Author: The Guardian

Cashing in on the lure of super-pastor TB Joshua

In Africa’s largest metropolis, the district of Ikotun Egbe in Lagos has turned into a boomtown. The draw? Temitope Balogun Joshua, one of Nigeria’s richest “super-pastors”, whose church attracts 50 000 worshippers weekly – more than the combined number of visitors to Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London.

TB Joshua. (Pic: EmmanuelTV)

Seeking promises of prosperity and life-changing spiritual experiences, visitors flock from around the globe. Enterprising Lagos residents – those not turfed out by landlords turning their properties into hotels – have transformed the rundown area into a hotbed of business.

On a Saturday afternoon, traffic swirls around the four-storey, giant-columned Synagogue Church of All Nations. Delegates are already pouring in before the following day’s service. “They should really build a branch in South Africa – it’s a long way to come and the hotels here are so-so,” said Mark, a sun-burnt businessman from Johannesburg, accompanied by two friends from Botswana.

As the church’s palm tree-lined entrance gives way to a maze of skinny, unpaved roads, knots of touts materialise. “In one year I made enough money to buy my first car,” said Chris, using a tattered hotel brochure to mop his brow. He is paid 100 naira (about 40 pence) for each client he brings in.

Sparkling new hotels rise incongruously among the shacks. At one, with a logo suspiciously similar to the Sheraton’s, a new chef has recently been employed. “He can cook food from Singapore, because we were having a lot of guests from there who struggle with Nigerian food,” said the manager, Ruky, at a reception desk framed by pictures of TB Joshua.

Tony Makinwa said most of his laundromat profits came from tourists. “God has favoured my business. People come here and fall in love with the place and overstay their visits,” he said.

Also doing a roaring trade are the international calling centres with foreign visitor discounts, the clothes shops offering outfits to celebrate miracles, and the plastic chair rentals that cater for church spillovers.

Isolo’s dirt streets are punctured by unfinished barn-like buildings as dozens of other churches offer all-day worship services. Almost as many mosques dot the area. Islam and Christianity are growing at blistering paces across Africa, with Nigeria home to the continent’s most populous mix of both faiths.

Money-changer Sidi Bah travelled thousands of miles from Mali to continue his trade here. “I came because I heard many people from many countries visit. In one day I can change six or seven different types of currency,” he said, adding: “There are more mosques here than in my village in [Muslim] Mali.”

Miracle-promising Pentecostal churches took root across the continent in the 1980s, as African economies were battered by falling world commodity prices. Migrant poured into slums in search of jobs and dreams.

Read ‘Jesus Inc: Paying for miracles to happen’

Ruky has converted her cramped home into a 20-bed lodging where mainly rural workers stay for 800 naira a night. Mattresses are half-price. “If you are sick like me you have no job so you are used to sleeping on the floor anyhow,” said Andrew Olagbele whose spine was crushed by a car accident, lying on a mattress in a crammed room. “I pray the Lord will touch me tomorrow so I can walk again.”

As dusk sets in, cars continue streaming in. A man hanging from the open door of a car thundering gospel songs waves copies of homemade CDs for sale. Denis Kokou and his wife, a baby on her hip, look on with weary smiles. “This is our first time coming from [regional neighbour] Togo. We are so happy to be here with our daughter.”

Monica Mark for the Guardian

12 years ago

Kenyan woman’s pact to marry two men causes outrage

Two men in Kenya have agreed to marry the same woman, taking turns to stay with her and helping raise her children.

Joyce Wambui had been torn between two lovers for more than four years and was unable to choose between them. So she joined in a contract stipulating that Sylvester Mwendwa and Elijah Kimani would “share” her.

But Mwendwa’s decision to go public about the unusual deal has infuriated Wambui, cost him his job and forced him into hiding to escape a public backlash in Kisauni, Mombasa.

The 26-year-old told the BBC that he entered a pact with Kimani to end their rivalry. “It could have been very dangerous if the other man would have come to her house and caught me,” he said. “So our agreement is good as it sets boundaries and helps us keep peace.”

He claimed Wambui’s parents had given her their blessing, adding: “She is like the central referee. She can say whether she wants me or my colleague.”

Wambui, a widow and mother of young twins, is said to be in her late 20s. In a separate interview with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, Mwendwa explained: “It’s not because she is a superwoman, but because she is a hard worker and very beautiful.”

(Graphic: Flickr / charlesfettinger)

The unusual arrangement came about after the intervention of Abdhallah Abdulrahman, a community policing officer. “The two men were quarrelling and I wanted to know what they were quarrelling about,” he said. “I found out they were sharing one woman without knowing each other. I wanted the woman to decide which she loved and agree to stay with one. Unfortunately, she refused to decide. She said, ‘I love both of them, I’m not ready to lose them.’

“Both men refused to surrender the woman. They assured me they’re going for a discussion where they’ll settle the differences themselves. They surprised me when they said they had agreed to be together.”

Abdulrahman said he was strongly opposed to the contract. “To me as a Muslim and a Kenyan, I don’t accept it,” he added. “It is against our religion and our African tradition. It is against Kenyan law. Under our Constitution it is not allowed. The community are disappointed and everybody is against it. Sylvester Mwendwa is now in hiding, saying his life is in danger.”

Mwendwa’s willingness to publicise the contract in national and international media has also caused a rift with Kimani and Wambui, putting the whole understanding in jeopardy. On Tuesday the Daily Nation reported that Mwendwa, a butcher, said his boss fired him after he heard the story, and he is reported to have gone into hiding.

Even if Wambui forgives him, there is little prospect of making the three-way marriage legal. Whereas polygamy – one man with multiple wives – is legal in Kenya and widely practised by various communities, polyandry is almost unknown.

According to Kenya’s NTV station, the contract states: “We have agreed that from today we will not threaten or have jealous feelings because of our wife, who says she’s not ready to let go of any of us. Each one will respect the day set aside for him. We agree to love each other and live peacefully. No one has forced us to make this agreement.”

David Smith for the Guardian

12 years ago

Zimbabwe plans $300m ‘Disneyland in Africa’

The formula has worked in California, Florida and Paris. Now officials in Zimbabwe, eager to rebrand a country notorious for economic collapse and political violence, want to build a “Disneyland in Africa”.

Walter Mzembi, the tourism and hospitality minister, told New Ziana, the official news agency, that the government was planning a $300m theme park near Victoria Falls, the country’s top tourist attraction.

Mzembi was quoted as saying the resort would be a “Disneyland in Africa”, although he did not appear to suggest that the statue of explorer David Livingstone, which overlooks the falls, would be supplanted by a jobbing actor in a Mickey Mouse costume.

(Pic: Reuters)

Instead, he outlined plans for shopping malls, banks and exhibition and entertainment facilities such as casinos. “We have reserved 1 200 hectares of land closer to Victoria Falls international airport to do hotels and convention centres,” Mzembi told New Ziana on the sidelines of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly , which Victoria Falls is co-hosting with the town of Livingstone in neighbouring Zambia.

Mzembi said the project would cost about $300m.

“We want to create a free zone with a banking centre where even people who do not necessarily live in Zimbabwe can open bank accounts,” he said.

The government has plans to invest $150m in expanding the town’s airport to accommodate bigger aircraft, according to the report from Ziana. Mzembi said the government had found funding partners including multilateral financial institutions.

Visitors travel from across the world to see Victoria Falls where water plummets more than 100 metres into the Zambezi gorge, generating mists of spray so high they can be seen up to 30 miles away. A bridge linking Zimbabwe and Zambia offers bungee jumping but made headlines for the wrong reasons last year when an Australian tourist narrowly survived her cord snapping.

The nearby town offers few reasons to linger or spend money, however, despite the launch last month of an open-top bus tour in an attempt to drum up interest. Mzembi hopes to appeal to a younger market.

Tourism conference
Zimbabwe’s considerable tourism potential was devastated by a decade of conflict and hyperinflation but has recovered in recent years. The government says it recorded a 17% increase in tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2013, up 346 299 to 404 282. It has predicted the tourism sector will contribute 15% to GDP by 2015 if the country remains stable.

Following a mostly peaceful, though bitterly disputed, election last month, Zimbabwe’s co-hosting of the UNWTO conference this week is seen as another milestone towards that stability. But the decision to award the conference to Zimbabwe as a co-host was condemned by the independent UN Watch human rights group as a “disgraceful show of support — and a terribly timed award of false legitimacy — for a brutal, corrupt and authoritarian regime.

Hillel Neuer, head of the Geneva-based group, added: “Amid reports of election rigging and continuing human rights abuses, Zimbabwe is the last country that should be legitimised by a UN summit of any kind. The notion that the UN should spin this country as a lovely tourist destination is, frankly, sickening.”

President Robert Mugabe’s associated status as UN “leader for tourism” has also been questioned by critics of his 33-year rule.

David Smith for the Guardian

12 years ago

Towards freedom: Somali pirates in a Kenyan prison

Once upon a time, they terrorised the Indian Ocean, seizing dozens of ships every year, extorting millions of dollars in ransom money, and eventually drawing a military response from the international community.

Now the pirates of the Horn of Africa are in danger of becoming extinct. It’s not just that warships patrol the waters with a 30-minute response time and that many target vessels now carry armed guards. It’s that many of the pirates are currently enjoying a transformative stint in jail.

There are more than 100 convicted and suspected pirates incarcerated at the Shimo la Tewa maximum security prison on the Kenyan coast. “They like it here,” a warden says.

The residential quarters of the prison’s piracy wing is behind a heavy metal door. The 111 convicted and suspected pirates don’t call themselves pirates; they prefer “fishermen”. Of them, as many as 30 have never had their cases heard in court, according to prison staff. Some have been on remand since 2009. Asked whether they feel abandoned or dissatisfied with the legal system, most said no. “It’s fine here,” said one.

Suspected Somali pirates wait for the start of their trial on June 24 2010 at the Shimo la Tewa maximum prison in Mombasa. (Pic: AFP)

The objective at Shimo la Tewa prison is that inmates leave with the means to earn a living and do not fall back into piracy, the warden says. Inmates are taught to read and write, given free healthcare and adequate food, and taught new skills. They are encouraged to retain links with their families in Somalia through regular phone calls. When it comes to recreation, they play football and sing. The prison feels more like a technical college. There are classrooms, a barber, a furniture workshop and a paralegal service run by volunteers. The walls are painted in bright blocks of colour reminiscent of primary school. “Most [Somali inmates] were illiterate. Some now have even taken exams,” says the warden, who preferred not to be named.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has poured funding into counter-piracy measures such as this one.

“We are extremely careful to ensure that our support also benefits the rest of the prison population and the staff of prisons holding Somali pirates, to ensure that the Somalis are not resented,” says Shamus Mangan, a maritime crime expert. Mangan has assisted with the repatriation of a number of Somalis and notes that the provision of education, food and healthcare is no substitute for freedom. “Each time I go to the prison in the Seychelles, all the Somalis there ask me when they will be able to transfer to Somalia,” he said.

The UNODC says that, ultimately, the problem needs to be remedied on Somali soil, addressing the root causes and not the symptoms.

Somalia expert Mary Harper warned recently that the pirates are “sleeping”, but have not gone away. Speaking at a maritime security event, she said: “Somalia is becoming more politically fragmented with many different groups seeking to gain dominance, which potentially creates a favourable environment for piracy.” Risk factors such as high youth unemployment and a lack of alternative livelihoods prevail. The UN’s Development Programme runs rehabilitation programmes in Somalia. One former piracy suspect who spent three years in jail, Mohamed Ahmed Jama, took classes in business and social skills. “I believe now I have a chance for a brighter future,” he says.

The former pirates are in sharp contrast to other inmates at the prison. “The other inmates escape,” says Samuel Tonui, acting head of the Shimo la Tewa prison. A handful of Kenyan inmates have given prison guards the slip this year. Last month, two inmates escaped, using a homemade ladder, the second prison break in four weeks at the facility. There is an escapee wall of shame where the faces of a dozen men are displayed. None are Somali pirates.

Jessica Hatcher for the Guardian

12 years ago

The Ethiopian nun whose music enraptured the Holy Land

From a small, spartan room in the courtyard of the Ethiopian church off a narrow street in Jerusalem, a 90-year-old musical genius is emerging into the spotlight.

For almost three decades, Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guebrù has been closeted at the church, devoting herself to her life’s twin themes – faith and music. The Ethiopian nun, whose piano compositions have enthralled those who have stumbled across a handful of recordings in existence, has lived a simple life, rarely venturing beyond the monastery’s gates.

But this month the nonagenarian’s scribbled musical scores have been published as a book, ensuring the long-term survival of her music. And on Tuesday, the composer will hear her work played in concert for the first time, at three performances in Jerusalem. Guebrù may even play a little.

Her music has been acclaimed by critics and devotees. Maya Dunietz, a young Israeli musician who worked with Guebrù on the publication of her scores, says in her introduction to the book that the composer has “developed her own musical language”.

“It is classical music, with a very special sense of time, space, scenery,” Dunietz told the Guardian. “It’s not grand; it’s intimate, natural, honest and very feminine. She has a magical touch on the piano. It’s delicate but deep. And all her compositions tell stories of time and place.”

Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guebrù. (Pic: emahoymusicfoundation.org)

Guebrù’s inspiration comes not only from her faith, but from her life: an extraordinary journey from an aristocratic family in Addis Ababa, with strong links to Emperor Haile Selassie, to a monastery in the historic centre of Jerusalem .

She was born Yewubdar Guebrù on December 12 1923 and lived in the Ethiopian capital until, aged six, she and her sister were sent to boarding school in Switzerland. In one of two seminal moments of her life, there she heard her first piano concert, and began to play and study music.

After her return to Addis Ababa, and a period of exile for her family followed by yet another return, Guebrù was awarded a scholarship to study music in London. But she was unexpectedly denied permission to leave by the Ethiopian authorities.

In the bleak days following this calamity, Guebrù refused food until, close to death, she requested holy communion. Embracing God was the second seminal moment of her life. She abandoned music to devote herself to prayer, and after several years joined a monastery in northern Ethiopia. She spent 10 years there, barefoot and living in a mud and stone hut.

It was here she changed her name to Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam. It was only after rejoining her mother in Addis Ababa that Guebrù resumed playing and composing and even recorded a few albums.

Guebrù and her mother later spent six years in Jerusalem, and she returned to the Holy Land to take up permanent residence after her mother’s death in 1984. She has remained at the imposing circular Ethiopian church ever since.

Dunietz came across her music eight years ago when her husband, the conductor Ilan Volkov, brought home a CD he had bought in London. “We listened and were amazed by the strange combination of classical, Ethiopian and blues,” said Dunietz. “And then we read the sleeve notes and discovered she lives right here in Jerusalem.”

The couple found Guebrù sitting at the piano in her room at the church, and began a series of visits. “In the beginning there was a lot of silence. We felt there was a lot of longing and sorrow and loneliness, but slowly a connection started,” said Dunietz.

Guebrù was still playing and composing in her room, but she had not performed in public for several years, and her music was “not much appreciated” within the monastery. Dunietz immediately understood the importance of publishing the nun’s scores to create and preserve a musical legacy, but the project did not get off the ground until two years ago.

“She handed over four plastic bags — old wrinkled Air Ethiopia bags — containing hundreds of pages, all muddled up, a big mess, written in pencil, some of them 60 or 70 years old. It was all the pages of her music that she had found in her room. ‘Make a book’, she said.” It was, added Dunietz, “like an archaeological dig” to piece together the scores.

Daunted by the task, Dunietz sought the help of the Jerusalem Season of Culture, which organises an annual summer festival of art, music and food in the city. As well as the book, the three concerts have a huge significance for Guebrù.

“This is the first time she will hear her own music performed in concert by professional artists,” said Duenitz, who will play the piano. “It is what every composer wants.” Guebrù, she says, is feeling overwhelmed by the attention and has largely withdrawn into the solitude of her monastery room, declining requests for interviews and meetings.

In the book accompanying Guebrù’s music, Meytal Ofer, a regular visitor over recent months, describes her: “I enter a darkened room and catch my first glimpse of her, an elderly woman, not a wrinkle on her face, lying in bed. It is a modest room with a small window. In the room is a bed, a piano, piles of musical scores and a picture of Haile Selassie and the Empress Menen hung above the papers.”

Guebrù is wrapped in a blanket against the winter cold, writes Ofer. “Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam is in her own world; she speaks slowly with an inner peace, her soothing voice caresses the listener and her infectious smile sneaks into the conversation every now and then … The disparity between the room’s sparseness and Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam’s spiritual richness reaches deep down into my soul.”

Harriet Sherwood for the Guardian