July 09, (THEWILL) – Prophet Temitope Joshua, Televangelist and Founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), has been buried, with family, disciples, members, neighbours and admirers shedding a flood of tears for the final departure of a man they regarded as a caring soul, a tireless philanthropist and an uncommon miracle worker.
Traders shut their stalls as the two main markets of Ikotun and Egbe around his home and church in Alimosho Council were shut down in his honour.
His burial took place at the church, after an interment service attended by thousands.
Present were the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu; the Lagos State Commissioner for Home Affairs, Prince Olanrewaju Elegushi, who represented Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu; and the wife of the Ooni of Ife, Olori Naomi Adeyeye.
Other eminent personalities, including Ovation Publisher, Dele Momodu, and International Gospel singers, Shirley Murdock and Byron Cage, were also in attendance.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), with whom TB Joshua had some disagreements about his style, also sent a delegation.
Outside the church, flags of various countries lined up by the kerb, beating in the wind at half-mast from tall poles.
Various nationalities mixed up in the thousands of mourners who thronged in and around the Synagogue, from Israel, Ghana, Benin, Togo, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, South Africa and other nations.
US Gospel musicians, Shirley Murdock, Byron Cage, and others performed at the interment service.
Prophet T.B. Joshua died in Lagos after holding a church service on Saturday 5th June, just seven days short of his 58th birthday billed for on June 12.
He is survived by his wife, Evelyn and three daughters, Serah, Promise and Heart.
Friday’s burial was the culmination of a week-long funeral rite that attracted hoards of people across the globe.
Tears mixed freely with lavish tributes from family and church members, and his followers who witnessed his burial.
While paying tribute to the Ondo-born Televangelist who rose to prominence in the 1990s, the Prophet’s home state Governor, Akeredolu, described TB Joshua’s death as a loss to humanity.
He said the preacher who attracted thousands of worshippers to his mega-church was a special breed, admitting that the mammoth crowd that attended his burial eclipsed what was recorded during the funeral of South Africa’s foremost freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela.
“I’m not too sure we’ve had the world so congregated in this number from different countries in many such services, maybe, that of Nelson Mandela. But the world is more represented here than when Nelson Mandela was buried. Indeed, he was and he is being globally acknowledged today by all of us,” Akeredolu said of the cleric who was credited with predicting some global events
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