According to today’s rag, Namibia’s deputy Minister of Health, Ms. Petrina Haingura

saw a vision in which she was taken up to heaven and was greeted by an angel. The track record of God revealing Himself to politicians is not a happy one, after all, both President Bush and Mr. Blair were convinced that God had told them to invade Iraq. It’s a pity, while God was on the line, that He did not inform BB that there were no weapons of mass destuction, or that (seeing as he is omniscient) what a foul-up the exercise would prove to be. Still, there we have it – several hundred thousand dead as a result of the Godly instruction.

Apparently the message that the Angel had for the Deputy Minister was that all should repent, always a good idea for those practicing corruption, cooking their wives etc. But a bit unoriginal – seeing that the heavenly guest is a health minister, would it not have been more helpful (and more convincing) if the Angel had dictated her a recipe for a cure for HIV/AIDS?

In an earlier vision (the deputy Minister has apparently had several) she was taken up into heaven, where she saw a sleeping leapard. The only connection I can think of here is the legendary spoonerism where the tongue-tied priest announced the subject for his sermon: “The Lord is a shoving leopard…”
No, I think Ministers are more to be entrusted when they have their feet on the ground and their heads firmly connected to the earthly problems in hand.