Matthew Lani, a young South African man with over 3oo,000 followers on TikTok, was recently arrested for allegedly posing as a doctor and sharing medical advice without having any medical experience.

27-year-old Matthew Bogani Lani rose to internet fame when he started claiming that he was one of the youngest doctors in South Africa. He often told his followers that he was somewhat of a wunderkind, skipping several high-school grades entirely to graduate at age 16, before enrolling at Wits University to study medicine. He often filmed himself patrolling through hospitals dressed in white and wearing a stethoscope around his neck, claiming to be on his way to see patients and even dishing out medical advice to his followers, or selling them medication. He wouldn’t be the first doctor to do this in order to build an online following, but the problem was that Lani wasn’t a doctor at all, he just posed as one.

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South African pastor Siva Moodley died in 2021, but his body was only laid to rest this month, after spending almost 600 days at a mortuary, because his family and parishioners were expecting him to come back to life.

Siva Moodley, the founder of The Miracle Centre in Gauteng, north of Johannesburg, died on August 15, 2021, after falling ill. However, instead of making preparations for his funeral, his family simply left his body at a mortuary, awaiting his resurrection. His wife and other members of his family came to the mortuary to pray for his return, but they stopped coming a few months after his death and refused to give their consent for Moodley’s burial or cremation. To make matters worse, they even refused to acknowledge the pastor’s death within the church, conducting services in his place until the day he decided to come back to life.

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A South African pastor recently sparked controversy online after it was revealed that he was charging people serious money for real-life miracles, like seeing God in heaven.

If you’ve always wanted to see your maker without actually ending your mortal life, MS Budeli, one of the many shady pastors in Africa, claims he can help, if you can pay his fee, of course. According to a promotional poster that has been doing the rounds on social media, Pastor MS Budeli has the power to help people see their future in their smartphones, cancel all their financial debt and even see God. All people have to do is show up for his “Worship Conference” and pay the special prayer fees.

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A South African woman allegedly wired her mouth shut with “slimming wires” in a desperate attempt to lose weight for a breast reduction surgery.

Aviwe Mazosiwe has been trying to lose weight and reach a certain BMI to qualify for breast reduction surgery that she hopes will improve her quality of life. She had managed to lose 12 kilograms with intermittent fasting, but after reaching a plateau on her weight-loss journey, the South African woman decided to take more drastic measures. In June of this year, she had slimming wires fitted on her teeth. These are orthodontic brackets with wires wrapped through them that are attached to the wearer’s teeth to keep the jaw shut. It’s a controversial weight loss device that has attracted a lot of criticism online after Aviwe started sharing her experience on TikTok.

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A 40-year-old man has been dubbed ‘South Africa’s dumbest criminal’ after walking into a police station to get a job there despite being on a wanted criminal list.

Thomas Ngcobo had been on the run for the last seven years, after stealing hardware products worth more than $1,200 while working as a delivery man in 2015. He reportedly diverted deliveries to other addresses without the owner’s consent or knowledge, and went on the run as soon as his manager realized that some invoices were missing and several products had been delivered to the wrong addresses. Ngcobo’s name was added to the police’s wanted criminal list as soon as his employer filed a complaint against him, but he managed to avoid capture for seven years. And then he walked right into a police station like he didn’t even have a criminal record…

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A South African man recently sparked controversy in his home country for proposing to his girlfriend during her father’s funeral.

When it comes to marriage proposals, location and timing are everything, and it’s fair to say that funerals aren’t exactly the perfect place to pop the big question. But that didn’t stop one South African man from staging one of the most awkward proposals in history, asking his grieving girlfriend’s hand in marriage right at her father’s funeral, with his casket in the background. The shocking scene was filmed by another attendant who subsequently posted it on TikTok, where it immediately went viral, sparking a heated debate among users of the popular video-sharing platform.

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Gosiame Thamara Sithole, a 37-year-old woman from South Africa , reportedly gave birth to the world’s first decuples – 10 babies from a single pregnancy.

The first recorded case of decuplets is currently shrouded in mystery, as  ten days since the woman allegedly brought the 10 babies into the world, no one has seen either the mother or the newborns. All we have to go on at this point are media reports and statements made by the babies’ father and other relatives, all of which claim that Gosiame Thamara Sithole did in fact give birth to 10 babies – seven boys and three girls – at the end of a 29-week pregnancy. Apart from the suspicious absence of the mother, there are a few things that don’t really add up, though…

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A South-African female engineer has become an inspiration for other women looking to succeed in fields dominated by men, after photos of her constructing an extension to her house went viral on social media.

Last month, South Africa celebrated Women’s Month and a 26-year-old woman from Pietermaritzburg became the unlikely poster girl for this year’s celebration, after photos of her single-handedly working on an extension to her house went viral on Facebook and other social networks. The pics showed the woman preparing the cement, making all the measurements and stacking the building blocks all by herself, which not only won her a lot of praise, but also empowered other women to follow their dreams even if the odds are stacked against them.

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A prominent South African politician who passed away last week was laid to rest in his Beloved Mercedes limousine instead of a regular casket, as per his last wish.

Tshekede Bufton Pitso, a former leader of the United Democratic Movement (UDM) in Eastern Cape, died last week, after collapsing in his driveway as he was making his way to his second-hand 1990s Mercedes E500 limousine. The former businessman had once had an entire fleet of luxurious Mercedes cars, but was forced to sell them in recent years, after falling on hard times. He did manage to buy a used E500, and even though it had broken down and couldn’t be driven, he still enjoyed spending time in it and listening to the car radio. It was his favorite thing in the world and he even told his family he wanted to be buried in it when his time came. Last weekend, they honored his wish.

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Vernon Kruger, a 52-year-old man from Dullstroom, a small town in South Africa, hasn’t set foot on the ground in 73 days, ever since he climbed into his “home in the sky”, a small barrel at the top of a 25-meter-tall pole.

The first time Kruger climbed into his now famous barrel was 22 years ago, as a dare. He was on a an exotic island, during a vacation, when one of his friends said ‘why don’t you break the record for sitting in a tree?’. It was a joke  at first, than it became a dare, so Vernon started looking into it. He learned that an Indonesian man had already broken the record by sitting in a tree for 28 days, but instead of letting it go, his friends suggested he try pole sitting instead. The record stood at 54 days at the time, so the South African set up his own pole and stood on it for 64 days. That was in 1997, and since no one managed to break his world record since, he decided to do it himself.

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A South African pastor has been making news headlines all over the world for staging a hilariously ridiculous prank in which he appears to bring a dead man back to life in front of a congregation of churchgoers.

Pastor Alph Lukau, of the Alleluia Ministries International church, in Kramerville, South Africa, has landed in hot water after a video showing him supposedly bringing a dead man back to life went viral online. The controversial religious figure can be seen putting his hands on the “dead” man’s chest and shouting “rise up!”. The man, who had supposedly died last Friday due to an undisclosed illness, opens his eyes and rises from the coffin with his mouth and eyes wide open, to the shouts and cheers of churchgoers gathered around him.

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The Lion House is a unique rentable property in South Africa that allows tourists to spend their vacation in the middle of a nature reserve, surrounded by 77 adult lions.

Imagine going to sleep to the sound of lion roars, knowing that the only thing standing between you and dozens of predators is an electrified fence. If that sounds like the kind of thing you’ve always dreamed of, you’d better start saving for a stay at the Lion House, a special three-bedroom house located in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary in Harrismith, South Africa. It doesn’t feature many of the amenities you’d expect to find in a place that costs over $100 a night to rent, like TV or air-conditioning, but it does offer something very few, if any, other places around the world have – lions, 77 of them to be exact.

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The South African Government has sparked outrage around the world after it was reported that it plans to auction off a confiscated white lion to raise funds for the country’s nation conservation department. Animal activists claim that the buyers will likely be wealthy hunters looking for easy trophies or businessmen involved in the lion bone trade.

Mufasa the white lion was confiscated as a cub from a private owner three years ago, and placed in the care of WildForLife, an animal rehabilitation charity in northern South Africa. Despite numerous requests to have Mufasa relocated to a wildlife conservation sanctuary which offered to care for Mufasa and his companion, Suraya, free of charge for the rest of their lives, government officials refused. To make matters worse, a few months ago WildForLife was notified by the South African Government that the rare white lion was going to be auctioned off to private buyers in order to raise funds for the nature conservation department. The charity has been involved in a legal battle to save Mufasa ever since.

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“Praise the Lord and pass the libation” is the motto of an unorthodox church located near Johannesburg, South Africa. Gabola Church of International Ministries takes its name from the Tswana word for “drinking”, and it both allows and encourages members of the congregation to drink during service.

The African continent is home to lots of unconventional churches and colorful preachers who employ all kinds of outlandish rituals to attract parishioners. In the past we’ve written about ministers spraying congregates with “holy” bug spray, making them drink motor oil or talking to God on the phone. However, Johannesburg’s Gabola Church is apparently the first to choose alcohol as its main theme.

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Kurt Minnaar, a 33-year-old math teacher at Cape Town’s Eben Dönges High School uses hip hop beats and rhymes to make math lessons more enjoyable for his students.

Singing or listening to music during math class is usually frowned upon, but in Kurt Minnaar’s classroom, it’s actually a pre-requisite. The former choreographer and hip-hop artist is using his musical background to make the process of learning math a lot easier and less boring for his students. Minaar says that most kids today are into music and beats, and he’s basically taking the traditional math curriculum and fusing it with what they love to make it easier to learn and remember.

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