Pastor Shepherd Bushiri Flees To His Home Town Mysteriously After Facing Charges In South Africa

Shepherd Bushiri, a multimillionaire pastor who owns several megachurches across the continent of Africa, who also claims God has given him the power to cure incurable diseases most especially HIV and has insisted that he has the power to walk on the air.

Mr. Bushiri and his wife Mary, along with two co-defendants have been charged with fraud and money laundering in both Malawi and South Africa.

This past week, Mr. Bushiri has appeared to vanish from South Africa, where he was charged into his own hometown Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi without any law enforcement border check, undetected by police, and not even with a passport.

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’s wealth was as a result of fondering his mega-church at South Africa’s capital Pretoria, ‘Enlightened Christian Gathering Church.’ He said his church now has a million followers in S.A alone making the church one of the fastest-growing churches in Africa.
Most of his doctrine is based on “Prosperity Gospel,” saying that if you give to his church, God will bless you with amass wealth and riches.

According to the New York Times, 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.

Shepherd Bushiri has denied all allegations laid out on him saying that they fled because he and his wife’s lives are in danger, receiving threats from people. He said that local authorities have ignored his situation. He posted on his Twitter handle that the case against him is “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.

Mr Bushiri is now on bail after a court hearing. His bail-out conditions were to stay in the province of Gauteng and to hand over he and his wife’s five passports. 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.

His situation has now reached a level of governmental interference from both countries, Malawi and South Africa. Due to his disappearance, both countries have blamed each other for the lack of inconsistencies in security affairs.

Mr. Bushiri and his wife have handed themselves to polices on the eve of Wednesday. They were detained for one night after which they were given bail. South African authorities currently are doing some paperworks in order to hand over the case to Malawi, where his fate will be determined.

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.