The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has dismissed reports claiming he staged a protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that the procession in question was a prayer walk against insecurity in Nigeria.
Adeboye addressed the controversy during a sermon to his congregation on Sunday, 1 November 2026, explaining that the event took place in 2020, five years after Jonathan left office.
The cleric said the exercise was organised to draw attention to the growing insecurity and killings across the country, rather than to protest against any political leader.
He expressed displeasure over what he described as the misrepresentation of the event, accusing a journalist of twisting his account and portraying him as having deliberately targeted the former president.
Adeboye admitted carrying a placard during the procession but maintained that it was part of a prayer walk organised in response to a directive encouraging churches to pray against insecurity.
He said, “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.’
“True, I carried a placard. I can’t deny that. It was important. It was a prayer walk. We wanted to pray.”
Explaining the circumstances behind the exercise, the RCCG leader said church leaders had been encouraged to organise prayer walks within their communities.
“The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That’s what I did,” he added.
He further argued that the timing of the procession made the allegation against Jonathan inaccurate, noting that the former president 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 said.
The cleric also criticised the journalist responsible for the report, accusing the individual of distorting his account and failing to verify the circumstances surrounding the procession before publication.
“But a journalist twisted it. I said, I did what I did in 2015. And everybody swallowed it,” he said.
On 2 February 2020, Adeboye led members of the RCCG in a peaceful prayer walk across Lagos to draw attention to the killings and worsening insecurity in Nigeria.
The exercise was part of a wider initiative by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which had called for three days of fasting followed by a nationwide prayer walk against terrorism and insecurity.
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