A telling proverb in the Shona spoken by the majority of Zimbabweans goes Nyadzi dzinokunda rufu. In English, this means “embarrassment is worse than death”, and the words have rarely seemed more apt than over the past two weeks, as the latest twist in the ongoing struggle between the dictator, Robert Mugabe, and his would-be nemesis, Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, has been splashed across news pages and TV screens around the world. For what the world has seen are photographs purporting to depict Archbishop Ncube in the act of adultery.
On Monday 16 July, to a huge state orchestrated fanfare, a junior state employee named Onesimus Sibanda filed a case at the High Court in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, demanding damages of Z$20 billion (£80,000) from the archbishop, on the grounds that Archbishop Ncube had had sexual relations with his wife. Mr Sibanda’s declaration alleged that “on diverse occasions between the period beginning 2006 and in places particularly in the environs of Bulawayo and St Mary’s Cathedral, the defendant illicitly associated and engaged with the
plaintiff ’s wife, one Rosemary Sibanda, in an adulterous sexual relationship well knowing of the marital status of the plaintiff ’s wife”.
Being called faithless by Mugabe is like . . . a badge of honor. The accusations against Abp. Ncube sound improbable and their timing makes them suspect. Perhaps Onesimus is making himself useful to his corrupt master.