Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) has expressed concern over the torching of a church by the Muslim faithful in Mangochi and has also condemned a pastor in the district for provoking the Muslim faithful.
MAM Secretary General Alhaji Twaibu Lawe has released a statement today following the incident at Mpilipili, Makanjira in Mangochi yesterday where Muslims torched Emmanuel Mission Church after a pastor from the church drew a picture depicting god of Muslims.
“MAM is strongly condemning the pastor’s action of deliberately provoking the peaceful Muslims with a blasphemous picture, as well as the tendency of overreaction by the Muslim community in the are that resulted in taking the law in their hands,” reads part of the statement.
MAM has since appealed to Muslims to maintain peace and calm as the matter is being investigated by Malawi Police.
The organisation is also investigating the matter and has promised to make its findings public.
According to a police report released yesterday, Pastor Gladson Njenekera runs a college of Pastors under Golden Eagles Theological College where its lectures came from different denomination.
On 25 October, the college received a lecturer from Mchinji identified as Pastor Wyson Semani of Baptist Church who had lessons at the college until Friday 29 October. His lessons and exams were supposed to be printed and distributed to students.
Njenekera collected the exams and notes and gave it to an employee of Zein Printers for the job of printing.
The employee happens to be a Sheikh and in the course of printing he came across an illustration depicting the god of Muslims which was not due for printing.
He photocopied the diagram and then showed some Sheikhs who got angry with it and demanded explanation from the Pastor.
A meeting was convened at Snr Makanjiras house where Njenekera admitted giving the documents for printing but denied ownership of the diagram.
The said owner Pastor Wyson Semani was communicated and agreed to go back to Makanjira to apologize and was sent K20,000 for transport.
However, the matter got worse after reports that the pastor in question cancelled his journey due to security reasons.
Muslim faithful convened in large numbers then went to the house of Pastor Njenekera where they destroyed and burned the house, Sunday school block and church. They also looted a lot of property believed to be worth millions.
Why should the pastor draw a foto of god when he knows around the world can not tolerate anything bad about our Allah and his prophet (saw) this is all organized by the white missionaries to unstable Africa it’s a warning to others to keep away from this or else there will be more fire.