joshua as speaking the word of God.
None of the disciples, as they were called, were often allowed no more than two to three hours of sleep a night.
Joshua made young ‘disciples’ call him ‘Daddy’, phone him to say goodnight before they went to sleep and even insisted on handing out sleep passes – with anyone sleeping without permission being punished.
‘Sleep was seen as the greatest enemy to the work of God you had to pray against it,’ Brit Chloe, who first met Joshua when she was just 15, said.
‘There were times where I fell asleep standing up.’
All of the survivors described how not getting enough sleep for years on end left them functioning like ‘robots’ and ‘zombies’.
‘Before you know it your brain doesn’t think like it used to think,’ Rae said.
They were constantly working for Joshua and the church without ever being paid: from physically building SCOAN’s premises to preparing for church services, welcoming guests and filming videos to be streamed on Joshua’s television service.
While inside the Lagos compound, none of them had access to a calendar or even a watch, meaning they never knew what day or time it was.
The site was guarded by armed men carrying guns, with disciples not allowed to leave without Joshua’s express permission. The windows were covered in blackout paint and barbed wire surrounded the buildings.
The women described Joshua as hot-tempered, and reported he would frequently slap them and beat his followers – including his own daughter. Rae said Joshua’s followers were told it was ‘an honour’ to be slapped by him.
They were actively encouraged to report supposed misdemeanors by other members of the church and their diets, routines and clothes were directly controlled by Joshua.
The women described Joshua as hot-tempered, and reported he would frequently slap them and beat his followers – including his own daughter
Joshua has also been accused of faking ‘miracles’ by falsely claiming people had cancer
‘There was no safe place, no friend,’ Rae said. ‘He made everybody your enemy and you everybody else’s enemy.’
Facing chronic exhaustion, with no access to social media, the internet or news of the outside world, the survivors said it took a matter of weeks for them to become fully indoctrinated by the cult.
Joshua maintained his control over the women he recruited by imposing severe punishment on those who stepped out of line or questioned the increasingly abusive behaviours he exposed them to – all while claiming to speak the word of God.
At one point, Rae spent two years in social ‘isolation’ while living in the Lagos compound. Unable to leave, she was banned from working, from group activities and no-one was allowed to so much as speak to her – or they would face the same punishment.
The extent of the control Joshua held over his followers allowed him to secretly sexually abuse ‘hundreds’ of women, survivors have claimed.
They told the BBC the pastor would invite a young woman up to his private quarters almost every evening, and that this went on for two decades.
Rae described her own experience after she was summoned up to his room under the guise of praying together, saying he locked the doors behind her and turned down the lights.
She told the documentary: ‘He said: “Can you take your pyjama bottoms off”.
‘You were so knackered all the time. I was just like a robot, like a parrot. [I said] ‘Yes sir, yes sir’, like a fr***ing robot.’
Rae said Joshua then lay down on top of her: ‘He stuck his tongue in my ear. I totally froze, I went into complete panic.
‘He was grinding and sticking his tongue in my ear and within five minutes he’s masturbated on me basically. Then he gets up and says: ‘Ok you can go’.’
Joshua died in June 2021, months after the BBC began investigating his church
Anneka also accused Joshua of repeated sexual abuse. She described herself as ‘brainwashed’ by him and said she had ‘never experienced fear like it’.
‘I didn’t realise what was happening to me. He would wrap his leg around the back of my legs and lower me like a plank to the floor.
‘It became so robotic I disconnected from my body, I just became like a puppet. It was the most horrendous and terrifying experience I have ever been through.’
She added she regularly saw ‘young girls’ leaving his room: ‘My mind would sometimes go, I wonder if they’re having the type of time I have with [Joshua].’
Six of the women featured in the documentary allege they were sexually abused, with several accusing Joshua of repeatedly raping them for years.
The church is also accused of carrying out dozens of abortions in secret on women who were allegedly raped by the preacher.
Both Anneka and Rae eventually returned to the UK after finally realising Joshua was not the miracle worker he claimed to be.
‘It was like I had a blindfold on, and then suddenly I realised he is not a holy man,’ Anneka said.
Both are campaigning for justice for other survivors and want to protect others from being drawn in by the organisation.
After reconnecting with other British women who had been involved in the church, both women discovered they were not the only ones who said they had been sexually abused.
Anneka even went to the police, but there was little that could be done because Joshua remained in Nigeria. A report was filed to Interpol, but it is not believed Joshua was ever questioned before his death.
Joshua died in June 2021, months after the BBC began investigating SCOAN. The church continues to operate and is now run by his widow.
SCOAN has been contacted for comment.