Malawian President Peter Mutharika on Sunday attacked Pastor TB Joshua
over an alleged prophecy that he would die before April 1.
“I’m told there is a man in Nigeria called Joshua and he is saying that
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and Peter Mutharika will die before April
1,” he said on state television.
“Let me tell you, Joshua… you will fail. What you did in 2012 will not
happen again this year,” the president told a rally in the capital
Lilongwe.
In 2012, Joshua reportedly predicted the death of a president of an
unnamed southern African country. Mutharika’s brother, Bingu, who was
president at the time, did die within the predicted timeframe, giving the
prophesy strong currency in Malawi.
Mutharika did not say when or where Joshua made the latest prophesy.
In January, Joshua reportedly gave a televised prophecy, telling his
congregation to pray for the leaders in southern Africa, saying: “End of
February to April this year, peculiar months for Southern Africa.”
But Mutharika questioned Joshua’s credentials as a prophet, pointing to
the collapse of a guesthouse in his sprawling Synagogue Church of All
Nations (SCOAN) in Lagos in September 2014, which left 116 people dead,
mostly South Africans.
“Why did he not foretell this tragedy?
“This all shows that he is a liar. He just wants to raise money,” said
Mutharika, who is in his mid 70s, pledging to be around in 2019 for the
next presidential elections, and in also 2024, when — if re-elected — he
will wrap up his last term.
Mutharika came to power in 2014 after defeating Joyce Banda.
Banda, who succeeded Bingu Mutharika, made several visits to the Nigerian
headquarters of Joshua’s church and once described the evangelist as her
“spiritual father”