Preacher’s spiritual healing brings big
bucks to Lagos
Business booming in streets around church that draws 50,000 worshippers a week

Hallelujah … the faith of thousands is also a business opportunity
Monica Mark Lagos
In Africa’s largest metropolis, the district of Ikotun Egbe has turned into a boom town. The draw? Temitope Balogun Joshua, one of Nigeria’s richest “super-pastors”, whose church attracts 50,000 worshippers weekly – more than the combined number of visitors to Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London.
Seeking promises of prosperity and life-changing spiritual experiences, visitors flock from around the globe. Enterprising Lagos residents – those not turfed out by landlords turning their properties into hotels – have transformed the rundown area into a hotbed of business.
On a Saturday afternoon, traffic swirls around the four-storey, giant-columned Synagogue Church of All Nations. Delegates are pouring in for the following day’s service. “They should really build a branch in South Africa – it’s a long way to come and the hotels here are so-so,” says Mark, a sunburnt businessman from Johannesburg, accompanied by two friends from Botswana.
As the church’s palm tree-lined entrance gives way to a maze of narrow, unpaved roads, knots of touts materialise. “In one year I made enough money to buy my first car,” says Chris, using a tattered hotel brochure to mop his brow. He is paid 100 naira (about 40p) for each client he brings in.

Pentecostalism took off in African states battered by the world economy
Sparkling new hotels rise incongruously among the shacks. At one, with a logo suspiciously similar to the Sheraton’s, a new chef has recently been employed.
“He can cook food from Singapore, because we were having a lot of guests from there who struggle with Nigerian food,” says the manager, Ruky, sitting at a reception desk framed by pictures of the preacher.
Tony Makinwa says most of his laundry firm’s profits come from tourists. “God has favoured my business. People come here and fall in love with the place and overstay their visits,” he says.
Also doing a roaring trade are the international calling centres with foreign visitor discounts, clothes shops offering outfits to celebrate miracles, and the plastic chair rentals that cater for church overspill.
The area’s dirt streets are punctured by unfinished, barnlike buildings as dozens of other churches offer all-day worship. Almost as many mosques dot the area. Islam and Christianity are growing at blistering paces across Africa, with Nigeria home to the continent’s most populous mix of both faiths.
Money-changer Sidi Bah has travelled thousands of miles from Mali to continue his trade here. “I came because I heard many people from many countries visit. In one day I can change six or seven different types of currency,” he says. “There are more mosques here than in my village in [Muslim] Mali.”
Though its roots in Africa go back to the early 20th century, miracle-promising Pentecostal churches took off in the 1980s as African economies were battered by falling world commodity prices. Migrants poured into slums in search of jobs and dreams.
Ruky converted her cramped home into a 20-bed lodging where rural workers stay for 800 naira a night. Mattresses are half price. “If you are sick like me, you have no job, so you are used to sleeping on the floor anyhow,” says Andrew Olagbele, whose spine was crushed by a car accident, lying on a mattress in a crammed room. “I pray the Lord will touch me so I can walk again.”
As dusk sets in, cars stream in. A man hanging from a car thundering gospel songs waves homemade CDs for sale. Denis Kokou and his wife, a baby on her hip, look on with weary smiles. “This is our first time coming from [neighbouring state] Togo. We are so happy to be here with our daughter.”

[img]http://steelturman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451bab869e20120a5e73293970b-800wi[/img]

I live in Lagos nd I dnt even know the place.oga o .