Apostle Ezekiel Guti Turns 98, Outlives Former President Robert Mugabe

Though Apostle Guti and President Mugabe are unlikely to be mentioned in the same breathe, the Man of God and the Founding Father of Zimbabwe have more things to compare that usually escape and one is age and leadership.

Ezekiel Handinawangu Guti is the evangelist pastor who founded Forward in Faith Ministries International, Zaoga University, and Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa, a Pentecostal Christian church that broke away from a South African Pentecostal church, the Apostolic Faith Mission, in 1959.

He was born on 5 May 1923 in Ngaona Chipinge, of Zimbabwe’s south-eastern region boarder with Mozambique. He was born almost a year earlier than the late former president of Zimbabwe who born on 21 February 1924.

Now at 98 years Archibishop Guti has been leading ZAOGA for 60 years since its inception in 1959 when he was 36 years-old. Former President Mugabe lead ZANU PF for 46 years from 1975 to 2017 and lived to see 95 years.

Apostle Ezekiel Guti was quoted in 2015 saying;

President Mugabe can go on leading the country because age does not prevent anyone from carrying out such a duty.

Their God-given gift of longevity in both life span and leadership period, as well as, being contemporaries influence and shape their legacy. However, finding virtue in education and being dedicated christians remain characteristic of these two unlikely friends.

In 2018 Guti was listed as the 9th-richest person in Zimbabwe, with an estimated wealth of $130 million. In 2000, ZAOGA was said to be the largest church in Zimbabwe. To date, it is the largest Pentecostal church and Forward in Faith Ministries International is one of the richest churches in Africa.

15 years after his first wife passed on, he married his wife Eunor at age 54, and they remain married for 42 years.