YES BOSS:

Meet Ezekiel;

When Ezekiel landed a job as a supervisor at a local factory, it was the best news his family had received in over 5 years. In that period, he had lost both his parents, worked a number of odd retail jobs and endured a 'love-less' marriage. His marriage to Pamela had seen more lows than highs, especially after Pamela had lost her job as a fashion retail sales manager four years before. The only reason that truly kept them together was their 6 year old daughter.

So when Ezekiel got the job of supervisor at a factory, he had reason to celebrate. And celebrate he did. The rest is history.

Slightly over a year in his new job, Ezekiel got another break. His dedication and work rate was awarded by a promotion. He was awarded with an assistant manager position which effectively made him the third in the hierarchy of the factory.

Within a week of his promotion, a departmental meeting was called which Ezekiel chaired. His first words; "I thank you all for your attention today, and I'd like to ask all of you to do your job, work extra hard and just do your part. We all need our jobs. In fact, the factory doesn't need you, any of you. It's you and all of us who need these jobs."

His voice had been as audible as the message had been clear. The factory doesn't need any of the employees. After all, these were no specialized positions that required very skilled labour, so any one that would be shown the way out of the door would be replaced the next day.

The words had come out as easily as if he had kept them in reserve for many days before that day. His words were not short of the new confidence and self-assuredness he had gained. Actually his words showed a high level of daringness, almost to a point of recklessness. It was as if too much excitement surged through him. He was buoyed by this new role, alerted to his surrounding in new ways, poised with anticipation ready for today and tomorrow, no longer afraid of being taken by surprise or overwhelmed. He was the boss.

For all of Ezekiel’s new found confidence and arrogance, he was still the man that respected his job above anything else. He was willing to keep his job by all means possible. However he showed a lot of weaknesses. The first weakness he displayed was a lack of resourcefulness. He was the yes boss type of leader. He accepted everything he was ordered by his superiors without recourse to any thought or knowledge. For all he exhibited, he would have stuck his head in the factory boiler if the boss had told him to do it.

As much as this was a great trait of a team player, it denied the team great attributes of diversity. The kind of submissiveness seen in Ezekiel was one that deprived the factory of free thought which is a recipe for ingenuity and inventiveness. Ezekiel, however un-resourceful, was not the biggest problem for the factory.

Ezekiel had faults and flaws, like any other human. The kind of flaws he had shown and exhibited did not so much prove to be divisive for the team. These were shortcomings of a member of the team. Every team has a member with flaws. Perhaps each member of each team has their own unique flaws. These flaws of each individual in a team add to the dynamics of an entire team. Yes boss. But nothing prepared the factory team to the kind of team dynamics Jeremiah would add to the factory team.

Boardrooms can be deeply affected by personalities

Meet Jeremiah;

Jeremiah had always been one whom his friends and peers described as highly opinionated. He had an opinion on anything and everything. His outspoken nature had got him noticed. But he wasn’t only noticed for his outspoken nature but also that he had worked his way up the factory ladder and was seen by many as the bridge between the top factory management and the factory floor workers. He interacted with everyone in between and somehow he seemed to fit in with all sides.

To the factory floor workers he was their voice, the one guy who always felt hard done by the system. He was the one guy who had a decent education, decent experience but was never at the top. To those at the top, this was a guy from the factory floor who didn't seem intimidated in their presence. He made jokes in their presence and interacted with them whenever he could.

In other words, Jeremiah was a 'people's person'. He actually played the part of a people's person quite literary. When a worker trying to fix electrical fittings fell from a ladder, Jeremiah was the first to rush that person to the hospital. But the life of Jeremiah was not without frustrations. There were many times he complained that other people had come and quickly rose high up in the factory hierarchy, while he remained static. Others still just got a higher take home pay than he did, when they were supposedly having the same position and that frustrated him more. Whenever he mentioned this to the floor guys, it resonated well with them as they too almost always felt they were not getting the true value of their labor's worth.

As the days kept spinning by and they turned into months which turned into years, Jeremiah had more and more people that believed in his words & his way of things. He started to believe in himself too. With that he developed a habit for talking, and talking he did. You didn't need to invite him for a conversation as he almost always bugged into conversations and just took over. He would drive a line of reasoning in many different ways for an obnoxious amount of time. He literary didn't talk but he preached. His efforts often paid off as he got a sizeable number of followers.

The more he believed in himself the more he became dangerous, as he became a chatter box ready to talk at any time. While others adored his chattering, many became more and more irritated by it. To those that got irritated by the chatter, this was a guy who found fault in everything, the people, the management, selected fellow workers and just the entire system. He was the one always on the right while the whole world was at fault.

But then, he hit the big break when the factory second in command resigned to take a position at a different factory. Jeremiah was offered the position in an acting capacity. Jeremiah was the wise choice by any means. This was a guy who had endeared himself to all from the factory floor to the echelons of power. He was a people's person. 

However it turned out later that this was not the right choice. The factory was not prepared for the kind of team dynamics Jeremiah would add to the factory. His unwavering chatter was now dividing the workforce. While he may have gotten away with it when he was on the factory floor, it wasn't appropriate now for a leader to be as loud mouthed as Jeremiah had become. While he was somewhat different from Ezekiel who in the eyes of many lacked ingenuity, Jeremiah's loud mouth and his belief in his ways only did not go down too well with many.

He said too much, he thought he knew too much, so whenever he found opportunity, he tried to lecture whoever dared spare time to listen. He never kept his mouth shut for a moment. He would go to the factory floor and tell all the workers that the system was not fair. He told the whole world that, while he was second in command, Ezekiel who was ideally third in command got paid more money than him. He complained that many a time Ezekiel had made decisions that seemed to have hinted at overruling his earlier decisions. He painted Ezekiel as a power hungry bloke who would trudge on any one's shoes to get to the top.

Day after day Jeremiah painted a very grim picture of a power struggle at the top. Was there really a power struggle at the top? Well, when the factory boss was away after not feeling too well for a week, Jeremiah was overheard as usual in his chatter style discussing the failures of his boss with the head of another factory and that head advised him to take advantage of the absence of the boss and do as much as he could especially in the areas where the boss was lacking. This, Jeremiah was told, would land him the top job and see the boss sidelined.

However, the same day Jeremiah was told that, he was back to the factory floor telling some of the workers how other factory heads did not trust in the boss's abilities and competence to take the factory forward and that one of the factory heads had asked him to take advantage of the absence of the boss to improve his own stock.

Day in day out, Jeremiah was telling one worker about what the other worker had said about one thing or another. He was telling the boss how some of the workers were operating in an unacceptable way. He was telling the boss that some floor workers stuck to their desks more than they did work on the factory floor. The next day he was telling those workers how the boss had erred in allowing all the other factory heads to have unabated control of the factory. Those that never bought into Jeremiah’s way of doing things, he labeled them demons. How crude!

As time passed, the team spirit that once existed in the factory was slowly fading. With a fading team spirit came poor results in the factory. Jeremiah was the ultimate saint, the people's person. So the factory operations went on and on and all the controls, processes and procedures were thrown out of the window. Those that sought to stand up and defend systems and controls were label 'rigid, overzealous and lacking respect for the factory hierarchy'. They were told to relax.

So anarchy prevailed and further bad results were posted and Jeremiah didn't see any of this as he was busy chattering with the next person then another and so on and so forth. Ezekiel being a hard worker that he had been since first getting a job at the factory tried to engage the right people and processes that once got the right results but he was yet again labeled power hungry and once more the anarchy continued.

Yes Boss….

The case of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the boss is very much a case of personality clash coming in the way of organizational efficiency. If systems and processes are not strong enough and there is little effort at protecting them, anarchy will ensue and the collapse of an organization is imminent. While Jeremiah may have been able to inspire many factory floor workers as one of them or the level just above them, he could quite clearly not be able to lead at the very top of the factory or be among the top leaders of the factory.

His habit of discussing people's salaries from those at the top to those on the factory floor constantly put everyone in a position of feeling hard done by or unappreciated. He was a ‘people's person’ and they believed him even when most of the time he spoke from a position of mere speculation without any facts. He acted more like a unionist than a factory leader being paid to manage the affairs of the factory together with the boss, Ezekiel and the entire team.

The one thing that everyone should have seen through Jeremiah was his constant need for popularity. It is as if he had come to the factory for a popularity contest. He told everyone what they wanted to hear and then went on to tell the next person something different and so on. It is only politicians that try too hard to impress everyone, to make everyone love them. The truth is that it is not possible for all to love you or buy into your ideologies and ideals. Not even Jesus Christ the messiah and bearer of the good news had everyone buying into his teachings. Even after more than two thousand years of fervent teaching by his followers, the message of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is still not universally accepted. But why was Jeremiah so busy and hell bent to portray himself as a saint par excellence?

As for Ezekiel, he was and always will be a hard worker whose managerial qualities needed to be improved by the boss. A bit of training and learning how to delegate without pouring out threats would have helped Ezekiel to position himself and the factory in good stead.

As for the boss, he lacked the basic tenet of leadership-vision. He also didn't prove to be his own man by allowing to be hoodwinked by Jeremiah to even turn against his own people most of whom had delivered for him for many years. But the biggest problem turned out to be that the factory was run on a yes boss type of management without recourse to due knowledge. The boss has spoken so yes boss, we will take away all controls. Yes boss Jeremiah is right, the guys on the second floor just sit around on their desks doing nothing hence you need to start maligning them. They don't matter; the organization is bigger than any of them. Yes boss.

Since Jeremiah's promotion, the results of the factory were getting worse by the day. Like they say, numbers don’t lie, but no one heeded the warning. A line in a famous poem would best describe the inertia that surrounded the factory in not heeding to the danger ahead of them as numbers became worse and worse month after month. The line from the poem says; "The sun warms the dancing lake, but overhead the heron casts a shadow that warns of cold below."

The factory and all its workers ignored the warnings to drown in the cold. But who could blame anyone for not heeding to the warning? This was Jeremiah the saint. It didn't matter whether he was a good manager, a great leader or just plainly an authoritative boss. This is the story of Jeremiah.

Love is my religion

There are not many people that can correctly tell what my favourite musical genre is. This is so because I play and listen to different musical genres all the time. The reason for this is simply that I grew up with different musical influences. In fact, I tend to always mix it up depending on the mood of the day.

Reggae is one genre I play a lot when I am feeling low or at times just want to be philosophical. For this reason, many times I go beyond my means to acquire a rich collection of reggae music every now and then. For instance, I have this recording of an interview of Ziggy Marley being interviewed on Dutch radio promoting his album ‘love is my religion’. Every time I listen to the interview, I ask myself what exactly his philosophy on religion is.

During the interview, he chatters and whimpers about how he thinks it is more important to love than to be religiously correct. How does he marry this philosophy with Rastafarian beliefs which he mentions in the same interview?

Rastafarians hold many beliefs analogous to Christian beliefs like the existence of a God, called Jah, and they accept considerable parts of the bible. I haven’t interacted much with Rastafari literature but the little I know suggests that the core of Rastafarian beliefs lies at the conviction that Jah sent his divine incarnate son to Earth in the form of Jesus who made himself manifest as the divine person of Haile Selassie I. The coronation of Haile Selassie I as ruler of Ethiopia in 1930, probably gave impetus to the growth of Rastafarian beliefs especially in Jamaica after the visit of the then Ethiopian emperor.

I don’t intend to discuss Rastafarian beliefs contrasted with Christian beliefs. So before I digress, I must mention that this blog only seeks to interrogate some Christian beliefs that have come up in recent years. In my view the words of Ziggy Marley a Rastafarian are very timely and important for Christians to have a look at how the faith is being smut with questionable doctrines. In today’s Christian circles, we have groups of believers who are so disconnected to realism that they are only engrossed in religiosity idealism. These groups of Christians unfortunately have given up their God given right to free thought and choice but have given in to the idiosyncrasies of very unbiblical doctrines propelled by some egocentric preachers whom I may have discussed in my very last Blog posting.

Christian faith is based on the credo of love, in the order of love God and then love your fellow human. Love, then is what all Christians should preach. However, today we have some groups of Christians that pray for other people (their enemies) to be involved in road accidents, plane crashes or whatever sort of death. In their minds they believe God answers such prayers. They have even coined a term, ‘dangerous prayer’ and ‘fire for fire’ which I may equate to the expression of ‘an eye for an eye’. This doctrine and the group of believers who practice it believe that you have to pray for your enemies to have bad luck. It is fire for fire.

This line of thought and doctrine that encourages fire for fire is very much contrary to the biblical teaching of love. These kind of doctrines which espouse such prayers unfortunately are being encouraged by the vision and miracle preachers with little or no theology education. This is a strange kind of teaching and this is probably what Ziggy Marley is making reference to. Even I, would rather show love than be religiously correct in line with a doctrine that allows me to pray for someone to get cancer which becomes incurable and consequently they die. There are prayers like, “I declare now for all the witches to die in Jesus’ name, all my enemies to drop dead so their evil plans won’t succeed…."

This is not the teaching of the Christian faith. My views and thoughts remain that such doctrinal beliefs and endeavors are not according to the Christian faith. Such a prayer is actually Satanic. The bible teaches us to love our enemies and pray for those that have evil intentions for us, so surely one cannot start aiming prayer at people hoping that they die.

In the bible, Jesus’ teachings on prayer outline some important things which are well summarized in Mathew chapter 6, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full. But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you. When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the pagans do, who think that their gods will hear them because their prayers are long. Do not be like them. Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him.

This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven: May your holy name be honoured; may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need. Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil one.’ If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done.”

The emphasis on forgiving others, which Jesus makes in verses 14 and 15 of Mathew chapter 6 cannot be over emphasised. This is love. Love even for enemies. I know as mere mortal humans to literally show love to an enemy or someone who wishes bad things on us is often not realistic. But we should never preach hate. We should never include this hate speech in prayer. This is not the teaching of Jesus Christ, so abash dangerous prayers, and mortify fire for fire.

This is my view. This is my thought.

Conman masquerading as a prophet

In 2013 I wrote a piece called lord-graciously-hear-us which was a cry that God hears his children especially our women who have become more and more susceptible to the whims of conmen, masquerading as pastors. Ideally, I prefer to stay away from two things which are religious topics and main stream politics. However, it is always difficulty to stay away from religion and politics as these are the main stay of our societies. Certainly, the happenings of Sunday 15th May 2016 were too outrageous to ignore.

Truth is I am a big critic of the new breed of ‘superstar’ preachers who I say are nothing but conmen at the pulpit. I do try not to question these men and women. As one who was raised on Christian beliefs, it is actually preposterous to indulge in discourse that borders on questioning the legitimacy of ‘men of God’. Sadly this is the reason most of these conmen get away with it, they know most of us are not ready to question them; hence they ride on this predisposition to hoodwink the unsuspecting flock. To make sure they are not brought to question, they use excerpts of scripture especially 1 Chronicles 16:22 Saying, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.”

This lot of preachers wants the glory to themselves and not God. They have gaudy titles such as ‘papa one’ or ‘general’ all of which give them some superstardom status of some kind. They may quote the bible every now and then, but their ways are definitely not in line with biblical teachings. Sadly, a lot of people are fooled, and this is simply beneath any basic morality to con people from the pulpit. I have no kind words for such decadent demagogues fooling the gullible souls by performing fake miracles. Theirs are fake miracles because these are properly stage managed for the sole purpose of deception as I will reveal in this blog.

The battle between evil and good is now inside the churches

Phony prophet - My encounter

On Sunday 15^th May 2015, I went to Kamwala at a wall-fenced location just behind Kamwala School. The location houses virtually finished modern buildings that I concluded according to my first instinct was a school. The reason I was at this location was that my mother-in-law had invited me to attend church service at this location. She had been to the church for a few Sundays, maybe two. I accepted the invitation even though I didn’t know the name of the church. The fact that the invitation came through my mother in law made it all the more difficulty to decline. I had snubbed invitations to visit certain charismatic churches before and at times it didn’t go well with my wife. The reason I had declined such invitations is simply that I don’t agree with their doctrines and how they conduct business.

On Thursday 12^th May 2016 my wife and my mother-in-law went to privately see this ‘man of God’ who I have come to learn is called ‘Prophet Lenga’. He is apparently the head pastor (not that there was any other pastor there), of Salvation City International church. After a long discussion in his office between my wife, mother-in-law as well as the ‘pastor’ and his wife, the ‘pastor’ suggested that my wife invites me to church on a Sunday. My wife had gone to see the ‘man of God’ for comfort after experiencing extreme emotional and physical pain(I have decided to share this pain below).

So there I was on the fateful Sunday, sat next to my wife in the pew four rows behind the front. On the way to Kamwala we had to pass through Mumbwa road to collect something hence we had arrived at the church slightly late and found the front rows all filled up. Despite the fact we arrived late, there were still empty seats behind us and these were steadily filling up as the minutes ticked. We ‘sat’ through more than half an hour of praise then another half an hour or so of worship before suddenly the worship leader announced that those that had been seated needed to join those who had been standing as ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ were about to enter.

Shortly after, there was what I would term commotion behind me and as I turned to have a look I saw a flamboyantly dressed man with a woman beside him that looked equally ostentatious walking in the front of what I’d call a delegation. I guessed these were pastor and his wife, and they strode towards the front of the church on a red carpet rolled in the middle of the pews. On the sides were two men in dark suits probably in their early thirties not necessarily stepping on the red carpet that I immediately assumed were body guards. Behind the pastor and his wife were three more people whom I had no clue what their role was but definitely looked like insiders. I would say they qualify for ‘Chola boys’.

When they reached the front of the church, they turned to the right where a couch was placed. The pastor and his wife sat on that sofa and immediately behind them were sat the ‘bodyguards’. The other people on the entourage also found seats on dining like chairs in the row behind the sofa.

What followed were the customary praise and worship, and then the pastor stood up from the sofa. As soon as he got hold of the microphone he announced that he was in the mood for prophecy. So I sat there expectant of what was to follow. At that moment, the pastor pointed his right index finger in my direction. I couldn’t believe he was pointing at me so I turned behind me to see who was being pointed at. The pastor immediately announced on his microphone, “It’s you sir. Stand up sir.”

At that moment it was clear enough that it was me he was talking to as all eyes turned in my direction so I stood up. He then asked me to walk to the front of the church and I obliged.

“You are Mr…..?”, asked the pastor.

“Aongola.”, I replied succinctly.

By this time a microphone had been shoved into my face by the gentleman that had been the MC or praise leader earlier before the pastor took the stage. This meant that my responses were loudly broadcast to all corners of the building.

“Who is Patrice?” asked the pastor.

“That is my first name. It’s my foreign name.” I answered.

At that point, I had become agitated. No, I was not agitated. I was outraged. I knew something was not right with the man. Prophecy is not about being specific. How would he prophesy what my first name was? This wasn’t prophecy! No way. Prophecy isn’t as specific, as specific as guessing people’s first names. He had to have been told. In any case if it was prophesy, why the heck didn’t he call me by my definite first name Nambayo? Patrice is my foreign name I must say. At that point it dawned on me that he was just doing a recitation of things from what he had been told. So as I stood in front of that church, I recalled that a few days earlier my wife had been to see him. This was how the invitation that brought me to that church in the first place came about. I was about to walk out but I looked in the front pew and my mother-in-law from whom the invitation to come to the church came from was sat there. It would be embarrassing to walk out.

Then the pastor continued.

“I can see…. you are a married man.”, declared the pastor. I didn’t answer him this time but instinctively moved my left hand putting it on top of the right to cross my hands so as to show my ring and send a message that it doesn’t take a lot to notice that I am married.

“It’s like a TV screen and I can see things.”, the pastor announced.

With every word he said, he was met with a chorus of shouts, ululations and claps. Others shouted, “Prophesy man of God!!!!”  

“Say it papa!!!”, a chorus of shouts could be heard right behind me.

The pastor moved closer to me and this time declared, “You have problems in your marriage.”

I stood there trying to comprehend what the man had just said. I was also asking myself what was discussed in his meeting with my wife. Definitely, problem was a misplaced word in the man’s sentence.

“The problem of miscarriage,” he said.

“Your wife has miscarried twice.” He continued.

As he visibly waited for my response, I just sat there staring at him. He briefly walked away and made a sharp U-turn and announced in the microphone to ask me if I was interested in more of his prophesy.

“You are not interested? Should I stop?” he asked.

Then a woman came to me out of nowhere but I figured she would have come from the praise team who were sat in an area of the church behind where I was standing.

“Please answer when the man of God speaks to you. Otherwise he will stop and you will miss the prophecy and its anointing.”, the woman whispered in my ear.

I won’t describe further the distress I suffered standing in front of that church. But I eventually went back to my seat as the pastor pointed to someone else who had also come with us and whose story I knew very well and the pastor claimed to be prophesying again. Well, I knew that story too and I felt sorry for them perhaps the same way they felt sorry as my story of my family’s pain was being used in the premise of prophecy.

On that day, I wanted to have an audience with him, so I stayed and went to an adjacent room where they asked all visitors to stay. He never showed up so I immediately left as well. I asked for the where about of his office and I was given directions which somehow were scanty, so I have never met him since that encounter. Maybe I have just been busy pursuing more productive things in life. I hope my blog in my small way can go further to expose most of these ‘wanna-be’ prophets as nothing but crooks.

The background story

About a month and half before that day, my wife underwent surgery to deliver a pre mature baby who weighed only over 1 kilogram. The baby spent three days in neonatal care at CFB hospital before he died. It was the second time we had lost a baby. Back in April 2014, she was induced for delivery at 31 weeks after we lost the baby due to what the doctors called severe preeclampsia. Both situations just two years apart were painful in equal measure, at the very least. In 2014, she had to be induced for natural birth and the fact that this was a still birth the pain on the mother pushing is unimaginable.

Fast forward two years on, this time the doctors delivered the pre mature baby by caesarian. Make no mistake, birth by surgical caesarean (C-section) is the most painful child birth experience because pain doesn’t end at birth but continues for weeks and months on end. The fact that one is left with a permanent physical scar makes it all the more painful. In our case, the mother was only able to see the baby 24 hours after birth, walking a distance of about 60meters from the one end where her hospital bed was to the neo-natal section. As she stood there looking at her newly born fighting for his life she couldn’t stop tears rolling down her eyes. She eventually let out a loud cry as I emphatically tried to keep her strong. I explained to her that it wasn’t congenial to cry for someone who was trying hard enough to keep his breath. But her experience weighed hard enough on her conscious, she had lost a child before and here she was watching another one fight for his life.

In the evening of 2^nd April 2016 after frantic efforts to keep him alive both from CFB and UTH hospitals, he was eventually pronounced dead. I stood there looking at his young and lifeless body and wondered how in the first place I would break the news to my wife. I lifted his lifeless body into my hand and held him tightly to my chest. I cried because of the pain of loss I was feeling, I cried because of the physical pain my wife was going through, I cried just imagining how this would affect her life. In that moment I also knew I needed to be strong for her, she needed me more than ever. We had lost a second baby in two years. We needed comfort; we needed support and a lot of hope.

My view… my thoughts…

I do not intend to be indecorous or show calumny by calling out some men at the pulpit conmen. It is because of my encounter that I call this man, ‘prophet’ Lenga from Salvation City International church a conman. He is nothing but a charlatan. He was visited privately at his office by someone who needed comfort and encouragement, he chose to come and use information given to him in front of an entire congregation pretending it was prophecy. He even claimed he was seeing this like it was on a TV screen. As he blurted out his so called prophecy that day amidst chants, clapping and whistling from the crowd, he had used my painful situation and episode in life to gain fake mileage in front of his unsuspecting flock.

This man to me is a conman using lies and properly stage managed declarations in the name of prophecy but devoid of substance and credibility. I saw him use information given to him and claiming it was prophecy. I am afraid there are plenty of such men on the prowl out there. They don’t even care what their subjects (victims is a better term) go through. They are indifferent of the pain other people go through. These masquerades and their minions lack compassion, a basic human predisposition existent even in mandrills. The biggest problem I have is that they have an audience.

Many of these prophets are void of substance and are out of touch with the real issue at the core of Christianity which is salvation. The messages of salvation aside, these phony prophets lack any desire or endeavor to help with the real issues and challenges that plague their followers. Their only role is to milk. Listening to ‘prophet’ Lenga on that unfortunate day, he was nothing but an arrogant megalomaniac. A better description from my experience could be that the man is simply a narcissist con-man. The whole time that he stood in front of his congregation, he said nothing of note from the bible except some fitful mention of the word God.

He was the star of a very sick parody of what preaching and prophecy should be. A boastful egomaniac who at one point even claimed to have brought a young boy to life after the boy had ‘died’. The poor woman who came to parade the little boy didn’t even look convinced the man had brought the boy back to life. She was just looking to have it over and done with it by giving one-word answers as testimony while prophet Lenga gave a descriptive narration of the events that led to bringing the boy back to life at his office. Despite his deft attempts at propping his skills at seeing things in people’s lives and bringing others to life, prophet Lenga clearly showed a lack of any religious conviction or familiarity with the issues at the core of the Christian faith. His entire preaching was all but punctuated by fake prophecies to conceal his lack of gravity on the many lessons and teachings of the bible.

Regrettably, many people especially women throng the offices and churches of the likes of ‘prophet’ Lenga every day. Most do so without questioning anything but offer blind loyalty in the name of faith. I cannot blame the people that follow these men, but I feel as a nation we need to find ways and means to monitor and regulate some men of the cloth. I don’t intend for government to run churches or churches to be run according to how the government wants them to be run. However, the conmen need to be flushed out. The teaching of Jesus was to render unto Caesar that which was of Caesar’s. In this case all citizens, residents and visitors in Zambia should respect the law of the land. Conning people from the pulpit or any other place for that matter is simply obtaining money and other favours by false pretenses and is an offence in the republic of Zambia. Unless a few of them are prosecuted, the number of these conmen will keep going up.

The population needs to be protected from these conmen. Most of their followers are blinded by these false miracles and prophesies. Even an outsider would easily be fooled. There needs to be deliberate action to check this cancer creeping into our country. A mechanism to check this needs to be in place soon enough. Unless one interrogates their words and match them up with Scriptural jurisprudence, one can never know if they are false prophets. But for many people in desperate everyday situations, no one questions anything. The people need solutions and answers to their everyday situations, and they will seek prophets for elucidation. Because there is a ‘market’ of people with physical, emotional, financial and spiritual needs to be met, the pastoral field has been infiltrated by many false prophets coming from all parts of Africa. And unless they know that there is a mechanism to check them they will continue.

The ‘prophet’ Lenga himself didn’t need much introduction to me as to which country he originates from, as he had Democratic Republic of Congo written all over him. The most scaring part about these people is the level of organization of their deceit. Someone was even filming a video so I stood there asking myself where that video recording would end. I assumed it would be aired at some local TV station and probably some cheap DVDs produced for sale to deceive more people to his church because of his ‘prophetic gifts’. In reality this is all utter lies, taking advantage of people in need.

My advice for now; be on the lookout and test these spirits.

For my Unborn daughter

Everybody who is Zambian is engrossed in politics at the moment. Well I am not and frankly this hate, propaganda and tribalism going on is something regrettable hence I will not waste space on that now as writing about it would be tantamount to giving it credence.

Hence I will focus on more positive pieces. This piece was one of contributions to The African Scholar, a South-African magazine i send contributions to every now and then. I believe this piece should be of great encouragement to the girl child as frankly in my part of the world, opportunity for the girl child are still not so much distinct.

Makotsene Makgalemele, was named the 2014 Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) Young Engineer of the Year. 

Makotsene Theresa Magalemele

In her circles she is best known as Mak. Her full names are Makotsene Theresa Magalemele, an engineer of high standing in a male dominated profession. The story of Makotsene is one that in many ways showcases a classic example of humble beginnings interlaced by determination, courage, faith and a never say die attitude. She describes the environment in which she grew up in as; “very interesting, township orientated, family oriented, community orientated, and socially oriented.”

Makotsene was born in Lesotho but later grew up in Hammanskraal in a place called Temba, a small town in northern Gauteng. She went to Pretoria Girls High School and later on attended University of Cape Town.

She is the second born in a family of four siblings made up of three females and one male. She states that her parents always ‘controlled’ the environment which they grew up in such as making family outings that were more learning escapades. Instead of going to the beach, her family would go to the national park or visited any other nature reserves. When they were home, the family watched more of national geographic channel. In addition Makotsene confesses that she grew up in church and always played with kids in the community.

Her appreciation for the love and encouragement from her parents is evident for all to see as she regularly mentions their input and encouragement for her to do well at school. “My parents compromised most of their earnings for me and my siblings’ education and that was the focus,” Makotsene reveals.

“We didn’t really afford everything. The main thing was for us to get educated and be encouraged to do very well at school. Some of my childhood school memories were when I used to wake up 4 o’clock in the morning to bath and catch a 5 o’clock bus to Pretoria.” She says.

She continues to affirm, “In the bus I would be playing and when I get to school it is studying and learning time.”

At school she played netball and went to provincial play, and also played basketball and went to national reserve with it. She insists this is how she learnt to ‘work hard and play hard’.

With the encouragement of her mother, she went to pursue her tertiary studies at the University of Cape Town. “I didn’t actually qualify for engineering at the time, I qualified for microbiology.” She says.

She actually confesses that she had wanted to study forensic psychology because of the encouragement she got from a career guidance mentor while still at high school. “I have always wanted to be that guy who caught the criminals. That was my main focus.” She says.

However, as she openly confesses, when she got to the University of Cape Town she realised that forensic investigation was not for her. She had applied for engineering and didn’t make it. However, this was where she wanted to be. She could have gone elsewhere and studied something else but she somehow knew that engineering was part of her.

“Dr Akama, one of the professors advised me not to give up and try and convince the department to accept my request to study .I went to the engineering dean and gave him my request to study.”, recalls Makotsene.  “He was convinced to send me to speak to the head of department at civil engineering. I waited 45 minutes before I could speak to him. Luckily I was able to convince them to take me on the engineering programme.” She says. 

At university she became ‘the work hard, play hard’ student. At first it was more of play hard, but she later learned to work very hard too. She also became active in her community. She believed her journey of education was something that was contributed by where she came from hence she wanted to make something happen by being part of that process.

Makotsene proclaims that she had the most wonderful time at university. She participated in everything she could and joined everything that was possible. However, not everything was rosy in her studies as there were some ups and downs. The lowest point when her university studies were threatened as a result of inadequate finances.

When she was in her second year, her family could no longer afford to pay for her tuition fees and was faced with financial exclusion. “At the time it was very tough. I took a decision not to keep on attending class and shortly after that I met a guy by the name of Jaque Gordhan.” Says Makotsene.

“He was running his own one man band . He did not promise to give me a job or bursary but he promised to refer me to other people who might be able to assist me. He took me under his wing and when I wasn’t at varsity, I was with him. I was working as his secretary.” Makotsene explains.

Makotsene would later be introduced to a gentleman by the name on Jan Veste who took her through a company by the name of HHO. She worked for HHO, on service recognition and service reconciliation for the company’s clients and after that they offered her a bursary to continue her studies at the University of Cape Town. She asserts that it was through her personality and hard work during the projects she worked on that convinced HHO management to sponsor her studies.

From that point on, she had no reason to look back. However, she does concede that her biggest challenge was passing varsity on time with all the challenges she had encountered. Makotsene has since the university days worked for HHO. In addition, during her UCT days she worked at various restaurants and working with the enquiring council and being part of the SRC team. “That was very interesting, dealing with student issues and being socially aware of my surrounding.”, she says.

“I was raised knowing that we are where we are not because we wanted to, but also because we have been given the opportunity to be there. I have always been socially responsible and responsive. My mother used to say it’s useless if you are clever by yourself.” Makotsene explains.  

Makotsene also gives recognition to her parents for the influence they have had on her social responsibility values. “My mother and father were politically active and I knew that there was nothing I will do only for myself.” She says.

“As I was growing up, we had water shortage challenges and I had the passion to change the situation and that made me realise that I am more of a practical person and my father advised me to study engineering. Even today I can see the impact of the work I do. I constantly review my work to see where I have done well and I have not, for me to be able to improve.” Says Makotsene.

She lists the memorable awards in her life as sports awards and a merit English Olympian grade one award. She also mentions the consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) young engineer award as well as a recognition award from her place of work. She outlines that becoming a principal engineer in 2014 was a great step in her career. That withstanding, becoming a director in 2015 became the best thing to happen in her career. She concedes it’s a lot of work, responsibility and trust. 

In her role she also works for and sits on other panels such as Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA), and Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) and with whoever requires assistance. Makotsene confesses that she has learned from these societies that her development as a person is really up to her. “If you want to make a difference you have to think out of your own space.” She says.

In saying so, she credits the people in the organisation she works at, for encouraging and greatly rewarding her work. “It’s rewarding and I learn a lot from people than in my own space.” She says.

Makotse admits that the engineering space hasn’t completely transformed but that there is progress being made in terms of having more females in the profession. She recalls that her engineering class was almost 30% female, which was a huge number compared to the year before. She applauds the big effort and push to get more women in the industry. 

Makotsene though has a clear message to University students; “If you are doing well, well-done. Don’t just focus on the books only but be socially active. To the students that are not doing well. Three things, accept it. Second thing is that you get help. There is no point being miserable in your room alone.”

She advises that students not doing too well also need to consult career guidance counsellors and speak to their lecturers and tutors. “Don’t be too cool for school. Do what you have to do to get help.” She warns.

Her counsel to Young graduates is also a resounding one. “Work is different from studying. You always got to go up unless you made un-clever decisions. It’s not cyclical.” She says.

“When you get to work, learn that you know nothing. Be the person who is humble and be the person who is willing to learn. Learn from the draftsman, learn from the tea lady, learn from older engineers, and learn from the people who are there.” continues Makotsene.

“It’s competitive out there; humble yourself so that people will want to grow you. Build the relationships because the education becomes less important than the work relationships you have with people.” She concludes.