The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has denied carrying a placard in protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that the widely circulated photograph was taken during a 2020 prayer walk against insecurity.
Adeboye said the incident occurred five years after Jonathan left office in May 2015, accusing journalists of misrepresenting the event and failing to verify the circumstances surrounding it.
The cleric spoke on Sunday during the church’s November Thanksgiving service, where he criticised a report that portrayed him as having carried a placard against Jonathan while he was president.
“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 for churches to organise prayer walks around their premises.
He said the event took place in 2020, during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, and was intended to pray against insecurity and killings across the country.
“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,” he said.
The cleric accused a journalist of twisting the facts, saying the report gained widespread acceptance without anyone checking the details.
He recalled his exposure to journalism studies in the 1960s, stressing the importance of investigating claims before publication.
“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, “Things don’t appear as they may seem. Investigate, if you have a story, before you take it to the press.”
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Adeboye also expressed disappointment that members of the creative industry had accepted the report without verifying its claims.
On February 2, 2020, Adeboye led RCCG members on a prayer walk in Lagos to express concern over killings and insecurity in Nigeria.
The procession, which followed a three-day fasting and prayer programme declared by the Christian Association of Nigeria, began at the church’s national headquarters in Ebute Meta, proceeded towards Atan Cemetery in Yaba and returned to the church.
Photographs from the exercise showed Adeboye carrying a placard with the inscription, “All Souls Are Precious to God.”
The photograph later circulated on social media alongside claims that he had protested against Jonathan’s administration.
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