How government collaboration with SCOAN will save health sector
Professor Isaac Adewole, Nigeria’s health minister
As you read this, people from many countries across the globe are daily trooping to the Synagogue Church of all Nations (SCOAN) in Gov Ambode’s Lagos and are freely receiving cures for paraphysical as well as esoteric ailments way beyond the realm of medical science. Features Editor, Gbubemi God’s Covenant Snr, observed last Easter Sunday Service at Scoan and writes that a working relationship between governments and T.B. Joshua’s uncommon ministry will empty hospitals and psychiatric homes of cases that have perplexed patients, families and medics.
You’re watching and hearing hair raising recorded testimonies at a Sunday service, then the benefactors show up at the large arena to confirm their testimonies. And while members listened, some are receiving healing miracles as they watched. The accounts below are miraculous healing of ailments and demonic afflictions far removed from the realm of medical science, at the “Arena of Liberty”. Welcome to Easter harvest of deliverance and miracles at the Synagogue Church of all Nations, SCOAN.
5 a.m.
Believe it or not, members of this international church can be as early for Sunday service as 5 am! It could be much earlier, The Daily Times learnt.
Our correspondent who arrived 7 o’clock in the morning to observe the Easter Sunday service, found the vast auditorium filled to capacity – and great was the multitude waiting to obtain pass to enter. He could only manage to secure a seat on the last row north of the arena. The international status of the Church is confirmed by interpretations in Spanish and French. Apparently concluding all Nigerians to be English speaking, Scoan made no provision for any Nigerian language interpreter as the official language here is assumed to be English.
Curious healings
The testimonies started about 10.15 am – after lady evangelist Yinka gave her message titled “A New Life” taken from Matthew 28:1-10, and it was difficult to rate one testimony as more significant or peculiar than the other.
From a Zambian couple, one Dr. Emmanuel who was cured of hypertension and Blood Pressure he had lived with for 13 years, to breakthrough in career promotion and building own residence in four months (June – October) to acquiring a 10 hectres corn farm -all by merely using Synagogue’s anointed morning Water!
Then followed the breathtaking account of a Ghanaian who, for a decade had lived with a condition called hyperthyroidism which cure is not found within the realm of medical science or traditional medicine. It is a condition in which the thyroid is too active, making the heart and other body systems function twice as fast. The patient started a tour of treatments at specialist hospitals all over the world to help reduce his heartbeats but that didn’t work. Surgery, they told him, could make him lose his voice with no guarantee of regulating his body functions. He underwent treatments in radiotherapy, even nuclear medicines, which caused him to be quarantined for several weeks all to no avail.
At his wits end and frustrated, one of the doctors who had tried unsuccessfully to correct his condition, introduced him to Morning Water from Scoan.
The doctor directed him to Scoan in Lagos and it cost him no more than the popular Morning Water anyone is at liberty to buy here.
His testimony: “Because of my condition, doctors advised me not to marry as it was medically impossible for me to father a child because of the excess heat my body was generating; but after my treatment at Scoan, which comprised of just taking the Morning Water regularly, I found that the hyper speed my system was working reduced gradually to normal – and now I have a child.
“I received my healing here (at Scoan), so definitely, God is here! The few people I know who had this condition have died. All I needed was faith in God and I stayed connected to Scoan.”
A family from Namibia, who are into horse racing business, testified of how Prophet Joshua gave her 3,000 US dollars, anointed water and Good Morning sticker which she invested into a horse racing competition in South Africa. The horse she was supposed to ride was completely crippled. Her testimony began with the miraculous recovery of the horse which had been sick for four years. “The horse was completely healed when I started giving it the Anointed Water. A healthy horse would need to be in training for over one year to be fit for to compete, but I had only 19 days to prepare our horse before the competition.
“In the morning of the race, I stuck the Good Morning sticker on the horse’s neck and sprinkled Good Morning water over the horse and we set off. On the last lap of the 120 km race I noticed the horse was getting stronger and stronger and I was amazed I came 2nd ahead of over 300 of the world’s best horses in the competition!”
A third testimony that drew a standing ovation came from Mr. Ruben Osita Nwosu, a Nigerian interstate driver with Chisco Transport Ltd. He had loaded his Hiarce Homer bus at Maza Maza, Mile 2 garage on the 5th of April enroute to Port Harcourt through Aba and Owerri when suddenly, his sight shifted as he was climbing the bridge. “The road divided into two and as I struggled to quickly park the vehicle by the road side, my eyes went completely blind!”
The video showed his wife leading him to Scoan last week where he sat, holding up a placard with the words BLINDNESS written boldly. And when the man of God came, the spree of healing was like a fairy tale.
Nwosu said: “After five days of blindness, the Prophet tapped my head, and my face and I felt a cool sensation run through me; all headaches and pains I had been suffering disappeared and I began to see everything like a big sea in front of me. The man of God touched my face again and the blindness disappeared completely. It was like waking up from a bad dream!”, he said.
As the video showed him shouting “I can see! I can see!” lo, the fellow walked into the Arena with his wife waving and repeating, “Yes, I am here, and I can see!”
The testimonies that continued till about 4 pm will take all the pages in a tabloid to publish. The man of God had to halt the testimony so as to minister deliverance to the sea of patients, full of faith and expectation from across the globe that had thronged the Arena since the wee hours of the morning waiting for their deliverance.
In his Easter message, T.B. Joshua spoke briefly on forgiveness. “What you give is what you receive. If you give what you don’t need, you will receive what you don’t need, and this applies to spiritual and material things,” he said in his unhurried and plain English.
“Many Christians today are victims of the trap of unforgiveness. Many have never felt the Presence of God because they are holding on to the pains of the past towards the living and the dead.”
His parting words: “God is looking for free spirits. If you are not free, you are not available. Everybody hurt somewhere, and you must give them another chance.” He gave the people Jeremiah 31:34 as the Scripture for the day and proceeded with the deliverance session that is better witnessed than read and this continued till late Sunday night.
After ten straight hours at the Scoan, it became certain that demon possession and evil rule in families are more real than you see it in the movies.
A medical practitioner in Lagos who confided that he has been bringing many difficult cases from his hospital to Scoan, told The Daily Times that you cannot have a drum and you are beating your stomach.
He explained further: “If half the churches in Lagos alone are healing and casting out demons like TBJ has been doing for decades, the health ministry and healthcare system will be at ease; we will not have doctors and citizens jumping into the lagoon and committing suicide for reasons nobody can point to.”
The doctor who said he has been in practice for 30 years, pointed to the grossly inadequate and underfunded healthcare system across the country and lamented that “this has been a challenge, and we in the health sector know that both government and citizens need intervention.
“More foreigners are solving their health, business and family problems right under our nose here than we nationals, so what would it cost the federal minister of health and states health commissioners from going into alliance with this man of God to alleviate the people’s suffering and misery?,” he queried.
When this suggestion and evidences were taken to the office of the Lagos State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Jide Idris at the State House, Alausa on Monday, he was not available for discussion, but a close aide who spoke in strict confidence acknowledged that government is not unaware of the healing powers of Prophet T.B. Joshua.
“Your suggestion is good, but you know there are federal and state health policies we have to adhere strictly to. You may recall that in the past, government of Lagos state had enlisted the services of qualified traditional birth attendants to work with health workers in Lagos State hospitals and health centres. In this case, there may be need to consider your suggestion in the near future, but as it is, only Governor Akinwumi Ambode can consider that possibility.”
Responding to the reason government of Lagos state is bent on persecuting the engineers and trustees of Scoan over the collapsed six-storey hostel belonging to the church that claimed scores of lives, our source said it may not be unconnected with the experiences of the past.
“My opinion is that the government of Lagos State is trying to avoid some embarrassment the state had witnessed in the past, especially with churches owned by people like Emmanuel Odumosu, the one they called “Jesus of Oyingbo”, Lady Malaika of Mushin who claimed she was God and Bishop Oduyemi who had his church in Lekki before he died.
“However, T.B. Joshua has maintained a good reputation for over two decades but for the incident of the collapsed building. There are some international interests in the case, of course, but on the healing aspects of his ministry, government is not contending with that. Let us leave it at that for now,” he concluded.
