A combined team of Defence and Security officers led by Copperbelt Minister Bowman Lusambo yesterday morning swung into action, cleaning the streets of Ndola and shutting down a Pentecostal Church.
The team, which started the exercise at 04:00 hours, removed stands on all streets of Ndola before going to Restoration Apostolic Pentecostal Church International where they found hundreds of patients in makeshift shelters.
The church is located in the Central Business District of Ndola and it is well known for healing services.
And when he addressed the patients at the church around 05:00hrs this morning, Copperbelt Minister Bowman Lusambo announced the closure of both the church and its illegal compound.
Mr. Lusambo said government will not allow its own people to be kept in unsanitary conditions at a time when the country is grappling with the cholera outbreak.
The Minister questioned the owner of the church how he built the facility, a few meters from the Kafubu stream.
But the owner of the church James Mwale, who is popularly known as YAKOBO Yakobo, agreed that the compound is illegal and that his patients were living in unsanitary conditions.
Mr. Mwale however pleaded for more time to allow his clients to find money to return to their houses.
However, Copperbelt Province Police Commissioner Charity Katanga ordered all patients to leave the church premises immediately failure to which she would unleash her officers on them.
Bulldozers and front-end loaders later demolished the whole compound.
Some of the patients spoken to by a ZNBC news crew revealed that they came from as far as Livingstone, Lundazi and Kasama and they had stayed there for up to three months to seek healing.
At the time the compound was being demolished, there were no visible signs of toilets.
Patients are believed to have been helping themselves in the nearby stream.
Get rid of pit latrines too not just cleaning streets (its probably why Trump is now calling us shithole countries)
Africa is indeed a shithole. The health systems have failed that is the reason people go to the extremes of seeking miracles at the hands of fake prophets..
Donald Trump just called African countries & Haiti SH1T-HOLE countries.
Can you blame him?
We’ve got cholera ,pit latrines and road sides full of muck – I guess Donald Trump is right ,Zambia is the real shithole country.
Yes i come from Zambia Donald Trump ,nice to meet you.
It is heart breaking to see people wasting their scant resources seeking “healing” from these fake “men of God”, who are nothing but thieving parasites. Go to the hospital!
You don’t actually need some “man of God” to pray for you. You can pray to God yourself and he will hear you. As it is these people are actually putting their faith in the “man of God” and not in God.
On an interesting note, here are two thieving parasites; one religious, another political, both pretending to be serving the people, while sucking the life blood out of them. Sad
I am a born again Christian and I can tell you that you have hit the nail on the head.
You don’t need these so-called prophets who turn their meeting places into “hospitals”. Mr. Minister must also visit the chap in Racecourse who “admits” patients at his “church”.
Please seek proper pastors and ordinary Christians to pray for you; and don’t avoid seeking hospital treatment.
God heals miraculously when he wants to in answer to prayer; and God has gifted humanity with the gift of medicine and scientific knowledge.
Check out a book on amazon.co.uk with the title: “The Gift of Medicine” written by a Christian. It might just save someone from these misguided “prophets”.
Hey JourneyMan, well spoken. Thumbs up!
That Yakobo guy s
Journeyman you are very right, two parasites stealing from poor and unsuspecting victims.
Mr. Chief Bootlicker……the standard of people we have for national leadership?? Katwishi
Minister Lusambo … so after cleaning the streets what next? We want good markets built with proper sanitation and clean water.
Patients at a church….! what is wrong with you people. When Yakobo yakobo is ill, he goes to the hospital to seek treatment. Anyway desperation, makes people do desperate things, I will not judge them.