Harare – 19 May 2025

By A Correspondent | ZimEye | Twelve years after promising a supernatural gold boom that would lift Zimbabweans out of poverty, Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa has now stunned followers by suggesting he has wiped entire forests clean—leaving not even a lizard behind.

Back in 2013, Makandiwa prophesied that “gold will bulge out of the ground everywhere”, triggering national hysteria and a rush of hope that divine intervention would end Zimbabwe’s economic struggles.

In those days he was also filmed while flanked by fellow preacher Uebert Angel, who at the time confessed to living in extreme poverty, stating: “I went to the bank, you know, on my computer. Minus two. Hey, I said, baby, go and boil water. We will cook today.”

Fast-forward to 2025, both men are now mired in global controversy following exposure in Al Jazeera (and ZimEye) Gold Mafia investigative documentary series—implicated in vast gold smuggling operations, fake miracle claims, and fraud.

In an extraordinary sermon surfaced 16 May 2025, Makandiwa shifted from prophetic promises to bleak confessions of scarcity, declaring:

“He knows how to hunt but there isn’t any… there are no lizards in this forest,” he said.

This chilling metaphor was delivered in the context of a broader diatribe on poverty, state control, and personal power, as Makandiwa lamented that men are being “controlled by poverty” and nations are being kept in disempowerment by design. He went to the extent of mocking the men saying their wives are the ones now getting jobs through sex. The speech was riddled with erratic and repetitive phrases such as “I’m not going to go there” repeated over 20 times in a 9 minute row, raising concerns over coherence and accountability.

Analyst Howard Nyoni known for exposing religious and political fraud, juxtaposed Makandiwa’s 2013 declarations with his 2025 admissions, branding the preacher’s promises as empty and manipulative. The image montage shows clippings of NewsDay and The Herald headlines reporting his gold prophecy, alongside more recent investigations implicating him in gold mine torture and smuggling.

Nyoni questioned whether the only “gold” Makandiwa was ever referring to was symbolic—or a smokescreen for self-enrichment. As his lavish mansion appears in the background of these revelations, Zimbabweans are left with nothing but shattered dreams and scorched forests.

In 2012, the only yellow many say they ever saw from Makandiwa and Angel were the shirts they wore while kneeling before their Ghanaian mentor, Prophet Kusi Boateng. More than decade later, their real yellow gold is now their clothing.

Twelve years later, millions are poorer, forests are stripped, and not even a lizard is left.