The RCCG General Overseer says he carried the placard during a prayer walk against insecurity and killings in 2020, five years after Goodluck Jonathan left office, accusing journalists of publishing claims without proper investigation.

The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has accused some journalists of distorting facts about a prayer walk he led in 2020, saying a photograph from the event was wrongly presented as evidence that he had protested against former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Adeboye said the incident took place five years after Jonathan left office in May 2015, insisting that the exercise had nothing to do with the former president or his administration.

The cleric spoke on Sunday during the church's November Thanksgiving service, where he expressed disappointment over what he described as the careless handling of information by some media practitioners.

Recounting how the controversy started, Adeboye said a report had portrayed him as a wicked person for allegedly carrying a placard against Jonathan while he was president.

He said he was initially amused by the allegation because, although he did carry a placard, the circumstances surrounding the photograph had been misrepresented.

According to him, the exercise was a prayer walk organised to seek divine intervention over the worsening insecurity and killings across Nigeria.

"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 prayer walk followed a directive from the church leadership encouraging congregations to organise prayer exercises around their respective locations.

"The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That's what I did," he added.

However, he stressed that the date of the exercise clearly contradicted claims linking the photograph to Jonathan's presidency.

"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," the cleric said.

He accused the journalist responsible for the report of twisting the facts and expressed concern that the allegation was widely accepted without efforts to establish the actual circumstances surrounding the photograph.

Adeboye also questioned the failure of journalists to verify the information before publishing it, recalling lessons from his exposure to journalism studies in the 1960s.

He said investigative journalism requires reporters to go beyond what appears on the surface and establish the truth before taking a story to the public.

"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 further advised journalists and members of the creative industry to cultivate the habit of checking facts before publishing information, warning that misleading reports could shape public perception unfairly.

"That things don't appear as they may seem. Investigate, if you have a story, before you take it to the press," he added.

Addressing members of the creative industry, the RCCG leader expressed disappointment that nobody appeared to have checked the original details of the incident before accepting the claims.

"I'm talking to those of you in the creative industry. Nobody checked," he said.

How the 2020 Prayer Walk Started

On February 2, 2020, Adeboye led members of the RCCG on a prayer walk in Lagos as part of efforts to draw attention to the killings, terrorism and growing insecurity across Nigeria.

The exercise followed a three-day fasting and prayer programme declared by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which called on Christians to seek divine intervention over the country's security challenges.

Reports published at the time said the procession started at the RCCG national headquarters in Ebute Meta, Lagos, proceeded towards Atan Cemetery in Yaba and later returned to the church.

Photographs from the exercise showed Adeboye carrying a placard with the inscription, “All Souls Are Precious to God.”

The prayer walk took place during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, who succeeded Jonathan in May 2015.

However, the photograph later circulated on social media alongside claims suggesting that Adeboye had carried the placard in protest against Jonathan's government.

The cleric has now challenged that narrative, insisting that the 2020 exercise was strictly a prayer walk against insecurity and had been wrongly presented to the public.