dyton mupawaenda
Gilbert Munetsi
I HAVE known Arifonso “Mosquito” Zvenyika for more than a quarter-of-a-century and our relationship, which was largely professional at first, has developed into one in which we have become family.
This bond probably explains why l was probably the first, and perhaps the only person, he could think of when he came face-to-face with those horror messages of betrayal from his wife.
He wanted his cheating wife and her boyfriend to be exposed for their shenanigans and nothing else mattered to him back then.
I contacted the wife who questioned why Mosquito had sent the messages to me.
“For you to inform the nation?” was her question.
What happened after is now all in the public domain, I did the story because that’s my job as a journalist, H-Metro published it and it has spread all over the media landscape.
On Friday, news emerged that Mosquito and his wife Jesman Mutokonya had reconciled and they were back together.
l would not want to judge why Mosquito took his decision to forgive his wife, it’s their marriage and they can do whatever they want with their union and lives.
But as l reflected on these unfortunate developments in the romantic life of a brother, l could not help but take a journey back into the past to try and get some answers to the current situation.
Mosquito has a dozen kids, including one he sired when he was only 16.
IS MOSQUITO A VICTIM OF
HIS PAST?
Mosquito, in our countless conversations, used to speak about a lack of proper parental care and he claimed this made him get married and practically begin to run a family at a tender age of 16.
Not much is said about that puppy love marriage, save to say there were some offsprings from that union.
Predictably, that marriage failed.
A second marriage followed but that, too, was never any better at all.
Then, in 1998, came the glory, the fame and the money. The champion, fresh from having conquered the Commonwealth as the newly-crowned flyweight champion, returned home to find he had become a hero overnight.
He was never the same after that.
The desire was now to move around in big and flashy cars and marry a career and successful woman.
“Hapana mumwe munhu wandaida kuroora mukoma kunze kwa nurse,” he once told me.
MOSQUITO’S SUICIDE ATTEMPT
I guess it’s the white uniform that dazzled him, coupled with the fact that a yesteryear international boxer he hero-worshipped had also married a nurse.
He got the woman of his choice because money is power.
A child was born from the union but what is known mainly about it is that it almost ended tragically.
Mosquito attempted suicide when the woman decided to walk out of his life to marry someone in her profession – a doctor.
But this is Mosquito and he married yet another wife who, unfortunately, passed away a few years into the marriage.
This family tragedy happened when the chips were down for Mosquito.
He was so broke there was not even money for the removal of the corpse from home to the nearest parlour.
I remember the champion walking into Herald House (where I used to work back then) to tell me about his wife’s death but I could not believe him because of some issues which had happened in the preceding months.
A few months before, l had sourced some money for him from the late businessman Victor Nyaumwe for Mosquito to start a business.
But, once he collected the money, he went AWOL for a whole week.
This time, for four days, Mosquito kept coming to Herald House pressing me to help him out.
I had to act and the first person l could think of for help was Philip Chiyangwa, a former boxing promoter.
He came to the rescue and paid for everything to cover the funeral costs.
And, then, along came his current wife Jesman.
The wedding was filled with pomp and fanfare as it was well funded.
I vividly recall The Police Band churning out such songs as Simon Chimbetu’s Saina as the couple appended their signatures on the marriage certificate.
The party ended at Mosquito’s house.
AND, NOW, WE HAVE THIS DRAMA
And, now, we have this drama.
There has evidently been intense focus, discussion and debate pertaining to Mosquito’s current marital woes.
The fact that not more than five comments, out of more than a thousand comments on the H-Metro handles, are fighting in his corner, itself tells its story.
Ridicule dominates the comments thread as religious, African traditional values and legal statutes are interrogated.
The bottom line is that the public court is refusing to bite the bait because the explanations being given by the former champion boxer and his wife do not seem to tally with developments that led to the whole mess.
· Why the abrupt U-turn when he was in possession of enough evidence for possible recourse in a court of law, complete with a landslide victory?
· Why this sudden change of heart when, in the first place, he was the one to cry foul and even threatened to take the wife’s boyfriend to the cleaners for having messed up his life?
· Is it realistic that the aggrieved one is the one who goes on bended knees to plead for forgiveness from those who cause him all this misery?
· Could there be a possibility there was a private settlement that propelled Mosquito to have a change of heart and lend him a new set of spectacles to see a totally fresh image of his wife?
Surely, there must be some senior members from his clan who, naturally, would be consulted in situations like these and decisions collectively arrived at.
However, what we seem to have on our hands is a script whose protagonist is also all the other roles and he even has the knack to tell us, after all this mess, that “thereafter they lived happily together”.
It’s not as if anyone is spoiling for a bloodbath, but picture this:
· The boyfriend (Leonard Jamanda) never denied the allegations. He actually had the guts to tell Mosquito off and, in a teasing verbal jab, even advised him to keep his dog on the leash or put a label on his wife to show she was married.
· Thousands of social media followers have over the past three days responded to the H-Metro digital posts to express astonishment and vent fury at the beleaguered former boxing champion.
· Even Shadaya Knight also came to the stage to share a mouthful in protest to a man believed, by many men, to have let the whole constituency down because of his ‘shocking’ decision.
What many anticipated was a long legal brawl in which the victor would emerge wounded but rewarded accordingly.
Online Reporter