Adeboye Clears The Air On Carrying Placard In Protest Against Jonathan

The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has accused media commentators and internet users of misrepresenting the timeline of his public prayer walk, setting the record straight regarding claims that he led a placard-bearing protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

Clarifying the timeline during the church’s November Thanksgiving service on Sunday, Adeboye explained that the exercise took place in February 2020—five full years after Jonathan vacated office in 2015—and was structured as a spiritual prayer walk against nationwide insecurity rather than a partisan political rally.

The renowned cleric noted that false narratives had circulated portraying him as selective in his public interventions, alleging that critics falsely tied his 2020 anti-insecurity walk to Jonathan’s tenure.

“Recently, just one mischievous 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,’” Adeboye recounted to his congregation.

The RCCG leader stated that while he indeed carried a placard, the event was organized strictly in compliance with directives issued by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to pray for national peace.

“True, I carried a placard. I can’t deny that. It was important. It was a prayer walk. We wanted to pray,” he said.

“The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That’s what I did,” Adeboye added.

He emphasized that the basic dates of the event completely dismantle the narrative circulating across social media platforms.

“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.

Criticizing the lack of verification by writers and commentators who spread the narrative, the cleric expressed concern over the decline of investigative standards in public discourse.

“But a journalist twisted it. I said, I did what I did in 2015. And everybody swallowed it,” the cleric remarked.

“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 recalled.

“That things don’t appear as they may seem. Investigate, if you have a story, before you take it to the press,” Adeboye warned, adding, “I’m talking to those of you in the creative industry. Nobody checked.”

Historical records confirm that on February 2, 2020, Pastor Adeboye led thousands of RCCG members from the church’s national headquarters at Throne of Grace, Ebute Meta, through Yaba, Lagos, in a solemn procession following a three-day national fast declared by CAN over Boko Haram attacks and general insecurity.

Photographs from the 2020 exercise, which occurred under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure, showed the cleric holding a placard with the inscription “All Souls Are Precious to God”—images that were subsequently recirculated out of context online to suggest a protest against the earlier Jonathan administration.