Bushiri accused of rape on eTV: Prophet details extortion scheme behind allegations

Two faceless women appeared on South African television channel eNCA on Wednesday and accused  Malawian prophet Shepherd Bushiri  of raping them.

The interview came barely hours after Bushiri, the leader of the Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) church,  detailed how a conspiracy of some officers from the Hawks and some members from SANCO has been intimidating women and children to come up with false rape allegations against him and some members of his church.

The accusers stories of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of the prophet are remarkably similar.

One of the victims alleged the pastor would stare at her during the church services and sometimes stood next to her during his sermons. Not long after that, a church elder allegedly told her Bushiri wanted to meet her at a hotel “to pray”.

“He insisted on a hug and tried to kiss me. I said no I can’t do this, you’re married. And he said ‘don’t worry about that’. He then touched me here [forehead] and I manifested,” she told the channel.

She claimed to have been under “some power that I didn’t even know” when he allegedly took off her clothes and raped her.

The second victim was allegedly asked by the self-proclaimed prophet “to study the bible” at a hotel. She claimed to have found him naked when she got there.

“He asked me to take off my clothes and then told me to turn around. I was shaking and scared. I didn’t know what to do. After that he came on to me and everything happened.”

However, the self-proclaimed prophet has accused law enforcement officials of extortion for the past three years. He accused an official of intimidating women and children to come up with false rape allegations against him and his church members.

“This has been done together with members of the media. This woman comes and demands money from us. The supposed victims come and demand money from us. The shameless journalists also demand money from us.

“This woman, for the past 3 years, has been running an extortion syndicate against me through sending girls to demand money from us and if we don’t give, she told the girls to go public and accuse us of raping them,” said Bushiri in a statement.

Bushiri underlined that he reported the matter in 2018 to several state institutions such as State Security Agency, Inspector General of Intelligence, police commissioners, and including the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) to “bring this woman to justice and leave me alone”.

It’s unfortunate that there hasn’t been any action taken, he said.

“Some of these girls, secretly came to us, demanding various amounts ranging from R50,000 to R2 million to their masters (as aforementioned) in order to stop the story from being aired by eTV. We recorded them.

“Well, we told them we are not giving a single coin to them to stop eTV from running this story. eTV must go ahead. We are going to sue you and your extortion cohorts. This time we want to show you the power of money and justice,” he said.

Bushiri warned the alleged extortion syndicate of a “serious legal suit” that will ensue with all the “overwhelming” evidence against it.

“We will fight,” he said.

Bushiri has since emphasized that he has overwhelming evidence and a serious legal suit is on the cards.

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