The Malawian-South Africa based Prophet Shepherd Bushiri last week visit to Windhoek in Namibia has enraged some church leaders claiming that he just came in their country to make fortunes for vulnerable and desperate people.
This comes barely a month after Prophet Bushiri visited Malawi amid anxiety and questions the country’s general public have on him as to why he has not embarked huge investments in Malawi but rather in other nations including Tanzania, South Africa, Saud Arabia and South Sudan where he owns gold mines, hotels, and oil wells.
According to that country’s Newspaper- the Namibian over the weekend said Bushiri had a crusade at Sam Nujoma Stadium in Windhoek on Friday, January 29, 2016 which attracted more than 20,000 people whose were estimated to have braved the rains to attend the function.
The Namibian Newspaper compared the number of people who participated the crusade to those attended that country’s independence celebration which attracted social media comments on whether the self-styled Bushiri’s visit to Namibia was purely commercial.
The Newspaper disclosed that a day before the crusade, the Malawian-born prophet had a gala dinner hosted for him at the Ramatex complex where more than 3, 000 people paid N$1,000 each to attend such that 16 people paid amounts ranging between N$10,000 and 110,000 to just sit closer to Bushiri during the gala dinner.
The Namibia further revealed that Prophet Bushiri moved with a police escort and the hotel where he was booked into under police guard which didn’t go down well with that country’s clerks on the extravagancy of the man of God.
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The paper quoted Clem Marais, Deputy President for The Council of
Churches in Namibia expressing concerned with proliferation of churches in their country and fly-by- night prophets.
“Even if we disagree with what is happening, we have no authority or mandate to act on it. We only represent 16 churches in Namibia”, says Marais.
In the same Newspaper, Pastor Fritz Gaweseb, the Leader of the Association of Charismatic and Pentecostal Church of Namibia collaborated with Marais urging people to stop running after prophets for miracles.
“I have serious reservations about Bushiri. He is deceiving people. Is it only foreign pastors that can perform miracles such that people run whenever they come while local churches are empty? The huge crowd at the Sam Nujoma Stadium shows how desperate people are and they look for hope but from the wrong people”, observes Pastor Gaweseb.
However, Namibia’s Home Affairs Minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana said would find out how Bushiri was allowed into that country explaining that the ministry was aware of prophets who come under all sorts of pretext.
“They came here and some of them don’t have any relations with us. Some come through the trade and industry or the health ministry. We are crafting something to look into some these things. Those capitalizing on our circular state come here and practice witchcraft under religious cover”, warned Home Affairs Minister Iivula-Ithana.
But one of the crusade organisers and who is also Home Affair Ministry Spokesperson, Salome Kambala defended Bushiri’s visit arguing that the man of God did not pocket a single penny from the gala dinner where promotional materials such as hats and T-shirts, holy water and anointed oil were sold.