When religious beliefs clash with journalism – part five

Everything now seemed on course for Mugabe but George Bush won the 2004 presidential elections which meant that Mugabe’s term of office expired before that of Bush. Howard also won the elections to serve his fourth term as Australian Prime Minister but his term expired before that of Mugabe.

"Bush might outlast Mugabe," I thought. "But the prophecy was still true about Blair."

But Blair won his third term in May 2005 which meant he would be in power a year or two after Mugabe’s term of office had expired.

I began to lose heart. Despite Mugabe's victory things continued to fall apart. Inflation started to soar. Central bank governor Gideon Gono who had come on with a lot of promise vowing "failure is not an option" slowly disappeared from the public arena sparking rumours that he too was giving up.

But Mugabe would not go. With its two-thirds majority, Mugabe’s party voted to re-introduce the Senate which was abolished when the post of executive president was created.  Its argument was that this would bring more democracy as the upper house would scrutinise the legislation passed by the lower house. Critics said Mugabe was just trying to accommodate his cronies some of whom had been clobbered in the parliamentary elections both in 2000 and 2005.

The opposition was split over whether it should participate in the elections for a new senate or not. Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai over-ruled his executive which had voted to participate and said the party would boycott the elections. His secretary-general Welshman Ncube said Tsvangirai could not overrule the majority because this was tantamount to being a dictator. The party was, therefore, going to contest the elections. The two sides could not agree and the party split. Those behind Ncube contested the senate elections. Efforts to heal the rift flopped. The party officially split in February 2006 when the two factions held their congresses but both clang on to the name MDC.

Former student leader Arthur Mutambara was elected president of the pro-senate faction after the party leadership, Ncube and Gibson Sibanda, both Ndebele, decided that the party needed a Shona leader with national appeal. Mutambara had been a vociferous student leader in the late 1980s. He had studied in Britain obtaining a PhD in robotics and mechatronics before moving to the United States where he worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Company and for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He was now a businessman in South Africa where he ran the African Technology and Business Institute.

Mugabe had survived another crisis. But divisions within ZANU-PF continued to grow. The divisions came to a head at the party’s annual conference in December 2006 at Goromonzi in Mashonaland East, the home province of Solomon Mujuru, husband of the country’s vice-president. Mujuru, who had become one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, was now fed up with Mugabe because his continued stay in power was hurting his business interests. He and his wife were on the United States and European Union sanctions lists and this prohibited him from travelling to Europe or the United States or doing business there.

At the conference Mugabe and his other lieutenants tried to buy time by advocating for harmonised elections. At the time, Zimbabwe had separate parliamentary, presidential and local government elections. Their argument was that this was a stretch on the country’s meagre resources and on the voters themselves because they were in perpetual election mode.

For example, between 2000 and 2005 the country had five national elections. There were parliamentary elections in 2000, local government elections in 2001, presidential elections in 2002, parliamentary elections in 2005 and senate elections in 2005. Mugabe and his lieutenants therefore wanted to push the presidential elections of 2008 to 2010 when the next parliamentary elections were due so that the country could hold all three elections- presidential, parliamentary, and local government- at the same time.

Mujuru and Mashonaland East province rejected the idea. They also refused to endorse Mugabe as the party’s next presidential candidate. Instead, they called for an extra-ordinary congress of the party for the following year. The next ordinary congress was due in 2009. Battle lines had been drawn and for the first time, there had was open confrontation about Mugabe’s continued leadership of the party.

Mujuru’s open confrontation with Mugabe provided an opportunity for Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had been demoted to Minister of Rural Housing after the 2005 elections, to bounce back. His opportunity came at the party’s central committee meeting on March 30, 2007. Mugabe was under siege at the time. 

Police had beaten up and arrested most of the leaders of the opposition including Mutambara and Tsvangirai. Sekai Holland, a Zimbabwean married to an Australian, made international headlines after she was beaten and arrested.  Gift Tandare, an MDC activist, was shot and killed by the police but could not be buried because most of the leaders of the opposition were in jail. This provided good reason for Mujuru to challenge Mugabe to step down but he was not given a chance by Mnangagwa and his lieutenants.

According to a cable dispatched by United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, who Mugabe and his government said had been deployed to Zimbabwe to kick him out as he had done in Kosovo where he was chief of mission, Mugabe steamrolled his way into becoming the ZANU-PF candidate for  the 2008 presidential elections. There was no discussion. No debate.

Dell said his sources told him that Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, a close ally of Mnangagwa, introduced, at the beginning of the meeting, a proposal for consolidated presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008. “At that point, Central Committee members, led by the Women's League and Youth League, began chanting and singing for Mugabe to be the presidential candidate. There was no discussion, no tabling of a motion, nor was there a formal vote. The party spokesperson announced after the meeting that the Central Committee had selected Mugabe as its standard bearer”. And that was that. Mujuru was not given a chance.

Two months later there was a bomb shell. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced on May 10 that he was stepping down on June 27. I could not believe it. Part one of the prophecy had been fulfilled. But events in Zimbabwe were so unpredictable that though only seven weeks away, June 27 looked years away. 

Anything could happen. Mugabe could be off the scene before then.

I drafted my story on May 12 planning to have it out before May 19, more than a month before Blair officially stepped down. But I abandoned the project when more predictions about Mugabe's downfall began to spread. My doubts and lack of faith had taken over. I felt Mugabe might not last until June 27 so I decided to work on the story but hold it until a day after Blair had actually resigned.

I wrote the story and asked one of the church elders whether I could sell the story as it was. He said I should get the bishop’s opinion on the story. I did not like the idea, but I did. Bishop Mutendi said he wanted to see the story to read it for himself. After going through it he advised me not to publish it.

"There is nothing wrong with the story or the prophecy," he told me. "My only worry is that the MDC might not understand that this is prophecy and not the church's position. Why don't you wait because part of the prophecy is still to be fulfilled?"

I was devastated. Four years had been a long wait. I had put everything into this story. My first instinct was to defy the bishop because I felt that this was going to be an opportunity missed because the story might be overtaken by events. But I could not defy my bishop.

Bishop Mutendi instructed me to rewrite the story confining myself to the prophecy linked to the development of our multi-million dollar church that we were building at the church's administrative headquarters at Mbungo Estates, in Masvingo.

Construction of the church which has a capacity of 15 000 to 18 000 had started in October 2005. Though it had initially been thought that the church would be completed within a year, it was still far from complete. 

There had been several prophecies about what would happen to Zimbabwe and its people when construction of the church was completed.  One of the prophecies was that Zimbabwe was going to regain its status as the region's bread basket. Another was that Zimbabwe’s currency was going to regain its strength and compete against the South African rand, the Botswana pula and the United States dollar. And, finally, a cure for Aids would be found.

I wrote that story and it appeared in our supplement which is published every year in July to coincide with the anniversary of Rev Samuel Mutendi's death. The story read:

 Thousands of followers of the Zion Christian Church will trek to Defe Dopota this week on their annual pilgrimage in honour of the founder Rev Samuel Mutendi. This year’s pilgrimage will, however, be different. They will not be mourning the founder. They did that for 30 years. Now it’s their turn to be rewarded for their perseverance and steadfastness.

Church members will this year be rededicating themselves to Rev. Mutendi who guided the church from its humble beginnings in the 1920s until his death on 20 July 1976.  Rev Mutendi received his calling in 1913 while he was serving as a police officer in Chegutu. He was baptised in South Africa where he founded the Zion Christian Church in 1924 together with Engenas Lekganyana before returning to Zimbabwe to launch his evangelical crusade.

He, however, faced stiff resistance from colonial governments because they thought he had a political agenda yet his aim was to liberate his people spiritually and intellectually because he knew, as the bible says, that his people would perish because of lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4 vs 6).

Throughout his teachings, he also wanted to eradicate two ills: disease and poverty. To achieve this he encouraged his people to educate their children and established the first school in 1932. This was unheard of at the time and from then Rev.Mutendi became a marked man who was jailed constantly, sometimes for frivolous reasons, because of his unwavering conviction that he was doing the right thing for his people.

He established his first mission at Mutarara, then known as Zion City Moriah, some three kilometres from Nyika Growth Point. This was to remain his headquarters until he was moved to Gokwe in the late1960s.

God also endowed him and some of his followers with powers of healing. Using holy water he was able to cure various ailments some of which were thought to have no cure including infertility. A French couple that had been childless for years travelled all the way to Moriah and was blessed with a baby girl.

Though he performed various miracles and preached the word of God for five decades, it was his end that attracted the attention of even those that had been sitting on the fence. It proved beyond doubt that Rev Mutendi was indeed a Man of God, Muranda waMwari.

A few days before his death, Rev. Mutendi told his church elders that his time was up. “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day, and not only to me but also to those who have loved his appearing,” he quoted from the Bible (2 Tim 4 vs 7).

He said if nothing unique happened three days after his death, then his followers could go back to their old ways of drinking beer and worshipping their ancestors because he had misled them all along.

Three days after his death, a bright star which bore his picture complete with his cap and staff popularly known as mapumhangozi was seen gliding slowly across the sky before landing on the ground to mark his grave. Several people, including some who were not even members of his church, were seized by the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues at the sight of the star.

The star was seen across the country but scientists explained it away as an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). To his followers, this was confirmation that Rev. Mutendi was indeed a Man of God.

Rev Mutendi was succeeded by his son, Nehemiah, who has taken the church to even greater heights. It now has congregations in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia as well as in Britain and the United States.

Bishop Mutendi, who trained as a teacher, has kept his father’s vision of educating the people. The church now has four primary and six secondary schools and is sponsoring scores of students at various universities in the country.

His aim is to spread the gospel across the globe to show how God has manifested himself in Africa. But more importantly, he wants to see his followers prosper through the eradication of disease and poverty.

The visit to the Holy Shrine at Defe this year will mark the first step towards achieving that goal. “After 30 years of morning Bambo Samere,” he says, “it is now time for us to receive our thank you letters.”

He has also embarked on the construction of a mammoth church and conference centre at the church headquarters at Mbungo Estates, about 50km east of Masvingo. The church will be one of the biggest on the continent.

Once it is completed everyone who will have contributed to the construction of this church should be rewarded as proclaimed in 1 Kings 4 vs 25: “And Judah and David dwelt in safety, from Dan even to Beer-Sheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon..”

This is further confirmed in 11 Chronicles 31 vs 10, which says: “And Azariah the chief priest of the house of Zadok answered him, and said, Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty: for the Lord hath blessed his people; and that which is left is this great store.”

Already, there have been several prophesies associated with the completion of this church that will cost more than US$1 million.  One is that a cure for the dreaded Aids disease will be found. The other is that Zimbabwe will regain its status as the region’s breadbasket and its currency will regain its value.

This is the fifth chapter of my kindle book: When religious beliefs clash with journalism principles,which is available only through Amazon. The book is not about the church or about Mugabe but about my experiences in the Zion Christian Church. If,  in the process, this helps to spread the word about the ZCC then I would have done my part because the church and its leader Bishop Mutendi are not only preaching the Word of God in Zimbabwe and across the World but they are also promoting the development of Zimbabwe, which former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere said was the Jewel of Africa. As it is said in Isaiah 2 vs 2 "that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it" so will the ZCC and Zimbabwe. For my fellow Zimbabweans who have no means of buying this book online, I will be serialising it on this blog, bit by bit. So follow this blog.