Letters to the Editor: Watch out for false prophets

Eddious Masundire Shumba and Kingstone Kwembeya

I urge fellow Zimbabweans to be on the lookout for false and fake prophets who have caused untold suffering on the innocent people of this country. 

The holy Bible is very clear on the issue of false prophets as it has already warned us in advance about these evil people. These fake prophets have caused serious divisions in most families especially in the rural areas where a lot of families have lost their valuable belongings such as household property like TVs, sofas including cars and domestic animals like cattle, chickens and donkeys to these merciless fake prophets.

In the rural areas these false prophets are known as tsikamutandas and always looking for witches and wizards. If you are called a witch it means they have to come to your homestead for the so called cleansing ceremony where they pretend to remove some terrifying things such as snakes, crabs which they claim to be the ones causing the deaths of fellow villagers even though at many times it is clear that the deceased would have been suffering from chronic diseases.

These false prophets would have removed the same items from other villagers which is a clear indication that they move around carrying the same items so that they can steal from unsuspecting villagers. The village and chiefs must not force people to attend such fake ceremonies because these prophets are just after lining their pockets at the expense of the suffering villagers. It looks like these false prophets are now all over the country and this includes urban areas. These days you will not be surprised to hear them telling people that prominent leaders would die on or before the end of the year would be lies.

Another prophet made headlines when he gave us his false prophecy during the Africa Cup of Nations finals which were played in South Africa that Zimbabwe Warriors would win a group match against Libya only for our team to be trashed 3-0 by Libya. The coach kept some subdued players in the whole match expecting them to score since the prophet had said the out of form players would score.

People have to be very careful and read their Bibles and follow it to avoid these disappointments caused by these fake and greedy prophets.