Prophet Shepherd Bushiri and his wife Mary are believed to have escaped South Africa through porous South Africa- Zimbabwe border multimillion fence and crossed Limpopo river with undocumented Zimbabwean traders.
Bushiri claims that he arrived in Malawi on Wednesday evening but refused to reveal how he got there illegally because his passport is held by South African authorities. He is yet to approach the Malawian government to seek protection from the “xenophobic and unjust” South African government.
South African authorities are still baffled as they do not know how the well known Bushiris fled the country without any detection.
While many are speculating that the man of the cloth was smuggled out by President Chakwera who was visiting South Africa, a thorough pre-departure search done on the plane by the military does not support this theory.
State House has since brushed aside allegations that Prophet Shepherd Bushiri and his wife Mary, came on the same flight with President Lazarus Chakwera from South Africa on Friday evening. Bushiri, who is on bail in South Africa, returned to Malawi on Friday night in what he has described as a tactical withdrawal.
The couple’s lawyer, Terrence Baloyi confirmed their departure.
President Lazarus Chakwera has rejected assertions that he facilitated to smuggle Prophet Shepherd Bushiri on the President’s plane out of South Africa on Friday when the Malawi leader was returning home from a two-day visit of Pretoria.
The Malawi leader used a chartered flight to fly directly into Waterkloof Airforce Base, which is a national key-point reserved for South African Military and heads of state. Waterkloof airport does not conduct the same procedures and searches that are done at the normal airport, especially for the Presidents and their emissaries.
President Chakwera speaking through his spokesperson and Press Secretary Brian Banda said that is not true that he assisted Prophet Bushiri to jump bail in South Africa.
Said Banda: “The allegation that Prophet Shepherd Bushiri came on the same flight with the president is false.”
It is reported that Bushiri arrived in Malawi earlier than President Chakwera’s home return.
His lawyer confirmed Bushiri arrived in Malawi while Chakwera was in Pretoria.
Chakwera’s departure from South Africa was delayed several hours on Friday as the plane carrying him and his entrouge back to Malawi was subjected to search by South African security agents after Bushiri did not report to authorities as per his bail conditions, and there were whispers that the prophet might be smuggled out using the president’s jet. But he wasn’t on it.
South Africa police subjected Chakwera’s traveling party to searches multiple times at the Waterkloof Military Base in Pretoria and later ordered the entourage, except Chakwera and a few close aides, to go to OR Tambo Airport, from where they would board the President’s jet.
At OR Tambo the entourage checked in through the VVIP section under military and police escort all the way to the aircraft where a police officer literally checked every passport against the face of each passport holder.
The above situations raise a lot of questions on how he managed to return home when he had surrendered all his travel documents to South African authorities.
There are loud whispers that he used the popular Zimbabwe-South Africa illegal crossing points to return to Malawi.
