Adeboye explains 2020 placard photo, says it was not protest against Jonathan
Pastor Enoch Adeboye
Abdullateef Fowewe
Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), has clarified that a widely circulated photograph of him carrying a placard was not a protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Speaking during the church’s November Thanksgiving Service on Sunday, Adeboye said the image has been wrongly linked to Jonathan’s administration.
“True, I carried a placard and I can’t deny that, it wasn’t a protest, it was a prayer walk,” he stated.
He explained that the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) directed churches to organise prayer walks near their premises as part of a three-day fasting and prayer programme over rising killings and insecurity.
“We wanted to pray and the CAN chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches and that’s what I did in Ebute Metta,” Adeboye said.
The event took place on February 2, 2020, in Lagos during the second term of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Adeboye carried a placard reading “All Souls Are Precious to God.”
Jonathan left office in May 2015, five years earlier.
“Jonathan ceased to be president in 2015. I carried the placard five years into the second term of Buhari but it was twisted that I did what I did in 2015 and everybody swallowed it,” he added.
Adeboye criticised the failure to verify the date and context of the old photograph before it was shared as evidence of a protest against Jonathan.
The clarification comes amid renewed circulation of the image on social media, with some posts presenting it as proof that the cleric had publicly opposed Jonathan while remaining silent on later administrations.
Adeboye maintained that the exercise was purely a prayer walk organised under CAN’s directive and not a political demonstration against any government.
