Minister of National Guidance and Religious Affairs Reverend Godfridah Sumaili says those mocking the one-week prayer and fasting period to end Cholera are under the devil’s attack.

And Reverend Sumaili says her ministry will continue to promote the country’s values as outlined in the Constitution to make Zambia a better place to live in.

Reacting to public remarks that the one-week prayer and fasting period which she called to “kick out Cholera from the land”, would not end cholera, Rev Sumaili said God’s intervention was needed for Cholera to be eradicated permanently.

“Cholera has come and we would like God to help us deal with this matter permanently. We want the root cause of Cholera to be identified and in order to do that, we need God’s wisdom pantu amano yafuma kuli lesa (because wisdom comes from God). We are a Christian Nation and so when we have a calamity, we should look to God. The Ministers of Health and Local Government are being guided, God is helping them and giving them wisdom to deal with this situation. So we need people to corporate. We saw that riot today (Monday) and the one in Kanyama, we need the help of God to stop that, we need God to open the eyes of Zambians so that when they see the city is clean, they will appreciate. But at the same time, when we look up to God, we are thanking him because this thing could have been worse but because of God’s intervention, we are seeing that there is an improvement,” Rev Sumaili said in an interview.

And Rev Sumaili said the country also needed to pray for rains so that Zambia could record another bumper harvest.

“We also want to pray for the rains, the Bible says ‘pray for the rains’ so that God can open he heavens. We are praying for the rains, we want a bumper harvest. As of those saying the decision by government to fast and pray for cholera to end as hypocritical, I think that is an attack from the enemy. The devil doesn’t want prayers because when we pray, even the things we have not prayed for, God will give us those things. You know the enemy doesn’t like it when people say we want to pray and there is a reaction from the powers of darkness who fear prayer. The enemy fears prayer, especially fasting and praying, that is why you hear objections each time prayers are called because the devil hates prayers,” Rev Sumaili said.

Asked to outline some of the activities her ministry had lined up for 2018, Reverend Sumaili said the Ministry of National Guidance and Religious Affairs was determined to continue promoting the country’s values.

“We are going to continue promoting the values that have been outlined in the Constitution. Values such as patriotism, national unity, good governance, democracy and there is non-discrimination, equity ad all those other values. We need to inculcate them in people and we need to do a lot of awareness raising, sensitization because for people’s minds to change, they need knowledge. We are on transformation agenda and we cannot have transformation without knowledge. We want to promote unity in the nation because we are one people and it is our ministry that has to go all over Zambia to do sensitisation,” said Rev Sumaili.

“But of course we shall work with other stakeholders like NGOs and other ministries. In addition to that also, we have to actualise the declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation. We were declared a Christian nation but is it real? It is us now to bring it to reality so as to ensure that as Zambia, we are Christian nation. We need to work with the Churches in order to attain the actualisation of the declaration.”