A BEITBRIDGE widow, Soforia Ndou, who is locked in a land row with State Security minister Kembo Mohadi, has solicited the help of First Lady Grace Mugabe to assist her reclaim her farm.
By SILAS NKALA
Ndou, the wife of a late war veteran, has been embroiled in a farm dispute with the Mohadi family since the death of her husband in 2005. The farm was acquired by her husband at the height of the land reform programme around 2000.
Sensing no immediate solution to the dispute that has dragged on for almost four years, Ndou has written to Grace seeking her intervention in the matter.
In her letter dated November 8, Ndou said her late husband was the beneficiary of Plot 2 at Jopembe Block in Beitbridge.
“We were told that there would be no redemarcation, nor renumbering of the farm, I was privileged to speak to Angelina Masuku [former Governor of Matabeleland South], who told me if I do not stand up for myself, I will lose the piece of land,” she wrote.
Ndou said Bulawayo High Court judge, Justice Lawrence Kamocha in February 2012 ordered Mohadi, his wife, Tambudzani, Danisa Muleya and an employee to remove a fence from the disputed land with immediate effect at their own expense, but they had defied the order.
“Deputy Sheriff Nkululeko Mbedzi served them with the court order and police declined to accompany him to pull down the fence, as ordered by the court,” she wrote.
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“The disobedience of the court order is wilful, reckless and mala fide (in bad faith), in particular Mohadi and his wife show disrespect of Constitution of Zimbabwe.”
Mohadi has since denied that he shares a boundary with Ndou, saying his son Campbell (Jr) is the one who was given land adjacent to hers. He accused Ndou and other villagers of trying to tarnish his image because he is a prominent person.
But Ndou said Mohadi’s conduct was contemptuous, as it was intentional. She said the rule of law needed to be enforced consistently and impartially.
Mohadi’s wife, Ndou alleged, had been seen on numerous occasions within the property demarcating it without her consent. She said Muleya’s name had been used by the Mohadis to grab her plot, but she had last seen him on the property in 2012.
“Dr Grace, what Kembo, Tambudzani and Campbell are doing is criminality and should be characterised as such,” she wrote. “It cannot be appropriate that the Mohadis trespass as they please, supervising construction of housing structures on land they fully know does not belong to them.”
She said her right to own property was not being respected.
“Now I understand why George Orwell, author of a popular book Animal Farm, wrote, ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’,” Ndou wrote. “In truth and fact, Kembo must remember the day he came to my home in the company of armed guards, ordering that I vacate, thereafter shooting dead my dog. He has refused industry to commence on my plot. I shall not mention much of South African businessman Tony Bauer, whom he sent packing and labelled a poacher.”
She said Bauer had complied with the requirements to do business on the farm. Ndou said lack of development on her farm was because of lack of harmony and two South African investors lost confidence in the cabbage farming project after they visited the farm and found the Mohadis’ construction works.
“My husband did not participate in the liberation struggle so that I could be undermined and marginalised to poverty,” she wrote. “I request that reports that I filed [with police] see their day in court. I remain steadfast that in Zimbabwe no one is above the law. Zanu PF runs in my blood. I refuse to be pressured to join opposition parties due to abusive conduct by opportunistic individuals in leadership.”
She vowed to continue fighting the Mohadis as long as she lived.
It is now four years since the wrangle between the Mohadis and Ndou started over the farm.
Ndou’s fight with the Mohadis came at a time when another villager, MacMillan Mbedzi, son of a war veteran, Given Mbedzi, also said Mohadi was seeking to evict him from his farm before building a house on the plot.
Four villagers — Mbedzi, Ndou, Aifheli Nare and Kumbirai Ncube — won a High Court case against the Mohadis over ownership of the land.
The minister’s family has reportedly continued to defy court orders over the land.
