Why The Zimpraise TD Jakes Disaster Changed Nothing

There is a lot that could have been learnt from the catastrophe of an event that Zimpraise (read Madziyire and Madziyire Pvt Limited) held when they brought celebrated American cleric T.D Jakes to Zimbabwe recently.

There is the sinking of the Titanic, Chernobyl, Chivake Bus Disaster, flight MA 370 crash, the Asian tsunami, Donald Trump’s election into the White House; now the visit by T.D Jakes occupies an unenviable slot amongst the worst disasters in the history of mankind.

Calamity Joe...Joseph Madziyire

It is common-cause that T.D Jakes has very intimate friends in the Pentecostal cleric movement in Zimbabwe. Certainly they could have brought the man to Zimbabwe but chose not to. That is because he is a man of green. If you don’t show him the money, he will not show you his beard no matter how much of chums you are and slap each other’s backs.

And so for a brave, or foolish unconfirmed $140 thousand handshake, Madziyire, with assistance from some key sponsors, many who ordinarily would not sponsor the arts, managed to bring the man and leave him happy from his African safari.

Pretty rich digits from a Zimpraise outfit that feeds its own on next to nothing rather than exposure and a few passport stamps for a select few.

The rest share five loaves and two fish because short of miraculous powers, Joseph cannot break the loaves and fish into many portions to feed five thousand so they have to settle for a non-miracle.

The truth is perhaps it is sad that had Joseph gone to the same notorious corporates seeking Zimpraise funding they would have not flinched but are willing to chip in when a big ‘international name’ is dropped rather than support the local endeavours but that is a digression.

The widely circulated story that while the issue was touted as an interdenominational event but in the stead of a busy Joseph, the next best person to send to welcome T.D Jakes ended up being ‘good ole’ dad’ is evidence of ‘family capture’ which makes the Guptas in South Africa appear like angels.

The whole inclusivity hogwash is therefore just that; hogwash!

And the prohibitive fees in an ailing economy, meant that many people could definitely not make it to the venue and see or hear the clerics.

Surely, if the ‘Zimpraise board’, if anything like that exists as a sovereign decision making board, had anything to do with it then the Bible would have to be rewritten!

For a start, the woman with haemorrhage in the Bible would not have been within a thousand miles of Jesus to touch his robe because they would have commercialised the Christ and put expensive price tags to His coming.

True, sometimes we need a token to make sure we get a little back but in such a mammoth task the hope is to make sure the bill is snatched by corporate partners while what is passed on to the people is just a little token and not the entire bill.

And true to form the Zimbabwean economy educates even the daftest of fools and joseph et al were forced to kill the whole idea and make the event free, scrapping the ridiculous golden circle religious apartheid set up but it was too late.

And how they decided to go head to head with a Harare International Carnival shows that the so-called board knows nothing about due diligence.

But the ship has sunk.

But after this Titanic sank and sank badly, the hope was that the Zimpraise team would have learnt a lesson or two. Not so.

For a start, a flop is a flop. But the event, according to Madziyire was a resounding success. The general belief is that no illicit weeds are allowed or passed on in religious circles. But Joseph’s words make us revisit that age old belief. Certainly this is AFM he attends and not Nyabhingi!

Joseph is showing us a donkey and is at pains to insist to us that we are at the races and looking at a prized racehorse. Which is horse manure.

But instead as the CEO, of acknowledging that he erred to put a price tag on the event as the leader-after all the buck always stops at the table of the leader, Joseph was at pains to say it was NOT his fault. That he was against charging all the time. And that it is the ‘board’ (remember those imaginary guys?) that insisted on charging an arm and three legs for the event.

What happened to taking responsibility?

But that’s not all. He insists that after sinking with the Titanic as the captain he wanted to resign and leave over leadership to another fresh thinker with fresh blood. But he was talked out of it and asked to carry on.

That is typical dictator talk. “I decided to stay on because the people still want me.”

So the show flopped due to making people pay because it was the boards fault. And he has decided to stay on as leader and it is the people’s fault as well! Wow!

I shall not even dwell on the talk of having ‘dad’ as he put it, take over the reins when he is busy.

Or assertions that non-Pentecostals are in the Zimpraise as a matter of diversity which is akin to the choice brown stuff you find if you have ever had the task of changing a diaper.

And that their advertising of the event was as pedestrian as a zebra crossing did not help matters. I am pretty sure until T.D Jakes touched down at Harare International Airport and Joseph called daddy to fill in for him even his daddy did NOT know T.D was coming! That’s how under-advertised it all was.

Finally, Joseph is not stepping down. He will appoint a managing director to oversee the operations while he remains commander in chief of the sunken ship, presumably they will fish it from the buttocks of the ocean.

What happens at Madziyire Pvt Limited, oops, Zimpraise, is anybody’s guess. But this will be a hard one to recover from. But then ago, Joseph knows it all! And because nothing was learnt from it, this disaster has changed nothing.