Popular Nigerian ‘Prophet’ T.B. Joshua has reached an impressive milestone on social video-sharing site YouTube with his Christian channel ‘Emmanuel TV’ recording 200,000 ‘subscribers’.
Joshua’s controversial videos have been viewed 70,000,000 times on YouTube with one clip of an alleged ‘deliverance’ titled, ‘No Man Can Resist My Body’ amassing a whopping 6,000,000 views in just over one year.
Emmanuel TV tops the YouTube ranks in Nigeria, some of its closest competitors being Nollywood Pictures with 195,000 subscribers, Channels TV with 188,000, comedian AY with 179,000 and online news platform Sahara Reporters with 99,000.
In religious circles, Joshua’s channel is among the most viewed worldwide, foreign counterparts such as Bishop TD Jakes with 127,000 subscribers, Joseph Prince with 147,000, Joel Osteen with 75,000 and Joyce Meyer only 58,000.
Despite being among the richest and most influential in the world, Joshua’s fellow religious leaders in Nigeria are lagging far behind in online video viewing. Redeemed Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s official channel has 15,000 subscribers, Sam Adeyemi’s Day Star church has 2,500 and David Oyedepo’s Winners Chapel has 4,300.
Some of Emmanuel TV’s clips have reached international media, the most recent being the alleged deliverance of a young man from a ‘homosexual demon’ which was featured on the website of The Daily Mail in UK, the world’s most popular English news site.
Google recently announced the most viewed YouTube in Nigeria as the emotional breakdown of former Nigerian first lady Patience Jonathan when she tearfully declared, ‘There is God-o’ in a belated reaction to the kidnapping of the Chibok girls by Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram.
According to Alexa, YouTube is the third most popular website in the world, following Google and Facebook. The channel of Swedish gamer ‘PewDiePie’ holds the record for the most subscribed YouTube channel ever, with over 37,000,000 followers.
Ihechukwu Njoku – freelance Nigerian journalist
