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Supporters of Prophet Shepherd Bushiri protest outside Pretoria Magistrates Court on October 21, 2020 (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu)
Pastor Shepherd Bushiri accused of fraud met with Malawian Foreign Minister Eisenhower Mkaka, who is said to have behaved strangely during President Lazarus Chakwera’s visit to South Africa.
Both the South African and Malawian governments have denied that Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera took Pastor Shepherd Bushiri, accused of fraud, home on his Air Malawi flight on Friday night, and the story about his South Africa’s escape appears to have been much more. complicated than this. Initial speculation said the nearly seven-hour delay, which caused the flight to land in Lilongwe after midnight, was due to Bushiri being on board and paperwork needed to be resolved.
Sources who were in Waterkloof on Friday said that Chakwera’s Foreign Minister Eisenhower Mkaka caused a scene in which he was not allowed to board the plane at Waterkloof. Mkaka was part of the Chakwera outpost mission, which means that he arrived in South Africa before the Malawian president, who arrived on Thursday and disembarked at OR Tambo International Airport.
According to the law, only the 17 members of the Chakwera delegation who had disembarked at Waterkloof were able to fly from there again. When Chakwera wanted to leave on Friday, there were 65 members in his delegation in total, but the South Africans held firm to the law.
“He was literally spitting fire, like he was planning something that didn’t work out,” said an official from Mkaka. Mkaka was eventually forced to go to OR Tambo with the rest of the delegation to embark from there, causing a massive delay.
The flight path, in which the plane took off from Waterkloof Air Force Base and landed at OR Tambo, made the gliders speculate that there might have been some kind of repeat of the Gupta plane landing in 2013, when the key point Nacional was used illegally to receive wealthy individuals from the country. Presidential Press Secretary Brian Banda posted a short statement on Facebook saying the flight had been delayed “due to administrative failures in the travel arrangements of Malawian state officials who had traveled to South Africa prior to the arrival of the president.”
Malawi Nyasa times reported Sunday that Mkaka met with the founder of the Enlightened Church Gathering in South Africa on Tuesday, a day before Bushiri was reported to have left the country. However, Mkaka told BBC reporter Nomsa Maseko that Bushiri’s return to Malawi “was done in a personal capacity and [he] he did not receive help through official channels ”.
Mkaka said it was the Malawian government’s duty to protect all Malawians, but that Chakwera was a strong advocate for the rule of law, implying that Chakwera wanted the court case to go ahead and that diplomatic channels would remain open.
Bushiri, in a speech broadcast on his television station, Rainbow TV, on Saturday night, claimed that there had been attempts on his life, with the South African authorities refusing to intervene.
“Our arrival in Malawi, therefore, is a tactical withdrawal by the Republic of South Africa with the sole objective of preserving our lives,” Bushiri said. “We have to be alive to testify.”
Bushiri was arrested in mid-October and charged with fraud and money laundering for more than 100 million rand. He and his wife were released on bail of 200,000 rand each. His assets were seized prior to his arrest and his seized Gulfstream III private jet is still parked at the Lanseria airport. The couple also had to surrender their passports, but there was testimony during the bail hearing that they had several of these, including diplomatic passports issued by them by the Malawi government.
It is speculated that Bushiri went across one of South Africa’s rather porous land borders, with Maseko tweeting that a syndicate specializing in bringing stolen cars from South Africa to Malawi was responsible for the smuggling of Bushiri and his wife. Another source said that according to unconfirmed reports, Bushiri crossed the border into Zimbabwe, most likely at the congested Beit Bridge, and was picked up by a private plane just inside the border and flown back to Malawi. It is not clear when Bushiri landed in Lilongwe, but he posted the news of his return on his Facebook page only on Saturday, the same day the presidential delegation returned.
South African government spokesman Phumla Williams confirmed in a statement Sunday that Bushiri and his wife, Mary, were not on the flight with Chakwera after their working visit to President Cyril Ramaphosa, where they discussed “a wide range of initiatives to strengthen relations between governments and peoples of the two countries ”.
He said that immigration officials from Internal Affairs verified the identities of all the passengers and that the Bushiris were not on the flight. However, South Africa has “initiated a process to secure his extradition from Malawi in terms of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Extradition Protocol and other legal instruments, to which Malawi is a signatory”.
Williams said law enforcement agencies will continue investigations. Internal Affairs spokesman Siya Qoza did not respond to questions about which border posts the department suspects the Bushiris used. Contrary to Williams’ statement, which says that travelers leaving South Africa “must report to an immigration officer who, among other checks, verifies that the passport belongs to the traveler,” passports are often collected by a repairman and processed. In bulk at the Beit Bridge Border Post, without immigration officials verifying the identity of the owner.
Even if Chakwera had nothing to do with Bushiri returning to Malawi, the incident could cause diplomatic friction with South Africa. Nyasa times reported that there was pressure on Chakwera from local traditional leaders to find out what was happening to Bushiri in South Africa and, if necessary, intervene to return him home. Chakwera said he could not respond because the matter was still in court, but promised to make inquiries and inform the nation.
The executive director of the civil society group Malawi Watch, Billy Banda, and a Malawi Election Commission official, Anthony Mukuwamba, a close friend of Bushiri, alleged that Bushiri was targeted by investigative agencies and unfairly treated by of the South African legal system.
Chakwera, who is the incoming president of SADC, is a newcomer to regional politics. His election of incumbent Peter Mutharika during a repeat of the country’s elections in June was hailed as a victory for opposition parties in the region, where former liberation movements still maintain close ties.
There were reports that Bushiri financed the Chakwera election campaign, but the same happened with the Mutharika campaign. Mkaka is the secretary of the Malawi Congress Party, while Chakwera is the leader. DM
