Unpacking Prophet Chiza’s false life of luxury
By Mark Scofield
Earlier in the year, the Bulawayo-based Prophet Blessing Chiza made headlines over a string of soccer predictions and earned the moniker of being a ‘soccer prophet’.
His 15 minutes of fame was up when he erroneously predicted the scoreline of a crucial African Cup of Nations qualifier in which his wrong prediction sent soccer fans across the country seething with anger.
Chiza never formally apologised to the soccer community over that incident save to say “that he had not seen properly and in any case his prophecies were not always 100% correct”.
Now the self-styled prophet, Chiza is back once again in the newspapers and this time around for the purported lavish lifestyle that he lives in Bulawayo.
An article published last month in the Sunday News carried out an interview with Chiza in an attempt to find out how the ‘soccer prophet’ turned ‘mega-rich prophet’ lived his life. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the article turned out to be nothing more than some cheap PR stunt for the attention seeking Chiza.
If anything, Chiza is clutching at the straws in his hollow attempt to be equated to the likes of Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa and Uebert Angel–and be transformed as Bulawayo’s very own version of the popularly successful Harare-based preachers. Chiza would do well to take a leaf from some other Bulawayo-based men of God who have shunned the spotlight, but are running vibrant and life-changing ministries in the city.
For instance there is River of Life International run by Prophet Bothwell Phiri, whose Cross-Over service held at the start of the New Year prophesied with accuracy details of the state of the nation that included; expose’s of corruption, collapse of the economy, tougher immigration laws being mulled by Zimbabwe’s neighbours.
Never have we heard or seen Phiri try to take the credit for that prophetic word and yet his ministry draws a much larger following than Chiza’s Eagle Life Assembly. The gullibility of our press corps allowed Chiza to make salacious claims without holding him to account at all. Oh where is Professor Jonathan Moyo, when you need him the most!
For starters, Chiza claimed that his church was building a 50 000 seater auditorium, notwithstanding that his congregation is less than 500 at present. This of course is against the claims that Chiza made in previous interviews earlier in the year that his following includes 5 000 members.
Chiza further claims that he is building two 22 room mansions complete with a helipad in Parklands. The man has no shame. The current property he lives on in Parklands is rented and yet he is building two mansions. Unsuprising enough he did not allow the reporter of the interview to photograph the property under construction.
The interview of course turned to the vehicle that he drives, which Chiza claims is a Mercedes Benz S430 and five other top of the range vehicles that include two BMW’s after he gave away his BMW X5 to his spiritual father who is the founder of Faith In God Ministries, Archbishop Asa Gurupira where his church falls under.
The Archbishop must either be desperate to be quoted in media as a recipient or his spiritual son is clearly a loose canon. Whatever happened to the teaching that when you give don’t let the right-hand know what the left-hand is doing?.
Chiza claims he is shipping a Range Rover from the US? Yet he finds it convenient to exclude details of how he is accompanied by a motorcade to and from church that consists of a Mazda Demio and a Toyota Mark 2 trailing his S430 with their hazards on.
Lastly Chiza puts forward the claim that he came to Bualwayo as a vagabond in an attempt to piece together a rags to riches story about his life. Has he forgot that he did his studies at the Bulawayo Polytechnic. The self-proclaimed author also has a book entitled; “The Blessing Connector” in which he gives advice on being a millionaire. A book penned according to the rumormill on the back of borrowed funds which were never paid back to the lenders.
While seeking attention is human nature, Chiza has clearly taken his bit too far. With the World Cup season now on us we sincerely hope that the ‘soccer prophet’ will spare us his predictions. As none of the domestic teams have come out in support of Chiza’s soccer prophesies it is safe to say that our locals have no faith in the man, therefore the international games of the World Cup are best left alone.
Bulawayo has its own share of prophets endowed upon it by God such as Ukama, Chauke and Phiri amongst others. These are prophets with proven miracles and it is fly-by nights who continue soil the name of the city and its good stead.
