Rae was 12 when she realised she was gay. But growing up in a traditional church family in a small village in the 1990s, she refused to accept it.
‘I just knew I couldn’t be gay,’ she told . ‘These two things don’t go together. I can’t have God and be gay’.
Several years later she was among a group of young people who were shown videos by a visiting preacher of African ‘pastor’ TB Joshua.
The VCRs appeared to show Joshua performing miracles at his church in Lagos, Nigeria. Rae, now 43, immediately knew she had to see him for herself, hoping he might be able to ‘cure’ her of her sexuality.
In 2001, aged 20, Rae left her university course in Brighton and travelled to Lagos for a week with a friend. Days later, she had been recruited into his cult which would see dozens of young women, including Constance Marten, travel to Nigeria. She wouldn’t return home for 12 years.
Rae, now 43, was drawn into SCOAN after struggling with her sexuality as a teenager
Temitope Balogun Joshua, known as TB Joshua, founded an evangelical Christian church called the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in 1987
‘No-one just joins a cult,’ Rae said. ‘But I was easy pickings. I’d already been indoctrinated with the idea of needing to be set free from my sexuality. I thought [TB Joshua] was the answer to all my problems.’
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’.
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.
After arriving in Nigeria in 2001, Rae ‘confessed’ her sexuality during a live church service.
As she prepared to return to the UK a few days later, one of TB Joshua’s advisors approached her.
‘She said, “I’ve got a question for you from the Prophet and the question is, do you want to study education, or do you want to study Jesus Christ?”
‘I just said, “Well, I want to study Jesus,” and she’s like “Great. So you’re staying then.”
‘And that was it. My stuff got pulled out of the back of the van. I never really went home after that. I thought this was my destiny.’
Rae, who came from a religious family, realised she was gay at around 12, but hid it from everyone around her
Rae (left) now lives with her partner Liz in Devon after returning to the UK in 2013
Rae was one of TB Joshua’s first international ‘disciples’ – hundreds of young people who were persuaded to join the Synagogue, Church Of All Nations and move into the Lagos compound in order to train under the preacher and study Christianity.
Unbeknownst to Rae, and the dozens of other British women who are believed to have been recruited into the church, TB Joshua was actually the head of a cult, and has since been accused of systematically abusing its followers.
The 20-year-old was immediately moved into a dormitory with around 35 other female ‘disciples’, complete with bunk beds, piles of luggage and a row of open showers.
‘It was just completely disorientating,’ Rae said. ‘Your whole head was mixed up, I didn’t understand the culture, and therefore I didn’t know what was culture and what was cult.’
To begin with all the women were encouraged to be entirely naked while inside the dormitory, where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day.
Rae said: ‘All the women were naked, and I was like f***. How am I going to do this? It was just completely alien to me.’
She is one of 14 survivors of the church who participated in the BBC’s documentary, The Disciples, which has painted a picture of physical, psychological and sexual abuse faced by those recruited into the fold.
The ‘prophet’ TB Joshua is accused of sexually abusing hundreds of women in a BBC documentary
TB Joshua’s compound was usually guarded by gunmen and access was strictly controlled (pictured surrounded by mourners after his death in 2021)
Just like the other survivors, Rae described how, as a vulnerable young woman, she was gradually brainwashed by TB Joshua into seeing the abuse as acceptable.
She says the ‘disciples’ were made to work for the church almost 24 hours a day without ever being paid.
TB Joshua is accused of not allowing the young women to sleep for more than two to three hours a day, restricting the amount of food they could eat and depriving them of any access to the outside world.
Other British survivors have told how they would have to request ‘sleep passes’ from Joshua in order to go to bed, and anyone falling asleep without permission would face punishment.
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 ‘disciples’ were forced to call Joshua ‘Daddy’ and were not allowed to sit down when he entered a room.
Rae said Joshua would beat his followers, who were expected to understand it was ‘an honour’ to be beaten by the preacher as he was ‘blessed by God’.
She was one of multiple women who told the BBC she was sexually abused by the prophet.
They said the pastor would invite a young woman up to his private quarters almost every evening.
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”.
Rae was first introduced to Joshua via video tapes as a teenager after joining an evangelical church
Rae travelled to Nigeria for a week when she was 20, and then stayed for 12 years
‘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”.’
Rae originally travelled to Nigeria in order to try and ‘become straight’ – but ten years later, she knew that nothing had changed.
Joshua eventually put her into ‘isolation’, a form of punishment in which no-one was allowed to speak or participate in activities with her.
She estimates she spent two years without any communication from others, despite still living in the same dormitory with dozens of other women. It was during this time that she began to realise SCOAN could not offer her what she needed.
‘No one was allowed to speak to me,’ Rae told . ‘There were buildings under construction and I used to go there and smash my head against the wall.
‘I had a complete mental breakdown and I tried to commit suicide. I was very on my own.
‘So all day, every day no work, nothing to do, just hanging around in this compound. I would only eat once a day and it was actually quite dangerous.
‘But that whole experience made me begin to realize that he didn’t really know me. He couldn’t help me in this area.’
Aged 33, Rae said she finally realised she needed to accept that she was gay.
‘It’s quite cliche, but I had this full-on mirror moment,’ she said. ‘I looked in the mirror and said to myself, “you’re gay, accept it”.’
But it was several years before she plucked up the courage to leave Nigeria for good.
After being sent on missions to the UK and then Mexico, Rae finally returned to Britain for good in 2013.
Joshua has also been accused of faking ‘miracles’ by falsely claiming people had cancer
Joshua died in June 2021, months after the BBC began investigating his church
It wasn’t for another two years, when she reconnected with another British woman who had also left Lagos, that she realised she had been living in a cult.
‘I’d never talked about my own sexual assault at that stage,’ Rae said. ‘But we had this weird conversation and she told me, “TB Joshua’s been sexually assaulting me for ten years.”
‘I remember going green and pretty much running straight to the toilet and throwing up. I had no idea he was a serial predator. And that’s what set me off investigating him.’
More than ten years later, Rae finally feels she has ‘unravelled’ the hold SCOAN held over her. She said one of the reasons it took her so long to leave Nigeria for good was the disciples were convinced they would ‘go to hell’ if they abandoned Joshua.
Now Rae, 43, lives in Devon with her partner Liz, and is doing well: ‘I’m doing ok. I feel very lucky and privileged to be in that situation. I’ve had a lot of support, and I think that’s made a difference. My family has stuck by me and tried to understand.
‘It’s not perfect, but they have really tried, and I think I think one of the key things for me was openness.’
Rae is now advocating for more support for those affected by cults in the UK: ‘There needs to be more conversation about it. This is not rare, it’s just rare that people talk about it.
‘It seems really far off for everyone. But it could be your child, it could be your mum.
‘Cults don’t care about your age or your your gender, or your ethnicity. If they can manipulate you, if they can recruit you, they will have you.’
TB 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.
For confidential help and support, call the Samaritans for free from a UK phone on 116 123, or go to samaritans.org.