Online Reporter
Moreblessing Ncube
FAMILY loyalty clearly took a day off in Makokoba after a 30-year-old man decided his cousin was the easiest target for a quick and very small payday.
Edmore Mudenda appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Challenge Mahembe after attacking his cousin, Sam Munsaka, and stealing his bag in a crime that paid peanuts but still earned him a court date. The magistrate slapped him with a US$120 fine. Failure to pay will land him three months in prison, with one month suspended on condition that he returns US$60 to his cousin.
Prosecutor Brenda Ndlovu told the court that on 23 January, Mudenda spotted Munsaka walking to visit a friend at Vundu Flats in Makokoba. Instead of greeting him like family, Mudenda allegedly crept up from behind and tripped him like a street thug.
Munsaka fell to the ground and Mudenda wasted no time. He grabbed his cousin’s blue satchel and helped himself to whatever he could find. Inside were Fawcett Guest House uniforms, clearly identifying the victim as a security guard trying to earn an honest living.
Mudenda then went deeper, searching Munsaka’s pockets and making off with an Itel cellphone and a wallet containing a national identity card, Fawcett bank cards, a work identity card and a whole US$5 in cash.
Yes, five dollars.
The total value of the stolen property was US$60, meaning Mudenda risked prison, shamed his family name and tripped his own cousin for an amount that cannot even fill a grocery basket.
Nothing was recovered.
The court heard no dramatic escape, no big spending spree and no clever plan. Just a cousin on the ground, a bag gone and a thief standing before a magistrate wondering how things went so wrong so cheaply. In the end, crime did not pay. It barely tipped.
