Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), has clarified that the placard he carried in 2020 was part of a prayer walk against insecurity, not protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Adeboye accused journalists of misrepresenting the date he carried a placard during a prayer walk, saying the report falsely linked the incident to former Jonathan’s administration.
The cleric spoke on Sunday during the church’s November Thanksgiving service.
Adeboye said the incident occurred in 2020, five years after Jonathan left office in 2015, insisting that the walk was organised to pray against insecurity and killings in the country.
He recounted how the report portrayed him as a wicked man for carrying a placard allegedly against the former president.
He said the report gained widespread acceptance without journalists verifying the circumstances surrounding the incident.
“Recently, somebody wrote in the papers, or said somehow, ‘Pastor Adeboye is a very wicked man. After all, we know that not too long ago, he carried a placard against President Goodluck Jonathan,’” he said.
While admitting that he carried a placard, the cleric insisted that the exercise was a prayer walk and not a protest against Jonathan.
“True, I carried a placard. I can’t deny that. It was important. It was a prayer walk. We wanted to pray.
“The CAN chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That’s what I did,” he said.
He explained that the exercise followed a directive asking churches to organise prayer walks around their premises by the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN).
The cleric argued that the date of the incident contradicted the claim that he had carried the placard against Jonathan while he was president.
“But I carried the placard in 2020. Jonathan ceased to be president in 2015.
“I carried the placard five years in the second term of Buhari,” Adeboye said.
He accused the journalist of distorting the facts and criticised the failure to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident before publishing the report.
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