FRIDAY July 8 2016 will be remembered as a great day in the history of the Johane Masowe eChishanu sect led by Vadzidzi VaJesu Apostolic Church founder Aaron Mhukuta Gomo.
President Robert Mugabe took time to resolve a dispute that had threatened to destroy one of the country’s oldest churches.
I grew up in that church.
The past two years have been traumatic for Mudzidzi Wimbo, as Mhukuta is known, and have been laden with uncertainty for multitudes who go to that church.
And this writer, from information gathered, will attempt to give an orderly account of events that led to President Mugabe’s intervention in the raging dispute in Bindura last Friday.
Some two years ago, a few church zealots, driven by insatiable quest for power, ownership and control of the church, abducted Mudzidzi Wimbo from his homestead in Mutumba, Madziva.
They took him to the revered shrine of worship a few kilometres from his homestead, in violation of both the country’s laws and the church’s regulations.
Obviously looking at Mudzidzi Wimbo’s age, they wanted to derail the normal succession procedure.
Mudzidzi Wimbo is 94 years old.
They wanted to steal that which is not theirs and might never be theirs.
As a result, the very existence of this great church has been under threat from the greedy goons who thought by way of their positions in society and proximity to Mudzidzi Wimbo, they also had proximity to God.
Several attempts by Mudzidzi Wimbo’s children to have their father back did not achieve the desired result as the hoodlums used violence, intimidation and coercion to continue with their senseless abduction and gluttonous quest for power.
Yet besides being a church leader, Mudzidzi Wimbo is first and foremost a family man.
His advanced age made it even more compelling for the family to be always around their father.
This is where the majority of the congregants disagreed with the non-conformist hoods, hence the near split of the church.
Equally, some church members also tried to rescue the old man from the vigilantes, but so determined were the vagabonds that it came to naught.
President Mugabe was damning in his condemnation of the abductors’ actions.
“Kana vachitipa support, ngavatipe pachavo nemoyo yavo ivo pachavo, kwete nekumanikidzwa, kwete nekuridzirwa pfuti. Hatidi! Handicho Chimurenga chatakarwira,” said President Mugabe.
But leadership take-over precedence in the church is very clear on how the process is done.
The Mudzidzi Wimbo abductors know that.
They simply do not care, hence their nefarious attempt to hold on to the man in the vain hope he would tell them what they wanted to hear.
It never happened and it will not happen.
Below is an explanation of how the church started and how Mudzidzi Wimbo is the incumbent.
In 1931, a man called Shonhiwa Masedza, who lived under Chief Makoni in the village of Gandanzara, went away to look for a job and he ended up in Norton.
He settled in Norton at a place known as Marimba Hills where he was known by some people as a cobbler.
During his spare time, he enjoyed carpentry.
People in the area called him by the nickname ‘Sixpence’, on account every time he did a job, he only requested six pence and nothing more.
It was at this place that Sixpence was mending a pair of shoes that a white thread appeared from the sky and somehow, he raised his hands to receive this white thread.
Upon receiving this white thread, he fell ill and was taken to his house where he lay for days.
He could not walk, talk or eat for weeks.
After three weeks, while still ill, he was reported to have been inside the house, but would appear outside the house.
Three weeks is significant in the Johane Masowe Church.
The event was difficult to explain since he somehow didn’t use the door.
Many people were shocked by this event.
Sixpence’s teachings revolved around love, peace and harmony.
In 1932, Sixpence went with his followers to Mhondoro where a man called Mudyiwa, later Emmanuel Mudyiwa, lived.
The two had never met and yet another white thread appeared when they met.
Sixpence left the reins to Emmanuel Mudyiwa who would later hand over to Mudzidzi Wimbo in the mid-1980s.
This was a few years before Emmanuel Mudyiwa’s death in the late 1980s.
So while it is clear, from precedence, that both Mudyiwa and Mudzidzi Wimbo never chose themselves and that it doesn’t follow that Mudzidzi Wimbo’s children will take over, it is the manner in which the abductors are trying to position themselves that exposes their intentions.
These are desperate men trying to impose their persons in the church leadership.
They will not succeed.
Neither will their attempt to force Mudzidzi Wimbo to tell them what he has not been instructed to say work.
Let those with ears listen.