Millionaire Preacher Skips Bail in South Africa, Fueling International Dispute

Shepherd Bushiri, the founder of a megachurch in South Africa, fled to his home country, Malawi, amid fraud and money laundering charges, leaving the two nations to argue over his fate.

Monica Mark
New York Times
November 19, 2020

JOHANNESBURG — Shepherd Bushiri, a multimillionaire pastor with a network of churches across Africa, has claimed he can walk on air and harness the power of God to cure people of H.I.V.

This past week, Mr. Bushiri, 37, appeared to perform another remarkable feat: spiriting himself out of South Africa, where he faces charges of fraud and money laundering, and back to his home country of Malawi, without a passport and undetected by law enforcement officials.

His disappearance has set off a power struggle between the governments of South Africa and Malawi, the small southern African country to which he fled, and which is now facing political pressure to turn him in. In South Africa, it has left ministers scrambling to explain how such a high-profile figure was able to abscond, and exposed serious lapses in the ability of officials to monitor the country’s borders.

Mr. Bushiri amassed tremendous wealth after founding the Enlightened Christian Gathering Church in South Africa’s capital of Pretoria. The megachurch, which he says has at least a million followers in South Africa alone, is one of the fastest-growing churches on the continent, and has branches in several other African countries.

He preaches to congregants, many impoverished and disillusioned, that if they give money to his churches, God will bless them with wealth and health — a brand of Pentecostal Christianity known as “prosperity gospel.” He has attracted attention for his penchant for ostentatious gold jewelry and expensive-looking suits, and for his jet-setting lifestyle traveling between his congregations in a private plane.

Mr. Bushiri has also built up a business empire, with an investment company with interests in mining and real estate. He has tried to use his money to influence politics in his Malawi, and at least one politician from the governing African National Congress in South Africa credits his career to Mr. Bushiri’s blessings.

The case against Mr. Bushiri, his wife, Mary, and two co-defendants involves what prosecutors called a fraudulent “investment scheme” that had allegedly raked in some $6.6 million. But the prosecutors have never released details of the case. The Bushiris were first arrested in connection with the allegations in February 2019 by South Africa’s elite crime-fighting unit, known as the Hawks.

Mr. Bushiri has denied the charges and after skipping bail, posted a statement on Twitter saying that he and his wife fled after years of threats to their lives. He said that his requests for state protection had gone ignored, and that the case against him was “persecution NOT prosecution.”

“Our coming to Malawi, hence, is a tactical withdrawal from the Republic of South Africa solely meant to preserve our lives,” he said. His spokesman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Bushiris had been released on bail this month after a hearing in which supporters chanted and prayed outside the courtroom. Bail conditions included remaining in Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg, where they live, and handing over five passports they each have, according to Aaron Motsoaledi, South Africa’s home affairs minister, speaking in Parliament on Tuesday.

Still, without a single passport in his possession, Mr. Bushiri turned up in his home country of Malawi last weekend, and from there launched an online tirade against South African officials.

The Bushiri affair has now reached the highest levels of government in both countries. On Tuesday, lawmakers in the South African Parliament grilled Mr. Motsoaledi, the minister of home affairs, about the lapses — or, as one suggested, the complicity — that had allowed the flamboyant pastor to flee, saying the blunder exposed flaws in national security.

In Malawi, members of the government were angry that South African officials seemed to suspect that the entourage of the Malawian president, Lazarus Chakwera, had been trying to smuggle the pastor out of South Africa last weekend on a plane belonging to the president’s entourage. The Malawian government released a statement complaining that the presidential entourage was held up for hours at the airport in South Africa.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bushiri and his wife handed themselves in to a police station in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. A police statement, referring to Mr. Bushiri as “the Prophet,” said the pastor and his wife would be interviewed and would then face “a competent court of law in accordance with the prescriptions of law.” After detaining the Bushiris for one night, the authorities released the couple on bail, without requiring them to post a bond.

South Africa wants them extradited. Phumla Williams, a South African government spokeswoman, said in an interview on Wednesday, “We are currently preparing the paperwork to hand over to Malawi.”

Mr. Bushiri and his wife, Mary, in court in Pretoria, South Africa, during a bail application last month. The couple were first arrested in connection with fraud and money laundering allegations in February 2019.

It was unclear whether Malawi would hand over the pastor. Under a regional extradition treaty signed by both countries, any decision to surrender Mr. Bushiri would need to be made by the Malawian Ministry of Justice and approved by President Chakwera, a prominent Pentecostal church leader, who was elected in June of this year.

Returning Mr. Bushiri would risk riling his huge following in Malawi. Tens of thousands flocked to a football stadium there in 2018 to give him a hero’s welcome, with a marching band and security officials escorting him. At that event, Samuel Tembenu, the Malawian minister of justice, gave a speech praising Mr. Bushiri on behalf of the man who was then country’s president, Peter Mutharika.

Gospel Kazako, Malawi’s minister of information, said in an interview, “We are governed by laws, and if the law allows us to send him back we will do so as law.”

Gary Eisenberg, a lawyer based in Cape Town who specializes in immigration and extradition, said, “It really becomes a political question at the end of the day. This is not a South African case any longer, it’s a Malawian case.”

Other legal experts said that another sticking point was that Mr. Bushiri has repeatedly claimed that he will not be guaranteed a fair trial in South Africa — a key requirement of the extradition treaty.

In 2018, Mr. Bushiri lodged his own case against the police, alleging that they had tried to extort him in the course of investigating him on separate, allegations of rape, for which he has not been charged.

Mr. Eisenberg said the pastor appeared to be setting the grounds for his case to be dismissed: “He’s tipping everybody off — he’s saying, listen to me, even the police who investigated me in South Africa are corrupt. So how can the process be unblemished by corruption?”

In 2017, he allegedly promoted a get-rich-quick program to church members, promising a 50 percent profit within a month if they pledged about $6,500 or more to his “commodity investment opportunity,” South African news media reported.

Many who poured their savings into the plan claim they lost their money, while others were advised to deposit their investments with Rising Estates, a company run by close associates of Mr. Bushiri. Police later opened an investigation into the program.

Mr. Bushiri, defending his opulent lifestyle, has said that part of his mission is to enable his congregants to likewise acquire such wealth, and that the church offers what it calls “entrepreneurial programmes and skills development.”

“There is this perception that men of God are not supposed to be rich,” Mr. Bushiri said in an interview on his church website. But, he added: “If you read the Bible, you will note that men of God were rich, including Abraham.”

Ralph Mweninguwe contributed to this story from Lilongwe, Malawi.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/world/africa/south-africa-malawi-shepherd-bushiri.html

Africa's 'Miracle Pastors' Must Be Held Accountable

Leo Igwe
Modern Ghana
January 14, 2018

Botswana has reportedly closed down the Enlightened Christian Gathering Church of the Malawian self-acclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri, citing concerns over 'miracle money' claims. Bushiri's church taught its members that they could make money through acts of magic. The government stated that this teaching violated the laws of the country. This is just one incident among many – recently, there have been many reported cases of abuses and controversial claims by Africa's self-styled pastors, priests, prophets, men and women of God.

In this piece, I discuss why African governments are cracking down on fraudulent miracle pastors and their churches. Their bogus claims and promises deceive, fracture, and extort vulnerable Africans, many of them already in precarious situations that cannot tolerate superstition as the prescription to ameliorate them.

Reckless and irresponsible Claims

Miracle pastors make bogus and absurd claims to demonstrate their divine anointment and supernatural powers. They get their Christian devotees to believe that their counterintuitive declarations are actually direct revelations from God or forms of infallible prophetic verbiage. Despite no medical training, many pastors claim to know the cause and cure of diseases, of death and other misfortunes. They release prophecies pretending to know or predict the future. For instance, Bushiri once claimed that he cured people of HIV and brought the dead back to life. In one of his most notorious acts, Shepherd Bushiri released a video where he supposedly walked on air.

Pastor T.B Joshua and Reverend Enoch Adeboye of Nigeria have made faith healing claims as well as releasing prophetic declarations on the outcome of elections and football matches, aviation accidents and the death of presidents. A Zimbabwean prophet, Paul Sanyangore said he had a direct phone number to Heaven that he used to talk to God. Another pastor claimed that he had taken a selfie with the angels, visited hell and killed Satan. Many African pastors openly and publicly declare that God had spoken to them or that God sent them a message to deliver to their church members.

Drama and Deception

African pastors do not stop at making baseless and unfounded propositions. They dramatize, stage-manage and create scenes that make people believe that their claims are real and factual. The miracle pastors indulge in manipulative and fraudulent schemes to demonstrate the presence of God, their supposedly divine anointing and supernatural powers. Pastors fake being in conversation with God or in communication with the angels or holy spirit. They literally and habitually lie to the face of their congregants. Pastors organize 'faith healing' more accurately described at fake healing sessions. At these events, persons who have been previously briefed or bribed pretend to be blind or lame and subsequently 'receive' healing.

These fraudulent men and women of God organize sessions of exorcism where they fake the expulsion of demons in the form of reptiles or insects from the bodies of their members. One of the aims of these deceptive schemes is to obtain and dispossess gullible folks by trick.

Extortion and Exploitation

Miracle pastors in Africa peddle schemes that make people believe that they can make money through miraculous means. They extort money from their members by marketing 'miracle' money narratives in exchange for cash. For instance, Nigerian pastors have a miracle money scheme known as 'sowing a seed'. These pastors urge their members to 'sow a seed' by giving money to God. They make their church members, most of whom are living on less than $1 a day, believe that the money that they give to God has a multiplier effect. The more they give to God, the pastors claim, the more they will get in return. Furthermore, pastors publish in their bulletins names and testimonies of people who sowed seeds, gave money to God and had returns in proportion to the money, the seeds, that they had sown.

Motivated by these miracle money schemes, church members sometimes go to any length to get money to 'sow a seed' in their churches. They borrow money from friends and family members. People take loans to sow a seed and expect returns that will never come. There have been cases where people used money that was meant to take care of their families, some public funds or money that belong to their workplaces to sow a seed in their churches.

In addition, African pastors market all sorts of materials, water, handkerchiefs, olive oil, and soap. They designate them as holy and by so doing invest them with extra market value. Pastors compel their members to purchase and use these worthless and sometimes harmful 'holy' materials in order to receive divine healing or to enhance their fortune and luck. The time has come for African governments to investigate and shut down these illegal businesses.

Confusion, Division and Conflict in Families

Miracle pastors cause an incredible amount of disruption among African families and communities. They use their prophecies to fuel hatred, suspicion, mistrust, division, and conflict, turning family and community members against each other. African pastors use their so-called prophetic powers to point out those who are responsible for poverty, lack of progress, illness and death in families and communities. Those so identified are often attacked or killed in instances of mob violence.

In one particular case a few years ago, a Nigerian Catholic priest popularly known as Father 'No Nonsense' visited a community in Ihitteafoukwu, in Mbaise in Southern Nigeria. The youths invited this miracle pastor to conduct prayers against unemployment and lack of progress. During the prayer, Fr. No Nonsense claimed that demons preventing the youths in the community from making progress resided in nearby trees. He pointed out some of the trees that hosted these demons and instructed that they should be cut down. Some youths went around felling trees that they believed could be harbouring evil spirits. The demon-tree cutting exercise turned into an opportunity for some youths in the community to settle scores. They felled the trees of neighbours that they hated or envied.

In another case, a member of the community protested after some youth relatives felled a tree in his compound. The youths attacked him with a machete and he shot one of them in the leg. Subsequently, a mob of youths invaded the man's apartment, looted his property and burnt down his house. Such mayhem linked to the prophecies of miracle pastors is a frequent occurrence. African prophets poison family relationships. They instigate quarrels and disputes that linger in various communities.

Abusive and Dehumanizing Treatment

Miracle pastors also subject their members to inhuman and degrading treatment. Pastors abuse and humiliate their congregants publicly and privately, while claiming to be praying for them, or when they are 'exorcising demons'. There have been reports of pastors who ordered their church members to eat grass . Some pastors have told their congregants to drink gasoline or bleach. Other pastors have sprayed insecticide on churchgoers. Another pastor ordered female members to strip naked and he marched on them. The same pastor declared a snake had become chocolate and gave it to the members of his church to eat. A Ghanaian Bishop who claims that he could enlarge the male private organ has been caught in videos caressing the penises of men. Finally, a South African prophet allegedly expelled demons by inserting his hands into the vagina of the congregants.

Death and Health Damage

The activities of some African miracle pastors have also been linked to the deaths or illness of church members. Many churchgoers who are HIV positive died after they discontinued their antiretroviral treatment following instruction from their pastors. Recently, a sick child died at prophet Mboro's church in South Africa. The mother of the child took the girl to prophet Mboro to be healed. The girl eventually died, having not been treated with conventional medicine.

A Nigerian community banished a prophet after a woman who came to seek spiritual help from him died. She died from health complications after the prophet poured a liquid substance on her genitals. Many Africans continue to die or suffer serious illnesses as a result of deceptive miracle pastors. The pastors present themselves as medical doctors, as health experts, and their churches as hospitals. Unfortunately, African governments have done little to address these fraudulent acts.

As a result of the aforementioned factors, miracle pastors are wreaking havoc in families and communities across the region. They peddle falsehoods and propagate baseless and absurd claims. Prophets extort money from their church members using all manner of shady schemes. Miracle pastors fuel hatred, division, and confusion in the society. They perpetrate criminal atrocious acts that damage the health of their church members or lead to their death. Other African governments should emulate the government of Botswana by tackling miracle pastors and shutting down their churches and illegal businesses. Governments should expose the fraudulent schemes of these charlatans and make them accountable for their crimes.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/828355/africas-miracle-pastors-must-be-held-accountable.html

Botswana shuts 'miracle' pastor Shepherd Bushiri's church

BBC News

January 10, 2018

Botswana has shut down the church of a controversial Malawian self-styled prophet, who claimed to walk on air.

The government confirmed the closure of Shepherd Bushiri's Enlightened Christian Gathering Church (ECG) in Gaborone, reportedly due to concerns over so-called "miracle money".

Malawi24 reports that the church has appealed against the decision, taken less than a year after he was in effect banned from entering the country.

He had been due to attend a conference.

However, Botswana minister Edwin Batshu announced in April 2017 that Mr Bushiri - who now lives in South Africa - would need a visa to enter, despite Malawians not usually needing one, according to AllAfrica.com.


Who is Shepherd Bushiri?

• Malawi-born "prophet" who now runs churches from Ghana to South Africa
• Claims to have cured people of HIV and brought people back from the dead, South Africa's Mail & Guardian says
• Predicted the UK would split, "states" would fight and it would descend into "chaos", the Maravi Post said in a report
• Appeared to walk on air in a video shared widely on social media
• Told Zimbabwe politician Kembo Mohadi he would get "the crown" before he was named vice-president, according to New Zimbabwe

The government has now announced that the church will be shut for good, with the Botswana Gazette obtaining a letter informing management the "registration" had been cancelled.

The newspaper further reports it was the church's use of "miracle money" - promises of money appearing as if by magic - which broke the country's laws.

Mr Bushiri - who has more than 2.3 million likes on Facebook and filled Johannesburg's FNB Stadium on New Year's Eve - and his church have yet to respond publicly.

The church leader is known as much for his lavish lifestyle as for his successful ministry, which stretches across Africa.

He came under fire last year after it emerged he was charging between 1,000 and 25,000 rand ($80-2,000; £60-1,500) to attend a gala dinner with him, South Africa's News24 reported.



http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42634112

Government officials warned colleagues the charity was a cult - to no avail

Matt Smith
Reveal
May 11, 2017

Workers at the U.S. Embassy in Malawi sought to raise the alarm about an organization seeking U.S.-government funds that it labeled a cult. But a foreign aid official rejected the information as “clear bias” and the government allocated $31.6 million to the group, led by followers of an Interpol fugitive last seen hiding in Mexico.

Christine Djondo, an education specialist stationed in the African country of Malawi with the Agency for International Development (USAID), in 2012 warned a co-worker via email about a secretive organization lurking behind two intertwined groups.

“I have diplomatically been able to avoid them,” she wrote in documents USAID released only after Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting filed suit against the agency. Djondo’s comments related to the U.S. charity Planet Aid, and its subcontractor Development Aid People to People Malawi (DAPP).

“I would just like not to see USDA, the embassy, and (Malawian President) Joyce Banda get caught up in something they might regret,” she added.

Both Planet Aid, and DAPP, have been identified by the FBI and the Danish State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime as fronts for the Teachers Group, a reputed Danish cult whose leaders are on the run from fraud and tax evasion charges. Reveal previously reported that Malawi farmers who were supposed to have benefitted from U.S.-funded projects run by Planet Aid and DAPP remained impoverished.

By the time of Djondo’s email in 2012, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service had already allocated more than $102 million to Planet Aid projects in Malawi and Mozambique, despite multiple whistleblower warnings about a Danish charities fraud investigation tied to Planet Aid.

Across the ocean at USDA headquarters in Washington, D.C. staff were separately getting similar warnings.

“We have been growing increasingly concerned about the number and frequency of the complaints that we have been receiving about Planet Aid. There are hints of potential fraud and abuse,” read one of a flurry of 2012 internal staff emails expressing concern about Planet Aid’s cult ties.

Internal emails from U.S. government staff based in Malawi don’t indicate whether staff there was aware of the unease in Washington. However, at least four Malawi-based USAID officials separately raised their own concerns.

In a 2012 email, USAID staff member Cybill Sigler blamed the USDA for ignoring DAPP’s troubled history. “It’s their mess to deal with but because USDA doesn’t have a country presence here it becomes our problem. Ugh!!” she wrote. In response to one of several emails in which Djondo complained about fielding DAPP inquiries Sigler wrote: “I feel your pain.

USAID Malawi mission director Doug Arbuckle sent this advice via email to three of his staff: “My suggestion would be to just delete their emails without reading.”

Planet Aid representatives have repeatedly declined to be interviewed by Reveal, stating, “Planet Aid has not engaged in any illegal or illicit activities.” Planet Aid sued Reveal and two of its reporters in August, alleging a conspiracy to interfere with business relationships. Reveal is contesting the lawsuit and believes it is without merit.

The newly disclosed documents indicate DAPP and Planet Aid’s reputation made the rounds of the southern African community of foreign aid agencies.

Djondo wrote to Arbuckle that she’d heard that “DAPP is a cult” from the USAID’s German counterpart. In Europe, the Teachers Group is famous as the subject of fraud scandals, criminal trials and moves by governments including the UK and Denmark to halt funding.

“Doug warned me we will never fund them,” Djondo wrote in a June 2012 email to USAID co-workers. “I am not sure if USDA and the embassy are aware of their history and reputation.”

Dane Mogens Amdi Petersen in the early 1970s began teaching his followers that they should fight imperialism by stripping wealth from the bourgeois west. By the 1990s they had set up a global network of fake charities and offshore shell firms as part of a fraud conspiracy, according to 2002 filings in Los Angeles federal court by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which was helping Denmark seek Petersen’s extradition.

Planet Aid’s international partnerships director Marie Lichtenberg was extraordinarily persistent in befriending foreign aid officials, according to former USDA officials and Planet Aid staff members who spoke to Reveal. USDA had no staff in Malawi.

But in November 2012, Kate Snipes, the USDA’s representative for southern Africa stationed 1,200 miles away in Nairobi, Kenya, briefly traveled to Malawi and stood beside Lichtenberg at a Planet Aid/DAPP school ribbon cutting ceremony. Snipes had also met with USAID staff and discussed Planet Aid and DAPP’s requests for additional funds.

In a December email to the USDA’s Washington, D.C. staff titled “Malawi roundup,” Snipes said the ceremony “was very well-done,” adding that “the USAID Mission has a lot of issues and a clear bias against them, but I believe that aside from over persistence, they seem to be unfounded.”

In 2015, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service announced it had allocated an additional $31.6 million to Planet Aid for programs in Mozambique.

Reveal showed the emails to Kris Alonge, a Kansas bookkeeper who had sought to inform the USDA about Planet Aid’s past in a series of calls and letters to top aid officials between 2006 and 2012.

“These emails were very disturbing. The USDA arrogantly ignored red flags from the FBI, the Danish government, news articles, private citizens (including me!) … and now we see that they ignored the USAID’s warnings as well,” she wrote in an email to Reveal. “Because of the USDA’s foolishness millions in tax dollars were wasted. Worse, aid did not reach the people in need.”

https://www.revealnews.org/blog/government-officials-warned-colleagues-the-charity-was-a-cult-to-no-avail/

Malawi Aids patients warned against ‘faith healing’: 5 die

Judith Moyo
Nyasa Times Health
February 2, 2016

People living with HIV and Aids (PLWHAs) have been warned that they are risking their lives by abandoning anti-retroviral therapy (ART) on advice from faith leaders.

National Association for People Living with HIV and Aids in Malawi (Napham) has
issued the warning after five people who had been taking the life-prolonging
treatment have died after being advised by a pastor to abandon the ART in
Nkhata Bay.

Napham summoned members of the pastors’ fraternity to express their concern
over the pastor’s tendency.

Napham district coordinator for Mzimba and Nkhata Bay, Grace Mbendera
warned that stopping ARVs may compromise the immune system and lead to
adverse effects on patients.

Mbendera said the church should be at the forefront in the fight against HIV and
Aids, bemoaning acts by men of God in telling patients to stop ART, saying that is hindering the efforts.

She further-urged those on life prolonging drugs not to abandon treatment as reports indicate that 2 022 clients on ART have abandoned the life-prolonging drug.

Research has shown that patients who abandon treatment develop drug-resistant diseases.

Village head Ngalauka Wapachanya, from Traditional Authority (T/A) Malanda in Nkhatabay said he lost his nephew following the pastor’s directive, on the grounds that he was completely healed following a deliverance session administered to him.

Chairperson of the Pastor’s Fraternity, Pastor Albert Masowo, said he will summon the alleged pastor “as his deeds are destroying the reputation of men of God in the district.”

And Drug Resource Enhancement against Aids and Malnutrition (DREAM) programme manager Francisco Zuze said it is not sinful to take ARVs, arguing that God recommended the use of medicines to cure illnesses.

Zuze said Men of God have no authority to advise patients to stop taking ARVs.

He said defaulting on medication after receiving “spiritual healing “could cause health complications.

Zuze said it was important for church organisations, community based organisations and nongovernmental organisations to take keen interest in educating people about HIV/AIDS and ARVs.

http://www.nyasatimes.com/2016/02/02/malawi-aids-patients-warned-against-faith-healing-5-die/