Bushiri’s book to equip Mngxitama as a ‘political prophet’

Black First Land First (BLF) leader Andile Mngxitama continues to show support to Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) church leader Shepherd Bushiri.

The BLF leader on Sunday attended one of the church’s services and received Bushiri’s latest book , The Jesus Nation, released last week.

“ECG Johannesburg was visited by the president of BLF Andile Mngxitama, who came with his delegation. Mr Mngxitama’s support for Bushiri has been public, vocal and unwavering. Pastor Sam, the national pastor, gave him the gift of The Jesus Nation book on behalf of our father Major1 for the president of BLF to be equipped in this season as a political prophet in the Jesus nation,” wrote the church on Facebook.

In an interview with The Citizen earlier this year, Mngxitama admitted he had not always been a fan of the Pentecostal churches, and only started supporting Bushiri after noticing the “attacks” on him. This was due to his success as a young, black professional, said Mngxitama.

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“Bushiri is young and he built a church – a massive church. You go to his church and find black professionals and then you see why this guy becomes under attack,” he said.

“He’s under attack because he’s a young black professional and his ministry is so attractive to the young, black professional that the mainstream church is bleeding membership to his ministry. The bottom line is this man is too powerful too soon and he’s not controlled by Stellenbosch. If you look at some estimates of his wealth by online publications, they put him at like R2.4 billion.”

Mngxitama said he first noted the “attacks” on Bushiri when a stampede left three people dead at his church in 2018.

“They projected it like it he was being negligent. But when you look at the report it was actually found that it was not his problem, it was the government’s problem in terms of how they’re maintaining order. I just started picking up the constant attacks which had no merit and were highly exaggerated,” he said.

Though Bushiri and his wife Mary are charged in South Africa with fraud and money laundering to the value of R102 million, Mngixtama said Bushiri was also a victim.

“He himself was trying to assist. Somebody told him it was a safe investment and people could make some money and he invested. He did not go around getting the money for himself. His opponents amplified the voices of those who claimed to have been robbed,” he said.

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“The problem is that this man is making too much money too soon and this money is independent of white capital and they’re not going to allow that. I follow him, I love him and for me it’s a question of to be young, gifted and black.”