Online Reporter
Bruce Ndlovu
RODNEY Tongai Jindu, the convicted double murderer once destined for the gallows, says he is now walking a different path, one guided by faith, forgiveness, and the Bible.
After escaping the hangman’s noose earlier this year when Zimbabwe scrapped the death penalty, Jindu was baptised on Friday at Khami Maximum Prison in front of fellow inmates and Seventh Day Adventist ministers, marking what he says is the beginning of his redemption.
“I feel like this is a new beginning, a new dawn for me,” he said. “I was living a dark life. I was a bad person. I would like to thank God because, being baptised like this, I feel that a certain filth is being washed away from me.”
Jindu brutally murdered his friends Mboneli Ncube and Cyprian Kudzurunga in 2017, and in 2021 was sentenced to death by Justice Nokuthula Moyo, who noted his apparent lack of remorse. But now, the gold-toothed convict says he has found God and wants to apologise to the families of his victims.
“I continue to say I’m sorry for what I did. I know that sorry does not sound like much given what I did but I want them to know that this is from my heart and I mean it 100 percent,” said Jindu.
He added that his family, together with Dumisani Nkomo, founder of Jesus Behind Bars and an ex-convict himself, would help him reach out to the victims’ families.
His spiritual turning point, he said, came after his brother died in a car crash last November.
“We were very close and when he died, I felt helpless. That’s when I turned to God. I knew only He could carry that burden.”
Jindu is now studying theology through the Greater Grace programme and hopes to serve behind bars through ministry and humanitarian work.
“When I started praying, I told God that if somehow I could be spared the death sentence, I would dedicate my life to Him. Now I’m fully surrendered to His plan for me.”
From a death row cell to a prison pulpit, Jindu says he is not the man he used to be.
But for many, the road to redemption may still feel far from over.
Londile Moyo