Speaking during a sermon on Sunday, November 1, Adeboye clarified that the incident actually occurred in 2020, five years after Jonathan left office in 2015. He explained that the procession was a prayer walk organised to seek divine intervention over the rising insecurity and killings across the country.
The cleric expressed displeasure over the false portrayal, saying the reports had wrongly presented him as someone who deliberately staged a protest against the former president.
He also criticised the circulation of the misleading narrative, noting that it was accepted by many without proper journalistic verification of the facts.
“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,” he said.
Explaining the circumstances surrounding the procession, Adeboye said it was organised in response to a directive issued to churches by Christian leaders as part of a collective effort to address insecurity through prayers.
“The chairman said all churches should do a prayer walk near their churches. That’s what I did,” he added.
The RCCG leader further stressed that the date of the exercise disproved claims that it was directed against Jonathan’s administration.
“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.
He accused the journalist responsible for the report of distorting his account and faulted the media for failing to verify the timeline before publishing the story.
“But a journalist twisted it. I said, I did what I did in 2015. And everybody swallowed it,” he said.
On February 2, 2020, Adeboye led RCCG members in a peaceful prayer walk across Lagos as part of efforts to draw attention to the persistent killings and insecurity in Nigeria.
The exercise followed a directive by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which had called for a three-day fasting programme culminating in a nationwide prayer walk against terrorism and insecurity.
