WHEN the six-storey building of ‘Televangelist’ Temitope Balogun Joshua (TBJ: born June 12, 1963) in Lagos, Nigeria, collapsed on Sept. 12 and claimed the lives of over 60 people – many of them South Africans – TBJ called that carnage ‘martyrdom!’

Did the deaths result from fighting for, or defending religion… Or  did they result from personal greed, bordering upon criminality?

Ironically, despite that tragedy people – gullible as humans are – still trust TBJ as a prophet and all the controversies behind his ministry notwithstanding!

Currently, Africa has a big number of self-made (read ‘fake’) prophets raking in billions from folk who believe that miracles can improve their lives, not actually ruin them!

It is sad that African Governments haven’t bothered to probe such ‘scriptural abracadabra,’ which defies logic. Is it because Governments, too, have similar burdens in this diabolical game of duping paupers? One may think that, after the ‘TBJ’ deaths were reported, the first thing the authorities would have done was to ban the movement and prosecute Joshua.

They didn’t; they haven’t… And, as you read this, Joshua is a free man who contemplates regularly visiting South Africa, ostensibly to honour his dead martyrs!

He was quoted by BBC as saying ‘I’ll be travelling to South Africa to meet people from South Africa and other nations who find South Africa easier to visit, in memory of the martyrs of faith…’

Martyrs of faith, indeed!

Joshua’s move was received with mixed feelings. While some people opposed it and called for his arrest – and others urged South Africa to deny him entry – yet others showed staunch solidarity with him!

Let’s face it. How come that people who assert to be followers of Jesus the Christ also follow run-of-the-mill prophets whose principal aim is to make money out of desperate, ‘herd-instinct’ followers?

How can a tycoon like TBJ ‘faithfully ‘follow’ Jesus Who told Zacchaeus to sell whatever he owned, distribute the proceeds to the needy – and ‘follow’ Him? Jesus implied that nobody can serve two masters, namely God and wealth! [See Luke 9:1-10].

Jesus also cautioned the world to be wary of false prophets who hoodwink millions. It is written: ‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing – but,, inwardly, they are ferocious wolves!’ [Matthew 7: 15].

Aren’t the ‘wolves’ amidst us devouring the children of God in the name of performing miracles they’re really incapable of?

How can Jesus, an advocate of the poor, be associated with the rips-off routinely done to paupers? Will Joshua get away with ‘virtual murder’ simply because his ministry boosts Nigerian income whereby six-out-of-ten South Africans visit Nigeria only to attend his sermons? What have the Nigerian authorities to say about this carnage?

Although collapse of the TBJ synagogue might be seen as an accident, it nonetheless shows how dangerous our cities have become after corrupt public officials turn a deaf ear to a  corrupt construction industry and dubious landlords!

How many building in African metropolises are ‘waiting’ to collapse and kill thousands even as the authorities look the other way? We’re told that Joshua’s building wasn’t the first to collapse in Nigeria – nor will it be the last!

When that carnage occurred, Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan visited the scene. Instead of reprimanding Joshua he was quoted as saying, “my coming here is to express my personal condolences to Prophet Joshua, the ‘Synagogue of All Nations’ – and, of course, the bereaved families!”

Can such a ‘leader’ tackle such problems by taking on those behind them?

People were shocked byJonathan’s sympathetic words to a person he was supposed to order to be arrested forthwith… He didn’t! Why? Was Jonathan afraid to take on Joshua for fear of losing voters from the latter’s hangers-on? Was he induced?

How many ‘Jonathans’ are political bedfellowa with the ‘Joshuas’ of Africa? How many otherwise innocent people have to die so that our rulers would wake up from the deep slumber they’re in?

It’s sad to note that, currently, African governments wantonly allow witchdoctors (and ‘witch pastors?’) to turn their people into prey while the relevant authorities stay clear on the sidelines – as if they’re not responsible for the security of their hapless citizenry! How many more should die for our authorities to act, putting a stop to the madness and dupery?

As the Ebola death toll spirals into the thousands in West Africa, the outbreak could have a spillover effect on the region’s deadliest disease. The outbreak has virtually shut down malaria control efforts in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, raising fears that cases of the mosquito-borne illness may start rising — if they haven’t already.

So far, at least 3,000 people are estimated to have died of Ebola in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the current outbreak, although World Health Organization (WHO) staff acknowledge that official figures vastly underestimate the total.

By contrast, malaria killed more than 6,300 people in those countries in 2012, most of them young children.

Overall, malaria deaths have fallen by about 30% in Africa since 2000 thanks to national programmes supported by international funding agencies such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the US Agency for International Development and the WHO’s Roll Back Malaria initiative.

The schemes distribute free bed nets to protect sleeping children from mosquitoes, train health workers to find malaria cases and offer tests and treatment at no charge to patients.

But the Ebola outbreak has brought those efforts to a standstill in the three affected countries. “Nobody is doing a thing,” says Thomas Teuscher, acting executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, based in Geneva, Switzerland.

“It’s a disaster in all ways possible. The public-health impact will be huge.”

He says that malaria drugs are sitting in govern-ment warehouses, especially in Liberia and in Guinea, where medical supply trucks have been attacked by people angry with the government’s handling of the Ebola outbreak. Liberia had planned a national campaign to distribute bed nets this year, but Teuscher says that it may be difficult to launch that now.

Routine health care has collapsed during the outbreak, because both patients and providers have shunned clinics for fear of infection. As a result, tens of thousands of people could die from treatable causes, says Estrella Lasry, a tropical-medicine specialist for medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors Without Borders) in New York. Those include complications of childbirth; trauma and other acute conditions requiring surgery; and causes such as diarrhoeal disease, respiratory viruses and especially malaria. With proper treatment malaria can usually be cured completely, but if left untreated it can develop into a severe form that is often fatal.

“It’s a disaster in all ways possible,” says Lasry. “The public-health impact will be huge.”

As of August, the WHO had not seen a year-on-year increase in people with  malarial symptoms reporting to clinics in Guinea, the only Ebola-affected country where such data are available. In fact, malaria deaths in Guinean clinics decreased for the first half of this year compared with 2013. But that is not necessarily good news, says Teuscher. It could mean that the illest people have been staying away from clinics, scared off by the Ebola outbreak, and their deaths have gone unnoted.

Furthermore, the symptoms of malaria mimic Ebola, so many people who might have malaria are avoiding clinics for fear of learning the worst, says Alice Johnson, a nurse and clinical mentor for Last Mile Health, an organization in Boston, Massachusetts, that trains health workers in rural Liberia.

Ebola’s impact on malaria programmes is likely to linger long after the outbreak ends. In Guinea, for instance, authorities bury Ebola victims with their bed nets to prevent the spread of infection; this has raised suspicion that the nets have some inherent connection to Ebola.

And health workers are afraid to do blood tests to confirm malaria because Ebola is spread by blood and other bodily fluids. That could lead to people who do not have malaria being given antimalarial medication, which can contribute to the development of drug resistance in the parasite that causes the disease.

It is important to get malaria control programmes back on track, says Teuscher, in part because they could help to fight Ebola.

For instance, in Sierra Leone about 2,000 community health workers have been trained to go into villages to find and treat malaria. They could also be trained to detect Ebola and help infected people to get care, he says.

“Potentially, we have an army of people available in these countries who have experience delivering malaria treatments,” says Teuscher. “They’re still there; they just need to be helped to do a good job.”

JUDGING by the look of things, it’s obvious that the Chama cha Maulaji (CcM) is hell-bent to impose its will on Tanzanians. Refer to the recent sideshow whereby CcM was able to ‘pass’ the so-called new Constitution through the CcM-packed Constituent Assembly!

How can the said document be referred to as the ‘people’s Constitution’ while the views of the people as collected by the statutorily-constituted ‘Warioba Constitution Review Commission’ were snubbed and sidelined?

Who are these ‘people’ in the first place, anyway? Do ‘people’ mean a gang of self-seekers who doctored the Commission’s Constitutional Draft to protect and foster their vested interests?

When those in the CA on that fateful date started voting to ‘pass the thing,’ we’re told, ‘they’ fell shy of the required two-third votes, and the Draft hanged in the balance!

Then, suddenly, ‘they’ manoeuvers this way and that – and, presto: the requisite two-thirds votes were ‘found’…!

Elation, self-flattery and whatnot were evidence as the dying horse managed to legalize its hocus-pocus. Caught between a rock and a hard place, CcM applied every trick in the book to ensure that its project succeeded even if it meant rigging [a.k.a. ‘chakachua!]

Will ‘they’ get away with that kinf of murder, so to speak?  Will Tanzanians swallow this bitter pill that’s aimed at allowing a kit and caboodle of virtual swindlers to fleece them wantonly?

Now we’re told that the ‘thing’ is waiting for a presidential go-ahead – which it will surely get!  – ready to be rolled over to a referendum! Will the voters consent to a thing they know is the product of deceit and self-preservation for people grappling with accusations of alleged corruption?

Will the hoi polloi watch from the sidelnes  as they did during the haggling to ‘pass’ the doctored document – thereby finally getting a raw deal? Or will they say ‘enough is enough?’ Verily, time will tell!

Those who keenly followed what was going in the ‘Bunge Maalum la Kuula’ (BMK) in Dodoma will agree that the goings-on were a sham. After the ‘Umoja wa Katiba ya Wananchi’ (UKaWa) initially staged a good fight in the Assembly, CcM showed signs of losing the battle – and had to resort to maneouvres in the eleventh hour that ‘enabled’ them to ‘pass’ the Draft!

It’s on record that 25 per cent of the Warioba Commission Draft was  tampered with. Andrew Chenge, the chair of the CA Drafting Committee, was quoted as saying that they ‘improved’ the Commission document by 25 per cent Ironically, Chenge didn’t  point out any weakness of the document – which warranted  betterment of same! Did they better it or BATTER it?

Questions arise… Why was it doctored – with some articles  removed or changed? Who authorized such tampering? Who empowered self-styled BMK after it lost legality following UKaWa’s boycot of the proceedings?

‘They’ may go on with this pipedream, believing that the battle has been won… My foot, the battle is yet to commence!

Some bigwigs – championed by Commission Chairman Joseph Warioba and UKaWa – vow to continue with the fight to ensure that the ‘thing’ doesn’t go far!

Again – looking at how the thing was arrogantly ‘passed’ – we’d urge them not to allow people to participate in the process they know won’t be free and fair.

The same ‘tricks of the jungle’ that were employed in this monkey business in Dodoma will be deployed to see that ‘they’ get off the hook. What, then, should wananchi do? Simple, boycott the potpourri of deceits and scams so that ‘those’ plotting to hoodwink them again learn the lesson that Tanzanians not the boobs ‘they’ think they’re!

In sum, if ‘they’ think ‘they’ can get away with murder, ‘they’ must think again!

THE Tanzania deputy minister for Science&Tech, January Makamba, left many in stitches. He’s quoted as espousing dictatorship as the only means to eradicate endemic graft…  That Tanzanians need a dictator to end corruption!

“One way to end graft is visible heavy punishment,” he said. That’s why dictators execute people in public, to show that those who try to overthrow them will face a firing squad. “The aim is to induce fear,”  Makamba argued.

Wow! My foot…! Who wants a tyrant in these times of democracy, accountability and pursuit of human rights?

Makamba needs help to understand the dynamics of top leadership.

However, there’s no need to be shocked by such remarks from a guy who prides himself as an elite youth. Methinks Makamba’s suffering from ‘Chronic Political Monopoly Syndrome (CPMS), having been born and bred under tactful dictatorship whereby his political party has bulldozed the led for generations!

Let’s face it. Without his father’s name, Yusuf, what does January have to deserve being where he’s today?

Does he think we’ve forgotten that his father once said that his son would be appointed a Govt. minister? Lo and behold: he was so-appointed! Is this the style he wants us to accept –to our peril? No, Sir; go tell it the birds!

Who wants a dictator in multi-party politics? The likes of January are pulling us back to tyranny with the miseries currently evidenced! We need ‘clean’ leaders with vision and love of their country, not dictators. We need a ‘clean’ Constitution stipulating how to deal with venal leaders.

Why doesn’t January underscore the fact that, under Benny’s dictatorship, Tanzania was wantonly turned into a private estate to benefit him, his family and friends? Why doesn’t January appreciate the fact that Benny got away with it all because  another dictator protected him?

The time for dictatorship is long gone and whoever seeks to  rejuvenate same must be feared like Ebola, HIV and leprosy, so to speak!

We need leaders who uphold democracy, human rights, accountability; who have what it takes to deliver our people from poverty and tyranny, instead of using them to mint money for themselves!

Ironically, January attacked his government that seeks to to enact a corrupt Constitution aimed at entrenching the status quo which unduly benefits those in power.

However, the man’s entitled to his views. Indeed, we need to do away with graft. But, we can’t do this by installing self-seeking dictators as advocated by him. We need leaders who can apply law equitably and judiciously, not dictators whose personal dictates become law!

We need leaders who’ll use the Constitution to lead judiciously, not rulers who abuse it. We need leaders who abhor graft; who act sanely and responsibly; leaders who aren’t in cahoots with corrupt elements; who condone and protect criminals.

We need leaders whom criminals’ will fear and respect, not ones they can use wantonly…

I’m aware that January undertook Conflict Resolution studies,

an academic field seeking to alleviate – and, possibly, put a stop to — conflicts whose ‘good’ source is poor leadership, dictatorship!

January accuses the extant system of embedding leaders obtained through corruption. If he seriously means what he says, shouldn’t he be first to resign from that system?

Suffice it to say that Tanzanians must beware of his likes, some of whom have plundered our resources and positions.

In a nutshell, January is politically bankrupt, daydreaming of sending us back to the old dark days of tin-pot dictators..

This week our person vis-à-vis Bedroom Democracy is none other than Janet Museveni the wife of Ugandan long-time ruler Yoweri Museveni who is another king maker. Mrs Musevni came to limelight after running from Member of Parliament of Ruhaama constituency which she captured easily thanks to being first lady. Once again, a big name Museveni paid dividends. She became a first African sitting first lady to become an MP which is arguably lesser position compared to being first lady.  Thereafter, Mrs Museveni’s husband appointed her a minister responsible for oil-rich area of Karamoja Affairs.  Rumours in Uganda have it that Janet is groomed to take over after her husband shall he step down or anything happen. Many people related to Mrs Museveni including her sons in law were once accused of trying to secure plots in the area. She became a first sitting first lady to become a minister in her husband’s government. Again, for the first lady to be an MP or/and minister doesn’t it create conflict of interests?  Who cares in countries were bedroom politics are rife? Who can stop such a first lady if at all she shares bed with the big man whose weakness and strength she knows too well?

For worse or better, Mrs Museveni, just like Mrs Mugabe created a precedent which in the future-if this dangerous move is not stopped-many first ladies are likely to draw from and benefit from Bedroom Politics. Trying to find a solution of how to do away from or completely halt this new development of Bedroom politics, we need to study and understand the phenomenon. One important aspect of this phenomenon is the fact that most of first ladies who use their spouses to seek power unconstitutionally seem to be the wives of long time rulers. Therefore, to make sure that democracy is introduced and followed in Africa is the first step to foil this power grab using the bedroom.

 If the first lady can become an MP, and a minister, what’ll stop her children, friends and cronies to vie for various political positions in the government and party of her husband? Many would wrongly think that Mrs Mugabe manipulated and used her husband because of old age. This might be true save that in Uganda the story is different. Some first ladies are more powerful than their husbands as it once happened in Romania under Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu whose wife Elena was in 1973 became a member of politburo of the Romania Communist Party, and thus, becoming the second most important and influential person after Ceausescu himself.  Elena is believed to have more desire for honour than her husband. It is said that she used professors to write her a Dissertation which culminated in being awarded a PhD in polymer chemistry though she did not have even a single undergrad degree. Elena is said to have dropped out of school at age 14.

Despite all maneuvers by Elena, just like another controversial first lady Jiang Quing or Madame Mao the mistress to Chairman Mao of China, did not grab power as she was destined. For her husband’s government was brought down by mass unrest culminating in the capture of Ceausescu and Elena who later were sentenced to death and faced a firing squad on 25 December 1989. As for Madame Mao, she was later expelled from the party after showing disrespects to revolutionaries. Thereafter she was tried and convicted and sentenced to death before commuting her sentence to life imprisonment in 1983. Qiang served her term till 1991 when she was released under medical grounds after being diagnosed with throat cancer