Nigerian ‘Prophet’ T.B. Joshua has sensationally claimed he predicted how the debris, said to belong to the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, would wash up on the shore of Reunion Island to the West of the Indian Ocean.

It is not the first time Joshua has prophesied about the plane, as his alleged ‘prediction’ of the mysterious disaster 16 months ago went viral, attracting international media attention and garnering over 1,000,000 views in a matter of days.

On Friday 31st July, a YouTube video was uploaded to the religious channel ‘Emmanuel TV’, showing three separate occasions where the Nigerian cleric spoke about the missing aircraft, revealing specific details of its fate and whereabouts.

In the first clip dated March 15th 2014, a week after the plane’s disappearance, Joshua waded into the controversy over its location, stating the search should be intensified “between the sea of Indonesia and the Indian Ocean.”

“The particles have gone swimming everywhere,” he vividly illustrated. “It was seized by an object down in the sea.”

Joshua described that parts of the aircraft would only begin to surface after it had ‘decayed’. “When it decays and becomes particles, little bodies could come up on the sea,” he explained.

He then boldly declared the mystery would eventually be put to rest as ‘they will discover the particles’.

Eight days later on March 23rd 2014, Joshua specified the part of the aircraft in question which would be discovered. “The thing I saw was floating on the sea, which is the hand of the plane,” he said, demonstrating with his arm the shape of a ‘wing’.

He bemoaned people’s unbelief, stating that if relevant authorities had contacted him, he would have given specific details as to the location of the missing plane, even if it meant flying over the exact point in the Indian Ocean.

“When something is on the water floating, can you imagine [it] can travel miles if you do not go there to pick [up] the thing which is very close,” he surmised.

The cleric, who is well known for his impressive portfolio of purportedly accurate predictions, encouraged people who questioned his prophetic insight to check his ‘antecedents’ online.

Several weeks later on April 12th 2014, Joshua reiterated his prediction that ‘something held’ the plane deep within the ocean but ‘particles’ of it would eventually surface.

“Go to the shore.” he stated. “You will see some of the facts, evidence – bags, luggage. It has gone to the shore where it cannot move any longer.” He specified the shore in question was “towards the west, Indian Ocean.”

The cleric ended by praying for family members of the 239 victims of the tragedy. “We pray for the loved ones that this concerns because their wound is our wound,” he solemnly stated.

Despite the controversies attached, Joshua said that he was under Divine compulsion to prophesy as it was a ‘gift from God’. “If you don’t say it, the gift will remain dormant,” he explained. “If God sends you to say what is going to happen and you do not say it, He will not send you next time.”

Malaysian authorities confirmed that the debris which washed up on Reunion Island, at the West side of the Indian Ocean, is from a Boeing 777, making it almost certainly the first piece of wreckage recovered from missing flight MH370.

The Malaysia Airlines flight was one of only three Boeing 777s to have been involved in major incidents, along with the downing of MH17 over Ukraine last year and the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco airport in 2013.

The component found on the French island bears the number ‘657-BB’, according to photos of the debris, which matches the part for a ‘wing flap’ in the Boeing manufacturer’s manual.

The discovery of the plane debris by a cleaning team on Wednesday sparked worldwide attention, heightened by the discovery on the same rocky beach of a piece of torn luggage, a detergent bottle with Indonesian markings and a Chinese bottle of mineral water.

Environmental experts have explained the plausibility that currents in the Indian Ocean could have carried debris from the crash site in an arch past Indonesia and down to Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar.

The two-metre, barnacle-encrusted chunk of metal debris has been sent to a specialised laboratory in Toulouse, France for further investigations, the outcome of which is expected to be made public in a matter of days.

The controversial prophecy clip was uploaded to Joshua’s YouTube channel ‘Emmanuel TV’, which has over 210,000 subscribers.