Chronicle Editor
Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter
A ZIMBABWEAN is entangled in an acrimonious verbal fight with a South African traditional healer with the latter claiming that he reneged on promises to pay for services rendered during a court ordeal.
It has also emerged that the traditional healer was allegedly asked to cause death of Zimbabwean journalist Ezra “Tshisa” Sibanda, for “meddling” in the case through social media posts.
Evidence in the form of WhatsApp messages indicate that the high profile man and his wife engaged a South African traditional healer Mr Bongani Mkhize based at Phongola in Kwazulu-Natal (KZN), who was to help the man get out of the “dramatic mess” he was involved in.
The traditional healer was also to facilitate misfortune or death to some people who were against the man.
The man is alleged to have suspected that some relatives were behind the vandalism of his mother’s tombstone as well as orchestrating allegations to get him incarcerated.
Claims are that the traditional healer charged the couple 200 rand as initial consultation fee and later charged them 10 000 rand to secure acquittal or at least a non-custodial sentence in court.
Sunday News spoke to Mr Mkhize from his South African base.
“His wife contacted me on Facebook seeking for my services. She told me that they were facing particular problems and wanted me to intervene. She told me that her husband was facing cases before the courts.
“I then charged them an initial 200 rand consultation fee (ukukhanyisela) and told them that they could only pay for my services after I have rendered them. I told them that he was to get a lengthy sentence in jail hence I could work on it to try and get him acquitted and for me to do that I charged them 10 000 rand which they would pay after I completed the job,” said Mr Mkhize.
The traditional healer said he requested the couple to come to his base in South Africa but the man informed him that his passport had been taken by the courts and could not travel. Mr Mkhize said he then requested the couple to send pictures which he would use in his spiritual interventions.
“During the trial, we would update each other. At some point he told me that his mother’s grave had been vandalised and sent me the pictures asking me to punish the perpetrators who he suspected to be his relatives. He also said the relatives together with his ex-wife and a Bulawayo journalist wanted to get him imprisoned and requested me to kill them. He sent me their pictures,” he said.
The Sunday News is in possession of the audios and pictures forwarded by the traditional healer that were allegedly sent to him.
He said he made it clear that “killing” people had its own “charges”, and he preferred to work on the court case first.
He said soon after acquittal in court, the couple went silent which led Mr Mkhize to eventually call the man who allegedly pleaded with him to be patient until he secures employment as the court case had drained his coffers.
“He went silent after that, only to come back denying that I helped him. He said they were praying and did not see how my services helped him. I decided to let it go but my son engaged the wife who said I was fake and did not help them,” said Mr Mkhize.
He forwarded the audios to Sunday News where the man’s said wife denied ever approaching him alleging instead that Mr Mkhize was the one who approached her.
“You can do whatever you want, we do not care. Your father (Mkhize) is the one who approached me and I suspect that he had inside information. We discovered that he is duping us and decided to tag along. He told us that my husband would get a lengthy sentence. We then told others who advised us to tag along and see how things would turn out.
“He would say he is sending his ‘invisible boys’ to take some papers from the court but we did not see them. This was a straight forward case, people came and testified and my husband was acquitted,” said the wife in the audio she allegedly sent to Mr Mkhize’s son.
Contacted for a comment, the man’s wife acknowledged that she knew Mr Mkhize but claimed he was the one who approached her on Facebook saying he wanted to talk about what was happening to her husband.
“This man is the one who approached me. He would tell me obvious stuff that we all knew. He would tell us what people wanted to do to us and was offering to help us. Remember this person stays in Durban, we do not even know him. When I spoke to my husband we decided to just tag along and let him continue telling us whatever he was telling us. At that time things were hard. Recently he has been telling me that we owe him money, which is not true,” she said.
After the initial call, she invited this reporter to a WhatsApp conference call with five foreign cellphone numbers suspected to be her relatives, Mr Mkhize as well as her husband.
The man went ballistic in the conference call telling this reporter to write whatever will satisfy him.
“Bhala jeki, hanti vele lilwa lempilo yami. Kanti limncengani kanti, kabhale kuyadlula lokhu angisayesabi lutho mina (You can write whatever you deem fit. Guys do not plead with him he can just go and write whatever he wants, I am no longer afraid of anything, it will eventually pass,” he said.
The suspected relatives quizzed Mr Mkhize on the same conference call but he stood his ground on the couple owing him for services rendered. A few days after the call, Mr Mkhize called this reporter saying he had been paid his dues.
One of the people on the said hit list, journalist Sibanda said he was told by someone who contacted him via social media that his life was in danger.
“Nothing will happen to me. God will protect me. I’m just doing my job. It’s nothing personal. That car accident when I hit cows coming from the airport was supposed to kill me, but I escaped with no injuries at all,” he said. — @nyeve14
Online Reporter