Emmanuel Joshua

Temitope Balogun Joshua (12 June 1963 – 5 June 2021) was a Nigerian charismatic pastor and televangelist. He was the leader and founder of Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), a Christian megachurch that runs the Emmanuel TV television station from Lagos, Nigeria. Joshua was widely known across Africa and Latin America and had a large social media presence with over six million fans on Facebook. His YouTube channel, Emmanuel TV, had over one million subscribers and was the most-viewed Christian ministry on the platform before the channel was suspended by YouTube in 2021 for alleged homophobic hate speech. Joshua was described by media outlets as the "Oprah of Evangelism" and "YouTube's most popular pastor". Joshua was awarded various accolades, notably receiving the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) by the Nigerian government in 2008 and being voted the Yoruba man of the decade by Pan-Yoruba media outlet Irohin-Odua. He was called one of Africa's 50 most influential people by Pan-African magazines The Africa Report and New African Magazine. By 2011, according to Forbes, Joshua was Nigeria's third-richest pastor, although the claim was immediately denied in a statement by the church. Joshua was a prominent public figure throughout his life, known for both his religious outreach and humanitarian works, as well as controversies, including being blacklisted by the government of Cameroon in 2010. He died on 5 June 2021 after one of his evening services in...