The power is in the seed

20th June 2008: They came for Christopher Chimusoro Chigaga (52) in the early evening because he was the MDC secretary in Ward 14 and had been active since the Party was formed in 1999. There were about 15 of them, angry Zanu (PF) youths. They ransacked his room, took his t-shirt and bandanna, and demanded he name other MDC activists. He refused so they beat him.

We Africans have always been proud of our concept of human rights. A man/woman is a person because of other persons – umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu or munhu munhu nekuda kwevanhu. This worldview placed the person at the centre of the community and the community would defend their rights. Everybody mattered, because the welfare of the entire community rested on the welfare of the individual: the power of the calabash is in the seed.

21st June 2008: On hearing that five other activists (including the Parliamentary Campaign Manager and Councillor-elect) had been abducted, Chigaga decided to flee. Because of his injuries, he couldn’t go on foot and arranged to travel by car with another activist. They traveled barely 300 metres when their car stalled in front of a mob of Zanu (PF) thugs.

Man is an individual whose dignity is inviolable. He is God’s creation, fallible, capable of moral guilt and given the ability to shape the environment. 

The mob took them to the local base at Ingezi Municipal Hall, pummeling and pushing them all the while. They were now deathly afraid.

My African ancestors were hunter-gatherers and nomads, with no idea of a country with borders; our borders are, ironically, a creation of the colonisers at the Berlin Conference of 1885. An irony lost on Mugabe and his ilk.

Speaker Chakabanda, of 4310 Ingezi, father of Wadzanai, and two others beat Chigaga up and made him chant Zanu (PF) slogans and dance. A white Mitsubishi pickup, driven by Pambai of the Prison Service,arrived and the two captives were thrown in.  

The majority of African Presidents and Prime Ministers have trampled on this sacred concept for their short-term political and material gain. In other words, the rulers are more important than the individual. 

Pambai dumped them at Rimuka police station at around 3:30am. The Inspector in charge took one look at the men and ordered that they be driven to Kadoma Central Police Station. The officers there gave them official forms and told them to walk the 300m to the District Hospital. They limped the whole way there.

To the African ruler, power is the only justifiable end in politics. This means that any way of getting, consolidating, and expanding power is good. It naturally follows, therefore, that the individual can be sacrificed for the good of the political ruler. Mandela, by being a complete antithesis of this, has become an international icon. 

23 June 2008: SADC Observers were alerted. They went to the hospital and spoke to Chigaga and four others. A ZRP officer came to take statements from the victims. They had received no treatment because there were no drugs.

Recalcitrant persons are abducted, beaten, raped, denied food and medicine, and brutally murdered if they pose a threat to the ruling clique or ruler’s stay in power. Africa bleeds, with her own rulers turning violently on the very same people they are meant to protect.

7 July 2008: Christopher Chimusoro Chigaga died at the Kadoma General Hospital.

Africa’s post-colonial development has been hindered by her leadership. Any social system that does not value man as an individual is doomed to fail. Long-term, sustainable development cannot occur without open and free public space where all issues can be debated. If there is to be an African then African nations have to regain their sense of ubuntu (humanity), rediscover the importance of the individual, and return him/her to the core of societal development.

9 July 2008: We buried Chigaga at Rimuka Cemetery, Kadoma.