How TB Joshua’s presence transformed a local economy

While he lived, Temitope Balogun Joshua, popularly known as TB Joshua, was a star on the turf where he played. He was a strong testimony or proof of how the presence of such a star could impact on local business and change its story.

A Nigerian charismatic pastor, televangelist and philanthropist, Joshua hailed from Arigidi-Akoko in Ondo State, but was well established in Egbe, a Lagos suburb, where he founded and led the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN).

SCOAN is a Christian mega-church where over 15,000 Nigerian and foreign worshippers gather every Sunday for church service. The church also runs the Emmanuel TV station from Lagos.

Before the coming of this church in the early 1990s, Egbe was an unknown quantity – a sleepy rural community nestled between Ejigbo, Idimu and Ijegun. It was a very difficult environment that could only be accessed through Isolo-Ejigbo Road linked to Ikotun by a narrow bridge, or through Ikotun-Idimu Road.

Its lack of basic amenities and good access roads made people avoid taking residence or setting up business there. Land value in that community, by this time, was very low as there were no buyers.

“When I came here to buy land, a plot of land was selling for just N5,000 and that was in the early 1990s. Everywhere was bush. I was scared. I came with N25,000 intent on buying five plots but ended up buying just one, out of fear. That one plot is where I built the house I live in today,” William Adekoya, a retired civil servant, told BusinessDay.

House rent, according to him, was very low with a three-bedroom flat going for between N20,000 and N30,000 per annum. He added that there were only a few serious businesses in the community as most of the residents were civil servants which was also why demand for apartments was very low.

Adekoya recalled that some of his mates who were courageous enough to buy more plots are reaping the benefits today, because they have built schools or more houses for rent.

“By then, the big houses you could see here were churches like St Francis Catholic and Our Saviour’s Anglican Church,” he noted.

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However, over the years, as Synagogue came with its peculiar stone architecture that can only be likened to churches in Jerusalem or Rome, and continued to grow and attract worshippers from across the country and beyond, the story of Egbe as a rural community changed.

The impact of the church on the people and business became quite significant as years passed by. As the number of people, including locals and foreigners, coming to worship in the church grew, the need for good roads and constant electricity supply also arose.

Apart from using its influence on ‘NEPA’ to ensure constant power supply in the community, the church also bought transformers for the community where there was need and also assisted the local government authorities to patch up failed portions of the road leading to the church.

Constant power supply coupled with improved road network – including Isolo-Ejigbo-Ikotun Road, Ilewe-Liasu Road and Isheri-LASU Road – buoyed the growth of small businesses many of which depended more on patronage from the church than the community residents.

Most significantly, the church has been a boon to real estate business. The story of the community’s property market changed and became that of boom, value appreciation and strong uptick.

SCOAN is the singular reason for the growth of hotel business in this otherwise sleepy community hitherto unknown for tourism or found anywhere in an analysis of the hospitality industry in Lagos in particular and Nigeria at large.

Hotel business in this locality has been flourishing driven mostly by religious tourists who visit the Synagogue for various religious reasons top of which is miracle for healing and deliverance.

In the last 10 years, investment in this business has been huge. Investors from far and near have committed sizeable capital to the business such that over 50 hotels of varying sizes have been built and many more still under construction. Pre-pandemic room rates averaged N15,000 per night.

There are also guest houses whose operators acquire flats or whole residential buildings from landlords and convert same to short-let accommodation for Synagogue worshippers.

“This has been good business here, according to Bennett Ezeugwu, a guest house operator, pointing out, however, that since March last year, the business has been slowing because of Covid-19,” Ezeugwu said.

“Before Covid, we were charging between N2,500 and N5,000 per night, depending on the level of facilities available,” he said.

Residential and commercial properties have seen significant rise in demand by people wanting to live or set up business in the locality.

“We have seen almost 100 percent increase in house rent in this locality because of rising demand. There is high influx of people into this area and also people coming to Synagogue for healing,” Olusola Osho, a lawyer and property broker, confirmed to BusinessDay in Egbe.

Small businesses are not left out in this phenomenal growth. Restaurants, mini-supermarkets, electronic home appliances and sundry businesses are all flourishing in this community, deriving their growth from the expanding market.

“Yes, this has been the reality of this community and you cannot take away the influence of the Synagogue Church in all of this. Property prices and rent are higher in Egbe than the adjoining areas like Ejigbo or Idimu. Ditto for the cost of food and other household items. It is about the church,” Osho noted.

But, last Saturday, June 5, what was clearly an eclipse enveloped the Egbe community. TB Joshua died at the age of 57 from an undisclosed cause. And the church, for now, faces an uncertain, indeterminate future.

Speculations are mixed on how Joshua’s exit will affect business and other aspects of existence in the Egbe community, but the belief among most residents is that the impact will be severe, especially for real estate business.

“Something great has happened in this place with the death of that pastor. It is not only about the church and its members; that man was a philanthropist of the first order. Widows in particular and the community in general will miss him greatly,” Solomon Ozioma, an Egbe resident, lamented.

Ezeugwu took it further, saying that Joshua’s death has affected many families whose children he has given scholarships to study abroad. Such families and their children, he noted, cannot cry enough over this loss.

“For us, our business has finally been laid to rest with this unfortunate loss. I have two guest houses I built with my hard-earned money. What do I do with these buildings now? Yes, people say you can convert them into flats for rent, but where is the money with high price of building materials?” he lamented.

He, however, hoped that even though the succession plan in the church was not immediately known, there were some people the pastor trained that could take over the leadership of the church.

“If that happens and miracle starts happening again, things might not be as bad as we expect,” he said.

Osho noted that the incident would negatively affect the property market in that community, stressing that hotel business would be the worst hit.

“The collapse of the church’s guest house in 2014 with heavy casualties affected this business. Covid-19 also had its impact. The pastor’s death is, to me, the final nail on the coffin,” Osho said.

“Some of the hotel business operators took bank credit to build their facilities. Some of them are still under construction. And now this has happened. It is really going to be hard for all of us because, even as agents, we are going to have a share of the pain, one way or another,” he said.

Though Osho sees many of the hotels and guest houses being converted or reconverted, as the case may be, into flats for rent, he does not see that dragging down rents in that community where, according to him, a room and parlour self-contained goes for between N250,000 and N300,000; two bedroom, N300,000 and N350,000, and three bedroom, N450,000 and N500,000 per annum.

“Ours is a unique economy where price is not determined by the market forces of demand and supply. Otherwise, one would expect that when more rooms are offloaded into the market, rents would drop. But the inflationary trends which have pushed building material prices to the rooftop would not allow that to happen,” he noted.