AFMA leader barred

Patrick Chitumba Chronicle Reporter
The Bulawayo High Court has interdicted the leader of the troubled Apostolic Faith Mission of Africa (AFMA), Reverend Tony Tshuma, and his followers from interfering, visiting or using the church’s headquarters building in Lobengula Extension, among other church assets.

Rival camps in the acrimonious leadership wrangle of AFMA pitting Reverends Tshuma and Clement Nyathi have since 2013 been locked in a protracted legal battle over the control of the church property.

Justice Maxwell Takuva’s ruling followed an application by Rev Nyathi who sought an interdict against Rev Tshuma from controlling church assets. The group wants Rev Tshuma to vacate the church premises including a house in Bulawayo’s affluent Matsheumhlope suburb.

According to last week’s judgment, Rev Tshuma is set to lose a luxury car, a Land Rover Discovery, among other vehicles bought for him by the church.

In the court papers, Rev Tshuma and Elliot Ncube were cited as respondents while Rev Nyathi, Fidelis Morris, Abel Mephulangogala, Phibion Manyowa and AFMA are the applicants in the matter.

In his judgment, Justice Takuva said the respondents failed to comply with Rule 4C of the High Court.

“In my view, Rule 4C cannot be used to cover trickery, dishonest and crafty behaviour by litigants. The respondents simply sneaked in the opposing affidavit into the file hoping to hoodwink the Registrar of the High Court and the court into believing that all was in order,” said the judge.

He said Rev Tshuma through his lawyers, Ndove, Museta and Partners Legal Practitioners, failed to timeously apply for condonation.

“Even in their purported oral application they (respondents) did not give even a single reason for the default. Consequently, the application to uplift the automatic bar and to be condoned in terms of Rule 4C is hereby dismissed and the respondents remain automatically barred,” ruled Justice Takuva.

The matter was subsequently referred to the unopposed roll and Rev Tshuma will not be able to appeal. He and his group had asked the court to allow them another chance of filing opposing papers, after they had earlier on failed to file them within the stipulated period.

Rev Nyathi’s lawyer Norman Mugiya said: “We were seeking to bar them from accessing church assets and the church itself as well as bar them from acting as church leaders or affiliates and surrender all assets to the church. We stated that the default bishop must leave our house and surrender it to my clients.”

Mugiya said they had raised the points in limine that Rev Tshuma and his group must not be heard because they did not comply with the court’s rules in their attempt to oppose his clients’ application.

In his earlier application, which he won at the High Court, Rev Nyathi was granted an urgent interdict barring Rev Tshuma from disposing of church properties and personalising them.

The application was heard by Bulawayo High Court judge, Justice Martin Makonese.

In his founding affidavit, Rev Nyathi submitted that AFMA had internal problems and claimed Rev Tshuma broke away from the church declaring himself president and overseer for the breakaway group.

“These problems had been on-going for over six years, which led to the respondent filing a court application before this court, case number HC540/14, so that this court could declare him duly appointed head of AFM,” Rev Nyathi submitted.

He said Rev Tshuma and his team had been disposing of church assets and transferring other church properties into different names so that by the time the court makes a determination on the status of the church leadership, he would have hidden a lot of properties.

Rev Nyathi said Rev Tshuma was barring him and others from conducting services at the Lobengula Extension church.

He said Rev Tshuma claimed the church was headquartered on his personal property yet it belonged to the church.

Justice Makonese ordered both groups to stop using and disposing of the said properties or transferring them into other names.

The recent application comes after the Supreme Court in February dismissed Rev Tshuma’s application seeking to nullify the Bulawayo High Court ruling, where it was ruled that the troubled leader was not the church’s legitimate leader on grounds that he was not properly elected to hold office.

High Court Judge Justice Nokuthula Moyo had last year ruled that Rev Tshuma was not constitutionally elected, hence he and his group filed a Supreme Court appeal seeking the setting aside of the ruling, but they failed to inspect documents as stipulated at law within given days prompting the Supreme Court to throw their application away.

Rev Nyathi accused Rev Tshuma of conniving with some “few misguided individuals” to impose himself as the church’s leader soon after the death of his predecessor, Rev Philemon Sibanda, in 2008.

The church, led by Rev Sibanda, broke away from the original Apostolic Faith Church in Pelandaba in 1985 with his sympathisers and formed their own church at Lobengula Extension, renaming it Apostolic Faith Mission of Africa.

The Apostolic Faith Church in Pelandaba was founded in Zimbabwe by Rev Morgan Sengwayo, now late, in 1955.