Seretse: Joshua is my Shepherd, I shall not want

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Monday April 26, 2010 00:00

 

Apparently, Brigadier Seretse, a cousin of President Ian Khama also linked to a company that supplies military equipment to the Botswana Defence Force and police who are under his ministry, is a regular at the Synagogue Church of all Nations (SCOAN) in Lagos, Nigeria.

The church's website is quoted as saying: 'Several VIP's were also present at the live service including Ramadeluka Seretse, an active participant in The SCOAN service.

'In sharing his experience at the end of the service, he commented on how much he had enjoyed the service and strongly encouraged leaders - those in positions of authority to tune in to Emmanuel TV and those who already tuned - to keep on watching'.

The prophet of the church, TB Joshua, is known to perform miracles on people thronging the church with all kinds of ailments. Quadriplegics are usually seen on TV standing up and walking, chanting 'Emmanuel! Emmanuel'.

Women with overdue pregnancies have given birth right inside the church after they had been told by medical doctors they were due to be operated on.

TB Joshua, who was in Botswana a few years ago, sometimes picks up people from the crowds and tell them what ails them, whether they have been bewitched, or they have been wrongly accused of witchcraft, or that the problems that have been troubling them were over 'in the name of Jesus Christ'. At the Sunday service while he preached, from time to time, he would command the congregants to 'open your lips and surrender yourselves to the Lord'. And Seretse could be seen arms stretched high muttering prayerfully.

One would ask what he thinks about the situation in Mochudi where recently, church leaders who were about to preach in the style of TB Joshua were whipped and their church banned from the village by the cultural fundamentalist regiments of Kgosikgolo ya Bakgatla, Kgafela II.

When The Monitor sought comment from Seretse about his pilgrimages to SCOAN, the secretary said he was on leave.

'Cabinet ministers went on leave on April 16, and the minister  (Seretse) is also on leave,' said the secretary, who would not give this writer the minister's telephone contacts.

Batswana have certainly been going to the SCOAN in large numbers. Still at the Sunday Service, there was Archbishop, Andrew Ndubano, and the leader of St John Apostolic Church of Botswana.

Ndubano's church, which is headquartered in Francistown, was in the news lately when three ministers of the church drowned in Gaborone when they were baptising worshippers at Gaborone Dam.

TB Joshua, who was walking among the congregants, called the aged prelate and told him he was a man of God, and that he has done nothing wrong. He said people were wrongfully accusing him of using evil powers to kill the priests.

Reassuring Ndubano, T.B. Joshua is quoted in the SCOAN website as saying: 'I'm seeing you as a minister of God. What happened has happened. There's no trace of evil from you'.

'The prophecy was the salve for every sore that Ndubano had suffered. God in His infinite mercy had used one of His servants, Prophet T.B. Joshua to vindicate another of His servants, Archbishop Ndubano,' said the website.

The prophet, who has been prophesying about world events, including the recent plane crash in which the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, his wife and several high-ranking government officials have died, said the priests died as martyrs of God.

TB Joshua offered to counsel the widows of the dead priests who, he said, could be flown to Nigeria at his expense.

Another man from Botswana who was suffering from spinal problems and had a thick belt around his waist had the belt removed and he could be seen stomping about: 'I am healed! I am healed! I can bend. I am free. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Father'.

Yet there was a young woman who was diagnosed by the prophet with having been initiated in satanic practices.She was said to go to the cemetery at night where together with a group dressed in black drank human blood from a bowl.