Letters: Joshua is a prophet for profit

This is not a time to lay blame but rather a time to unite.

The deaths of more than 60 of our citizens in the devastating collapse of a guest house at "prophet" TB Joshua's The Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos in Nigeria is one of the country's worst peacetime tragedies.

Evidently Joshua is a Nongqawuse for the 21st century for gullible believers (Nongqawuse, circa 1840s-1898, was the Xhosa prophetess whose prophecies led to a millennialist movement that culminated in the Xhosa cattle-killing crisis of 1856-1857 in what is now the Eastern Cape).

There is sadly a great deal of money to be made from the poor and uneducated masses.

The Nigerian government should prosecute Joshua for violating the basic rules of construction.

Charlatans should not be allowed to profit from the ignorance of the poor. Joshua is not a saviour but a manipulator. - Mzukisi Gaba, Cape Town

What is more likely? That Boko Haram has a secret military drone programme, that the foundations of the guest house were weak, or Joshua, who can apparently miraculously cure cancer, forgot to ask God to keep his building standing?

This tragedy has shaken the Nigerian nation profoundly and I offer my condolences, and encourage people not to put their faith and trust in anything as variable and questionable as Joshua and his claims. - Robert Nicolai, Howick

The synagogue of the "prophet" is now a pile of rubble and rock - and the best International Relations Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane can do is trot out hackneyed and inappropriate statements like "we will leave no stone unturned" in rescue efforts.

All said in true political fashion, without any real thought. - A Vayej, by e-mail

Take aim at all, not just Cyril

I find it amazing that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa must dispose of his business interests.

Why is Ramaphosa being targeted?

We have a president whose family has been given billions in government contracts here and across the border.

Why not go after all government employees - especially those in the upper echelons of government - and make all of them give up their business interests?

If that happens, I suppose they will just put their assets in someone else's name.

Government officials should not have any private interests that benefit them financially in any way.

This is what corruption is all about. - Joe Cimino, by e-mail

Theory needs a make-ova

Do WE really all start out as female?

When I was a child and learned the facts of life, I believed men put a single seed straight into a woman's womb, where the baby grew. Developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert ("Nature can't be nurtured", September 17) believes "we all come from a single cell - the egg".

Studying midwifery and later theology of the body, I learned the truth. We all come from perfectly equal and balanced genetic and chromosomal material from both the ova (egg) and sperm (seed). Babies are not primarily female either - they're bisexual until 52 days after conception, when external genitalia begin to differentiate. - Burgie Ireland, registered nurse and midwife