Chronicle Editor
IT is indisputable that former High Court judge and decorated football administrator, Justice Siwanda Kennedy Mbuso Sibanda who passed on last week on Wednesday in Johannesburg, South Africa was a man of many talents, a man of proven ability.
While Justice Sibanda’s name will not ring a bell to youngsters of today, those who knew him after 1980 will remember his commitment to football administration, an avenue in which he played a leading role at the helm of one of Bulawayo most entertaining teams of the 1980s and 90s, Bulawayo Wanderers which was to later to change its name to Eagles Football Club. Others will remember him as a renowned lawyer who went on to sit on the High Court bench and served the judiciary with distinction.
However, while we celebrate his obvious passion for football and his service to the country’s justice system, it should not be lost that SKM, as Justice Sibanda was affectionately known, was a nationalist of giant proportions. He like others of his generation did not look aside or stand with arms akimbo in the face of colonial injustice. Justice Sibanda took the colonial regime head-on by representing many political leaders in their various confrontations with the racist Rhodesian government led by the rebel Ian Smith.
He was also part of the Zapu delegation that attended the Lancaster House Talks in London in 1979 that delivered independence and black majority rule.
When the time came to unite the people of Zimbabwe following the post-independence disturbances that affected mostly the Matabeleland region and some parts of Midlands, Justice Sibanda was also there to lend a hand by playing a prominent role in the unity of the country.
It is somewhat a paradox that he breathed his last breath on the very day that the unity of this country was ratified by the two prominent nationalists, the late former President, Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe and Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo.
Besides his dalliance with football and Zimbabwe’s politics, Justice Sibanda was a jolly good fellow who took the interests of the under-privileged to heart. During his time at Bulawayo Wanderers and later the renamed Eagles Football Club, former players are talking about how Justice Sibanda uplifted many young souls growing up in the poverty-stricken communities of Iminyela and Mabutweni, working-class suburbs which were and are still populated by the needy.
He changed the direction of many lives young and old, took youths from the streets and in the process protected them from the vagaries of crime and other vices. Justice Sibanda’s quest to serve the poor and uplift the lives of his fellow Zimbabweans was not only confined to Bulawayo, anyone and everyone who knew him and interacted with him will attest to the fact that he viewed everyone as a Zimbabwean and he was thus able to recruit players from outside Bulawayo as well.
According to one of the many former Eagles players, Engineer Prince Moyo, Justice Sibanda encouraged his club’s officials to scout for talent in towns like Gweru, Zvishavane and beyond. And with his death, Zimbabwe has lost a nationalist, philanthropist, and accomplished football administrator. His family have lost a doting father, husband, grandfather and brother – a true patriarch – while players and football administrators alike who worked with him or came into his space lost a mentor and life changer.
Justice Sibanda was a Zimbabwean for all Zimbabweans, a gentle man who insisted on discipline, a man of the people who touched many lives during his lifetime. With his sad passing on, Zimbabwe has lost one very extraordinary and principled man.
The country at large will mourn his passing and yet also celebrate the memories of a man driven to better his country and his people.
Online Reporter