How He Took My Wife - Ex-Head Pastor Synagogue, Ghana, FALARUNGBON Cries

MY LIFE IN SYNAGOGUE

It was in 1991 that my wife, Lola, and I went to the Synagogue. We went there because we had been married for nine years without any child. When we met Joshua he looked like a gentleman, a kind person and someone that could be relied on. I saw him as someone representing God because of his physical and outward appearance. Within two weeks of our going there, he had gotten very close to my wife. That got me concerned but then I concluded that it could be because my wife hailed from the village next to his in Ondo State, Nigeria.

One day my former wife told me that the Prophet wanted her to work with him; that she had to do this before God could answer our prayer for a child. Since I did not want to be an obstacle, I gave her the go ahead. Suddenly I found myself going there everyday because we wanted the fruit of the womb. One day Lola told me the prophet wanted to see me. He (Joshua) told me God wanted to use me and that I should surrender myself to the service of the Lord. It was a big battle in my heart and with my family. I was born into and grew up in the Salvation Army Church. My parents were leaders in the church. All my siblings worshipped there. But finally I succumbed. The first thing he did was to relocate me from where I lived in a three bedroom apartment at Ipaja road. He gave me a chamber hall at Ikotun Egbe. He told me that if I wanted to serve the Lord, I have to separate myself from the world, from my family and my friends. Again I succumbed to that pressure. It was a serious battle with my family and friends. A friend of mine who was a bank manager at that time traced me to the church and confronted me. "Kayode, are you crazy?" he quizzed. I told him to "just leave me alone!"

That was the beginning of my journey. I abandoned my parents and refused to see any of my siblings. I was placed in the Evangelical department to study the scriptures. However, because of my Salvation Army background, I found loopholes in some of the things he taught us but I could not openly challenge him. He later asked my wife to move into the church permanently while I continued to stay in the chamber. I would leave the house in the morning, go straight to the church and return home in the evening alone. On Sunday mornings she would rush in early in the morning around 6.am, take a change of clothing and rush back to the church. Anytime I showed my desire for intimacy she would refuse on the grounds that the prophet said we should not engage in sex yet. The prophet had to give us a 'pass' before we could make love. I found myself taking all these instructions and there was no way out. I was simply helpless and I couldn't save myself!

ON HIS PASTORAL ASSIGNMENT

After going through the Bible Training course for about three to four years, most of my colleagues left. Some of them were well educated. I remember some were professors. They left because they could not stomach those bizarre instructions, considering their well exposed background. I was one of two or three people who remained from my set. Agomoh set came after us. After a while, a Ghanaian named Ben and I came to Ghana in 1997 to plan a crusade. We contacted the Ghana Pentecostal Council and we marketed Joshua very well to them even though many of them did not know him. It was not a big crusade; we had about three thousand people in attendance. We returned to Nigeria and about a month later, I was sent back to Ghana to start a fellowship. One Sister Cecelia rented a three bedroom apartment for us in Achimota and that became our venue. We began to grow from there. Up till this time, my former wife remained in Lagos. We could" not talk on the phone and I could not talk to my family as well. Once in a while, maybe once in six months or once in a year, Joshua would call me and put my wife on the line. Our conversation usually went like this: "How are you?" "I am fine." "Well I just want to find out if you are okay." That was all. Meanwhile, the real reason we went to Synagogue was yet to be resolved - that was out childlessness. Somehow in my pursuit of doing the will of God, the issue took a backseat in my mind. I simply wanted to do God's work, please Him and see what God would do. At some point during the years, I began to awaken from my spiritual slumber. I took a series of decisions. One of them was I must see my parents. Early one morning, while in Lagos on his orders, I left Ikotun Egbe at 5a.m for Agege and traced my parents. they received me coldly. I was not in the least surprised. But then my mum later disclosed to me that my wife had told one of my old friends that Joshua told her it was impossible for her to conceive through me, that the lack of conception was my fault.

Although I refused to accept that, I could not press the issue as I had to hurry back so that I could meet my appointment with T.B Joshua for 9.a.m that day. To my utter surprise, he was aware of my visit to my parents. My so-called wife had informed him. He asked me where I was and I told him I went to see my parents. That incident jolted me back to my senses. I began to piece things together and I perceived that something was amiss. An incident I witnessed convinced me there was something more to the relationship between Joshua and my wife. Joshua used to flog his followers, old and young. I was privy to him trying to flog my wife once but she just walked out on him without anything happening. For her to have the guts to walk out on him when he was flogging others convinced me there was more to their relationship. Back in Ghana, I remained devoted to the assignment he gave me. I even single-handedly began to sponsor his programmes on Metro T.V for two years without any financial assistance from him. The allegation of my wife with the connivance of T.B. Joshua that I could not father a child continued to bother me. Besides, as a single pastor of a congregation of about two thousand plus members, I battled with temptation. I came to a decision that I needed to remarry in order to prevent falling for temptation and also to prove to Joshua, Lola and everyone who believed the lie that they were wrong. I also needed to put this woman out of my mind and my life for good. In Ghana, I met a lady here and I told her everything about my situation. And she agreed to my proposal. To the glory of God she got pregnant. I jubilantly announced to my parents, "I told you there was nothing wrong with me!"

ON HIS FATHER'S DEATH

One day my younger brother in Texas called to inform me that my father was very ill. Because of Joshua's enslavement, I could not go to Lagos to check on my father. One day my brother called again from Texas to inform me that our father had passed on. That really pained me. I called Joshua and told him of my father's demise. He asked me to come to Lagos and specifically charged me not to inform any church member in Accra. And I complied. Oh how stupid I was! No member of my congregation knew my father died. I boarded the plane to Lagos alone and wept all the way. I was so sorrowful. I felt like the worst sinner. This was a man I had not seen for five years! I felt like I was in a way responsible for his death. Joshua gave me N50, 000.00 and the permission to go and discuss funeral arrangements with my family. I did and returned to Accra to prepare for the funeral. He gave me a bus and one member to accompany me to my father's funeral. Meanwhile, I had a congregation of over 2,000 members in Accra and not a single member knew I came home to bury my father. I am the first born of seven children. I have a brother who is a Ph.d holder. I have a sister who is a Vice-Principal of a school in Ibadan. Another sister is a Police Officer, and the last born studied Agronomy at the University of Ibadan. Every one of them shunned me at the funeral. I was left to myself, my mother went inside, broke down and wept. Later she sent for me and told me the reason they all ignored me. According to her, five days before my father passed on, he insisted on speaking with me. But because none of them had my telephone number they could not reach me. Eventually my father persuaded my siblings to take him to The Synagogue to meet with Joshua. He was sure that through Joshua a call would be placed to me. Unfortunately, when they got to The Synagogue they were left at the gate unattended to for two hours. They sent for my former wife and briefed her. She went inside to return two hours later to tell them that the prophet was not available to see them. They had to return home. The next day, my father passed on. That was why my siblings shunned me. Right there I made up my mind to leave The Synagogue. I told myself it was time to leave! There I was working for him, my daddy was sick and he could not cure him despite his claims to having healing power. Even if he could not heal him, why couldn't he show some love and a little compassion? And this man died with pain in his heart because he had not seen his first child for five years. My uncles told me that anytime they visited him he would always say "his first pot of water has broken," meaning his first child was lost. I left Akure for Lagos at 2 p.m immediately after the funeral. I went straight to him and told him I was going back to Ghana. This time around I did not care about his instructions. Prior to that time, we must wait for his instructions. He tells you when to leave and when to come. I guess all the scales had fallen from my eyes. In any case, since I had remarried in Ghana and had a daughter, I knew it was a matter of time before I left. I was only marking time, waiting for God's go ahead. Meanwhile, I had registered this church (Awakeners Chapel) in 2001. All the while I was with Joshua whenever I told him about regularizing my stay in Ghana, he would always dismiss it saying it was not necessary. That was because he had his own agenda. Somehow, I had the foresight to regularize my stay after I got married. And as a foreigner who married a Ghanaian I was entitled to a permanent residence status. I did all these without their knowledge. On my return to Ghana I told my wife I was going to leave the Synagogue. One day, Joshua called to inform me my former wife was visiting me in Ghana. "To come and do what?" I charged. For thirty minutes, we argued on the phone over the matter. I told him if indeed she was my wife, I should be the one to determine when she visits not him. He insisted she was coming and that was that. One day, Ben called me from Kotoka International Airport. He was in town with my former wife. I became very alert. I knew it was a set up. She had never been to Ghana, but the first thing she asked for upon arrival was a telephone booth. The first night, I slept on the bare floor while she slept on the bed. I made sure I never slept on the same bed with her. I also informed her she was going back to Lagos as soon as possible. She said no 'Papa told her that she will stay for six months. I ignored her, took her passport and booked her return trip to Lagos within a week. Somehow I was apprehensive for my life. There was no doubt in me that her visit was a set up and that she had become an agent for Joshua and the longer she stayed the more I was in danger. Moreover my praying mother had warned me to avoid her whenever I saw her. When she got to Lagos, Joshua called me immediately "Kayode, why did you send her back without telling me?" I asked him point blank "Is she your wife?" He quickly calmed down. He later called me to come to Lagos. He said to me "Kayode you have really tried in Ghana, everybody is talking well of you, I think we have to move forward. Ghana is no longer your level. You need to go to places like South Africa, New Zealand etc." He began to brainwash me. "I wish you will just stay in Nigeria for two weeks to refresh yourself, and then you can proceed to New Zealand." I told him point blank. "Let me just go and pack my load. I am leaving." Then he changed tactic. "Go to Ghana, spend two weeks, then return to Lagos for another two weeks and you will be off to New Zealand." Meanwhile he told Ben to accompany me. He instructed me not to introduce Ben to the congregation in Ghana even though he told Ben he was going to take over from me. On Sunday, I did not introduce Ben as was instructed by him. At the end of the service Ben called him and told him I did not carry out his instruction, that he was not introduced as the next pastor. Then he would speak to me on the phone and also speak to Ben. To both of us he was giving two completely different instructions. At the end of the day he instructed both of us to return to Lagos. I refused.

ON HIS PERSECUTION

On Monday morning, I typed out my handover letter with everything in my trust and handed over to Ben. That day Joshua must have called me more than 80 times. But I refused to bulge. As at the Wednesday of that week, I had no idea where I was going. I had only 50 million Cedis (4,500 dollars). That could never establish a church. There was this lady who used to work with former President Jerry Rawlings as one of the secretaries. She used to assist me in administrative matters then. I called her and informed her that I had left Joshua and needed accommodation to start a church. I believe God took over from there. By the end of the day we had gotten this accommodation. On the following Tuesday, I met the property owner. He asked me to pay for four to five years. I just went flat on my belly. I begged the man that I could not afford the money but I was desperate for a place. He finally agreed to take forty two million Cedis (4,000 dollars). With the remaining, I went to the market, bought a key board and a few other things for Sunday service. On Sunday my wife and I and two other people started Awakeners Chapel. However, the people in The Synagogue came to church and did not see me. By 9 a.m they began to call me one after the other, asking where I was. That was how one after the other they came over. I never announced to them nor informed them that I would leave. I did not tell them to come and join me. They just came over. I believe they saw something was wrong. I knew there was going to be persecution, but nothing like what happened thereafter. Everything Agomoh said is true. One day I came back from an outing and was told some immigration people had been to the house. I went to see their Director. God manifested his providence through those people. All they asked was "what did you do to these people, what did you do to the man?" Legally, they could not find anything against me. Eventually, the Director told me "gentleman, go ahead with your work but just be careful." Just as Agomoh told you in his interview, they came after me. I was going around with my eyes and ears wide open. I had to move house three times. They came to my first house and asked after a Nigerian pastor who lived there. But because the people knew the whole story they told them I no longer lived there. I peeped through my window and I saw them, including Prophet Ben. I would be driving and see the Jeep I used to drive when I worked with Joshua trailing me. At some point, Joshua himself called my in-laws in Ghana to warn them that the life of their daughter was not safe with me. All that was meant to pressure them to take their daughter from me so that I would be indicted by the immigration office. It was a big war but I left the battle to God believing that if he was the one who awakened me He would protect me. And they failed over and again.

ON WHETHER HE WAS INITIATED INTO THE CULT

With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that being sent to Ghana was my saving grace. I believe I am like the Biblical Joseph sent out to perish. I figured that he sent me here to labour and languish until I would have been totally forgotten. So all those allegations of initiations that Brother Agomoh made were things I was not privy to. He never initiated me. I know the mountain that Agomoh talked about. It is a wooden structure on a swampy area. The chamber where I used to live in Nigeria before he sent me to Ghana was not too far from the mountain. Monkeys, snakes and all kinds of stuff were there. The few times I accompanied him there he always asked me to wait for him. I guess he knew I had a different spirit. God never allowed me to get that dose to him. The times I went with him to the mountain, he asked me to wait, climbed up into the place for about five to ten minutes supposedly to pray, and came back. I believe it was divine providence that shielded me. Another thing is that he never ordained me. I did not see Joshua practicing occultic things, but his actions and behaviour pointed to that direction. I can emphatically say that he told us he was born-again from his mother's womb. Is he Jesus Christ? This is one of the tricks he uses to manipulate people to achieve his own end. I think he is egocentric, selfish and over-ambitious. He wants to conquer the whole world. When you look at his traits, they are the traits of the anti-Christ.

ON LIFE AFTER THE SYNAGOGUE

I began to enjoy the full Christian life after I left Joshua. That was when I began to see myself as a free child of God. In the past, I was a slave, serving man thinking I was serving God. After all these years, I regained my original love for God. At the Salvation Army I had done all their correspondence courses from elementary to intermediate to graduate Bible courses. In my journey back to God, I connected with true men of God. The first person I went to see was Bishop Charles Agyn-Asare. We had a one-on-one discussion and he counseled me and encouraged me. I did a lot of research and reading and I realized that all of Joshua's teachings were rubbish. They are misleading and had no Biblical basis. Agomoh talked about some of his regulations concerning food. To think that we submitted and subjected ourselves to all that rubbish still makes me shudder! I think God just wanted me to have adequate experience of life and knowledge of human beings in particular as a prelude to what He has called me to do. God allowed me to go into the wilderness so that I would be able to sanctify my body, my soul and my spirit. I wouldn't say I was a saint in the Salvation Army even though I was in the Boys Scout, a youth leader, and a singer. Then I perceived that God had a great plan for my life but I did not quite know how it would unfold. I believe God allowed my journey into The Synagogue so that I would be an agent of change, an agent of enlightenment to the world.

ON JOSHUA'S CHARITABLE DEEDS

The love and kindness he displays are a pretense. They are satanic antics to draw people who are not discerning and are not strong in the Lord to himself. The mission of Satan is to steal, to kill and to destroy. But he would not come directly to tell you, 'I want to kill you. He starts by baiting you. He entices you, making you believe that he can be of great support and benefit to you. He can even give you money. By the time realization dawns on you, you are staring at your death sentence. I just want the entire world to know that not all that glitters is gold. When you go to that place it is like a concentration camp, just as Agomoh said because of God's divine plan for my life, I was shielded from these experiences. But I witnessed me of these things. Many of those young people cannot go out until they have obtained a pass directly from him. As at the time I left, there were about 300 of them between the ages of 14 - 21 years.

ON JOSHUA'S RELATIONSHIP WITH GHANA'S PRESIDENT, PROFESSOR JOHN ATTA-MILLS

By the way, I introduced President John Atta-Mills to him. When you introduced anyone to him, before you know it he would have collected the person's contact address, telephone and every other important information about that person. The next time he is coming to town that person will be the first to know before you. Professor Atta-Mills had a niece who was married to a late minister. The man was suffering from cancer and I was representing Joshua here. She came when we were in Achimota and told me about the husband's illness. I asked the lady to call me the next day. My plan was to book an appointment for them to see Joshua. Unfortunately, the next day the lady called me to say "Peter, I've lost him." I felt very bad. I collected her contact address and traced her to their family house at a place called Madina. That was the first day I met Prof. John Atta-Mills, then the Vice-President of Ghana. The lady introduced Prof. as her Uncle. I later briefed Joshua about my meeting with the Vice-President and he immediately became interested. He wanted me to arrange with the lady how he could meet the Prof. for him it was an opportunity to make contacts in high places that must not be missed. I informed the lady and she agreed to facilitate it. Joshua came to Ghana and the lady came to my house with the driver and picked us. We went straight to the castle into the Vice-President's office. That was sometime in 1999. He collected the Prof's phone number and that was it. They talk about prophecy; I can tell you it is all manipulated. Joshua is a good listener. When you talk with him, he is listening for what he can use to his advantage. During the Ghana elections, he had his ears tuned to the news. He was calling non-stop to monitor the progress. He did not predict anything. Everybody knew in Ghana there was going to be a second run-off election. Although I have never met the President since he came into office, I can tell you from what I know of Joshua that he was the one mounting pressure on the President to come to Nigeria. That is how he operates. The Professor is a good Christian, but he is also a politician anyway. I believe with time his eyes would open to the truth. After his election, I congratulated him in the Daily Graphic and I told him to beware of some pastors running after him. He should be focused on God, because it is God who placed him in this office, not man as is being speculated. As I said, the President is a Christian and his wife as well. I believe God will reveal the whole thing to them in due course. God will never hide it. If people like us could fall into his (Joshua) trap and by the grace of God we came out, definitely He would do it again for anyone else. But I have a problem with some pastors. Most of the great men of God here know Joshua is not of God but they are not bold to proclaim it unlike our Nigerian counterparts.

ON HIS CONTINUED SAFETY

With God on my side, I feel safe and secure but my eyes are still open. But whenever I visit Nigeria I prepare like someone going to war. I would call my family members in advance and inform them of my proposed visit. Every one of them in the security service is put on notice and on the alert. They also will do their security groundwork preparatory to my visit. I know he has soldiers, police and other security agents in the church and he uses them to do any dirty job. Honestly it's like they have sold their conscience when called upon to execute such assignments. I am aware of all these so when I travel home I do so with care and caution.

 © Life way

October 03, 2009