The terrorist attack alleged by Nigerian Prophet T.B. Joshua as the cause of a guest-house collapse in his church on Friday 12th September 2014 has taken a new development with the release of a picture claiming to reveal the ‘strange aircraft’ involved.

A Facebook post from ‘TB Joshua Ministries’ stated a South African visitor named Shadrack Mamzini to The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) took a picture of the suspicious aircraft on the day of the tragic incident.

“While I was taking the last picture, I saw a very big aircraft,” said a statement attributed to Mamzini on Facebook. “It was something which was unusual in the way it looked. It did not look like a passenger plane or an ordinary plane. My worry was that it was too low to the building.”

Joshua had earlier narrated on Sunday 14th September 2014 how a ‘strange airplane’ had flown over the building four times before its tragic collapse, accompanying CCTV footage showing the planes movement.

“By the time the incident happened and the man of God spoke about it, I went back to check all the photos I had taken,” Mamzini continued.

“I zoomed in on this picture where I saw the aircraft clearly.”

Several online commentators quickly suggested on Facebook that the aircraft in question was a military transport plane. Dele Cooke from Scotland observed, “That is a C130 Hercules. The Americans used to push trays of explosives out of the tailgate in Vietnam. The Nigerian Air Force owns a few.”

Patrick from Zambia corroborated this assertion. “This aircraft looks to me like a Hercules C-130 – the propellers are pretty obvious… Investigative bodies need to look into this incident closely,” he advised.

Paul Cevis, an American insinuated the same. “If the noise of its 4 turboprop engines did cause the catastrophe, they need to sue the builder,” he commented.

An online Nigerian traffic update site, ‘Gidi-Traffic’ further tweeted how ‘a military plane’ was sighted in Ikotun coinciding with the time of the deadly collapse.

Various clips showing the security footage of the shocking incident made public by Joshua on Sunday have elicited a wide spectrum of reactions, the most popular version viewed over 350,000 times on YouTube already.

Multiple commentators drew similarities between the swift manner the church guesthouse collapsed with ‘controlled demolitions’.

“My German friends who are specialists in demolition of houses saw this and concluded immediately that it’s a “kontrollierte Sprengung” – that was said in unison without hesitation,” one YouTube user known by the name Oxygen CX commented.

“This is a controlled demolition,” another YouTuber agreed. “The land underneath the building was cleared with explosives first in order for it to fall straight down. I’m a mechanical engineer and can vouch for this.”

In related events, a 48 hour ultimatum has been given to the Nigerian government by The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) to make public their investigations into the incident.

“The (SCOAN) location is far from any approach to the Ikeja or any airport in Lagos hence it is abnormal for any plane to head for the location at all,” the statement read, warning that the United Nations would be informed if findings were not unveiled transparently.

The SCOAN released an official statement early on Thursday 18th September, commiserating with family members of the affected and stressing its commitment to ensure “survivors are rescued, attended to with the best medical treatment, cared for in the most humane and hospitable manner and reunited with their families, while those who passed on – martyrs of the Kingdom of God – are retrieved, identified and treated respectfully.”

Ihechukwu Njoku – freelance Nigerian journalist

SOURCES:
– SCOAN Statement –
http://www.scoan.org/blog/statement-from-the-synagogue-church-of-all-nations-
in-respect-of-the-friday-september-12-2014-incident/
– SCOAN Facebook Post With Plane Picture –
http://www.facebook.com/tbjministries/posts/719283484859097
– YouTube Collapse Clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHJfGVmuYHg
– Human Rights Statement –
http://www.nigerianobservernews.com/18092014/news/news10.html