RENOWNED Nigerian prophet, Temitope Balogun Joshua, commonly known as TB Joshua, gave his annual prophecy on Southern Africa last Sunday.
My interest however, is not in all the issues the pastor of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) tackled but those that border on the economy, especially for Southern Africa under which Zambia falls.
In his continuation of the prophetic message which he started on New Year’s Eve last Thursday night and televised live on the church’s Emmanuel Television, he brought to the fore a lot of things which will happen this year.
Now as a believer I do not want to use the term predict but at the same time, I would want you regardless of your religious disposition or lack of it, to objectively look at the message and not the messenger.
I am aware that a lot of people consider Prophet TB Joshua as a controversial prophet but our interest should be drawn to the message and I want to use his prophecy (whether you believe it or not) to drive a point home.
First in his New Year’s Eve prophetic message he prophesied (others put the word prophesied in inverted commas but I feel there is no need) that there would be scarcity of food in the world in 2016.
The shortage of food would be caused by drought in some places and floods in other areas.
On a positive note he said, Africa has an opportunity to become a food basket that it should have been for the whole world.
He said to achieve that, Africans should go back to the land through agriculture which the governments should heavily invest in.
For countries like Zambia, this point is justified by the fact that food takes up most of the expenditure especially at household level.
The other factor is that, while the prices of other commodities are falling, the prices of food stuffs are always rising.
According to Prophet TB Joshua, the countries which are dependent on commodities like oil, copper and the like, would not yield much because of low prices of these commodities on the international market.
The man of God had prophesied that the prices of commodities like metals, oil and others would collapse in 2014 and they did!
For Southern Africa, the Sunday prophecy was an extension of the Thursday one.
South Africa, whose local currency the Rand,  had together with the Zambian Kwacha been swimming in troubled waters for most of last year, got a relief from the prophecy.
The value of the Kwacha reached its anticlimax in November 2015 when it slipped below the K14-per-dollar mark.
The current turbulence the Rand is going through is a passing phase and will stabilise soon, the prophet asserted!
Prophet TB Joshua said for Southern Africa as a whole, there will be little rain and at a wrong time for that matter.
He said the scanty rains will fall at a wrong time and would, therefore, not amount to much for the farmers who would end up getting frustrated.
“There will be scarcity and shortage of food because of little rains and at a wrong time, which is not good for farming.
Many farmers will be discouraged,” he said.
According to the prophet, the panacea to the situation is for the governments in the region to invest in the establishment of dams and irrigation farming schemes using available water in the sea, lakes and other water bodies.
Naturally, the situation will also affect the availability of electricity.
For Zambia I have been thinking that the government should have increased its Farmers Input Support Porgramme (FISP) to those regions which are receiving adequate rains this year.
Generally, Prophet Joshua said the economic situation in the region would continue to be bleak until August this year when it will start picking up.
The man of God said before that, however, pressure will mount against the governments to surrender their companies to foreign investors.
He said government leaders in the region should fight the strong temptation to surrender industries to foreign investors and ensure they retained some stakes in these companies.
This is because if they do not do so, they would be held hostage by these foreign investors who will become too powerful.
My view has always been that, contrary to the popular opinion that the government has no business in business, it has.
Therefore, leaders should resist the temptation of surrendering industries to foreign investors because, according to him, after
August, the economies in the region will emerge better and stronger than before.
In my view, any leader in the region would ignore the prophetic message at the peril of his/her country and its people!
On a personal level, individuals should take the issue of going back to the land seriously. I do.
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