I am not proud of the person I used to be. Far from being perfect and innocent, my early adult life was characterized by selfishness, recklessness and hurtful behaviour towards others. During the early 1980s , I was wild; I made many mistakes and stepped on many people’s feet. I was not ashamed at all of the poor behaviour I displayed in front of my neighbours. I had many friends who influenced me to turn my Warren Park house into a brothel where they would come at any time to have fun with their girlfriends. I must apologise to all my former neighbours in Warren Park 1 for the wild behaviour we displayed together with my fellow comrades. I messed up and deserve harsh criticism from families whose daughters’ time I wasted.
I was deeply in love with a beautiful girl called Hamunyari. She is now late. Hamunyari was very tall, much taller than me by a big margin. I loved the height contrast between the two of us and my friends would often talk about our impressive height difference. Hamunyari ‘s elder sister whom we called Mai Dione used to stay in Warren Park as well. Mai Dione used to look at me with a suspicious and disapproving eye. By the way she looked at me, I could sense that Mai Dione lacked conviction that I could marry her younger sister who had just come from Mukarakate Village in Murehwa. She decided to send her to a place unknown to me. She told me that she didn’t know where Hamunyari had gone. I could see that she was lying. In a bid to make her reveal where she had sent Hamunyari, I threatened her by telling her that there would be blood on the floor if she didn’t tell me where Hamunyari was. When she repeatedly refused to tell me where she was, I got extremely enraged. In a moment of madness, I pointed a loaded pistol on her forehead. But no matter how hard I tried and at greater danger to her person, Mai Dione never relented.
At that time, I was employed by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management. By nature of my duties in the investigation department, I carried a gun often. I pointed the loaded pistol at her which was a serious crime. I was overzealous for nothing. She ran to Warren Park Police Station to report about the incident. Police details were sent to arrest me. I was taken to Warren Park Police Station to give my side of the story. I didn’t deny that I had pointed a loaded gun at her but argued that I didn’t mean to hurt her. The investigation officer told me that I had committed a serious offence for which I deserved to appear in court. Pointing a gun at anyone is as good as shooting someone dead.
I was brought before the Harare Rotten Row Magistrate’s Court. The presiding magistrate was Kumbirai Hodzi (Junior). I was given a suspended sentence and I was told not to use any firearm because I was a threat to society. I missed going to prison by a whisker. By the way, Judge Kumbirai Hodzi Junior was the first young black Zimbabwean magistrate in newly independent Zimbabwe. He has now grown to become a Zimbabwean senior citizen at law.
When I reflect, I regret entangling myself with friends who lived wild lives of debauchery, totally disregarding societal norms. Most of my friends were preoccupied with things like which night club we should visit to drink beer, where to get marijuana to smoke, which ladies to have fun with and partying. I lived by the day. I lived life on the edge, always chasing the next thrill and never looking back. I think I lost Hamunyari because of my bad behaviour. My life was chaotic. I behaved as if I was still in the bush fighting the imperial powers.
One day I tricked a senior Parks warden, Mr Drury, by pretending as if he was urgently needed at the reception by a visitor. I phoned him from an office next to his and he fell for the trap. The moment he went out to the reception, I rushed to his office and snatched his personal diary. Then we didn’t have cell phones and most people used their diaries for tracking appointments, schedules and any other information necessary for documentation. I had suspected Mr Drury of animal poaching and criminal dealings in the parks department. It was our duty to make sure that rogue elements in the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management were weeded out. I wanted to have something tangible to show the Ministry of Tourism that what we were telling the Permanent Secretary Mr. Mundangepfupfu and Minister Victoria Chitepo was true.
I took the diary home to check if there was any information I could use against Mr Drury. I discovered that Mr Drury and his colleagues at Parks Head Office were into criminal activities of selling and transferring different animal species in and around Zimbabwe. Animal poaching was being done by a few whites who were in total control of the section. The following day I went to the Ministry of Tourism to see Mr. Mundangepfupfu. I gave him the diary to check for himself. He agreed with me that the information in the diary was self-incriminating and that there was enough evidence to start a case against Mr. Drury and his friends. The permanent secretary, however, then made a surprising U-turn and said that what I had done was a criminal act. He said I had unlawfully entered into Mr. Drury’s office without his permission and had stolen his diary . Therefore, he further argued, it was not proper to confront Mr. Drury using his diary. He suggested that I should find a way of returning the diary where I had taken it .
I told myself that I would not do that. I excused myself from Mr. Mundangepfupfu ‘s office. I thank God I was not born a coward. I was born a fighter for the truth. I knew beforehand that I could win some battles and lose some. I fought then and I will fight now whenever there is injustice. I realized I had made a big mistake to inform the permanent secretary about the diary because he trusted white folks more than he trusted his fellow blacks. That’s the information I got later from ministry staff. On reflection, I don’t know why I did not report this matter to the Criminal Investigation Department (Law and Order section) whom I used to work with on a number of cases concerning rhino and elephant poaching.
I went overdrive. I doubled down on the in-house chaotic situation between myself and two white officers, Mr. Nott and Mr. Stray. Those two gentlemen were the brains behind most criminal activities happening in the national parks department. I hatched a plan to frame the two by planting 2kg of marijuana in their office. After planting the marijuana in the bottom drawer in Mr. Nott ‘ s desk, I called CID Harare Central, Drug Section, to come and search Mr. Nott and Mr. Stray’s office. As per plan, the 2kg of marijuana were found in Mr Nott’s desk. They denied that the marijuana was theirs. Since, the two were senior Parks officials they requested to talk to former Police Commissioner -General, Augustine Chihuri on a landline call. They complained to him that they had been set up by myself, Cde Tsimereropa and Cde Mafuta. The Police Commissioner instructed Officer Commanding Harare Central to organize two search warrants. One warrant was for my house in Warren Park 1 and the other one was for both Mr. Nott and Mr. Stray’s residences. The first search was to be conducted at my Warren Park house and then they would proceed to Mr. Stray and Mr. Nott’s houses.
We drove to Warren Park with eight plain clothes undercover policemen. When I arrived at my house, I introduced the officers to a woman who was my lodger. I introduced her to them as my wife. I told them that the locked room belonged to my lodger, when in fact it was my room. The policemen asked the woman I was purporting to be my wife for permission to search her room. They were calling her Mrs. Malunga. They searched the room and did not find any drugs. During the search they opened the wardrobe and came across three pairs of prison guard uniforms. The CID officers said that they would carry the uniforms to their office since the National Parks uniforms were completely different from the Prisons and Correctional Services uniform. Because of these uniforms the CID officers told me that I was to accompany them to the Central Police Station. The CID officers proceeded to search at Mr. Nott and Mr. Stray’s houses. I was later told that they found no drugs at the houses.
What made matters worse was that the officer whose uniforms were taken returned home from work and his wife told him what had happened. He immediately drove to the Central Police Station to set the record straight. He told the CID officers that the uniforms were his and that the room they had searched was not mine but his. The CID officers came to where I was sitting smiling and in jovial mood. I thought everything was okay and I was expecting to go back home.
The CID officers told me that the room they had searched was not mine and were now going to take me to the house so that they would search my room. We drove back to Warren Park. When we arrived, they asked me politely to open the door. They entered and started searching while I sat on my bed. When I realized that they were getting closer to where a 3kg bag of marijuana was, I jumped from the bed, took the plastic bag full of marijuana and tore it. I wanted to destroy the evidence which they would produce in court as an exhibit. Tough luck on my side, they picked everything that had fallen on the floor. After a thorough search, we drove back to Harare Central Police Station. The officers started laughing at me saying I nearly succeeded with my deceitful plan. That day I slept in Harare Central Police Station’s holding cells. By chance, I met the dissident, Sitshela Ngwenya who had terrorized and killed tourists along the Gwanda-Victoria Falls Road. I could see fear in his eyes; he was in leg irons. He was later sentenced to death for the crimes he had committed.
The next morning the CID officers weighed the plastic bag of marijuana. All formal procedures were conducted and I was taken to Rotten Row Magistrate’s Court. The presiding magistrate told me that my case was serious and found me guilty of being in possession of a prohibited and dangerous drug. Luckily, I was made to pay a fine. I was behaving as if I was still in the trenches, it really takes time to conquer the war mentality.
Cde Tsimereropa, Cde Mafuta and I were encountering racism at our workplace, soon after we got our independence. We also wanted opportunities and privileges which the white people still enjoyed. Cde Tsimereropa was later sentenced to six months in prison for slaughtering a cow for farm workers at a ZANU(PF) farm called Trenence Farm in Bulawayo. Cde Tsimereropa had felt sorry for workers who were starving at the ZANU(PF) farm which had hundreds of cows.
Many comrades who came from the war front after independence wanted to honestly work for the betterment of all Zimbabweans. However, that space was never created by the ruling elite.
After the marijuana case, I managed to go back to my work at National Parks investigation department. The entire executive was not happy to see me back at work. Cde Tsimereropa came back to his job after serving his six months sentence. He passed on a few months after his release from prison. Cde Mafuta resigned from the National Parks Department. One day something shifted inside me and it struck a chord. I realized that my destructive path was not only harming others but was also limiting my potential. I then took the bold step to live a life that positively impacted others. Since then I cast away my old bad -boy image and I am very glad I made that decision.