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Jonathan Had Left Office’ – Adeboye Breaks Silence on Controversial Placard
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has dismissed reports suggesting that he carried a placard in protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that the exercise was a prayer walk and had nothing to do with the former president.
Adeboye spoke on Sunday during the church’s November Thanksgiving service, where he accused a journalist of distorting the circumstances surrounding the incident and portraying him as a wicked person.
The cleric said he was initially amused after reading a report alleging that he had carried a placard against Jonathan during his administration.
Recounting the report, Adeboye said, “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.’”
While acknowledging that he carried a placard, the RCCG leader maintained that it was part of a prayer exercise organised by churches and not a political demonstration against Jonathan.
“True, I carried a placard. I can’t deny that. It was important. It was a prayer walk. We wanted to pray,” he said.
Adeboye explained that the exercise followed a directive from the chairman of the relevant Christian body asking churches to organise prayer walks around their premises.
“The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That’s what I did,” he added.
He further challenged the accuracy of the report, noting that the placard incident occurred in 2020, five years after Jonathan left office in 2015.
“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 stated.
The cleric accused the journalist of twisting his account and publishing misleading information without properly investigating the circumstances surrounding the prayer walk.
He also criticised what he described as the failure of some journalists to verify information before making it public.
Recalling his exposure to journalism studies in the 1960s, Adeboye said he was taught the importance of investigative journalism and the need to establish facts before publishing a story.
“I remember in those days in the Department of Journalism, when you go there and you take a course, they talked about something called investigative journalism,” he said.
He added, “That things don’t appear as they may seem. Investigate, if you have a story, before you take it to the press.”
