Zimbabwean rhumba musician and Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Energy Mutodi has implied that Chief Nhlanhlayamangwe Ndiweni is an enemy of the state.
This follows after the outspoken chief was on Wednesday granted bail, he was serving 18 months imprisonment following his conviction with his 23 subjects for destroying a villager’s property in Ntabazinduna.
Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Thompson Mabhikwa ruled that Chief Ndiweni’s appeal against both conviction and sentence had prospects of success and dismissed the State’s assertion that if granted bail, the applicant was likely to abscond.
The arrest of the Chief was highly regarded as political, and nothing to do with prosecution. Many suspected a political hand behind his incarceration too, as has been a critic of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s human rights abuse record.
Political watchers believe his arrest and incarceration for a crime in which$300 fine would have been ideal clearly exposed a political hand, meant to cow the chief into silence.
Meanwhile, Mutodi in an attempt to shield the judicial capture said Mnangagwa had nothing to do with the jailing of the chief, whom he classified as an enemy of state.
“Chief Ndiweni’s release on bail proves judicial independence, a free and democratic society where enemies of the state are protected by the law…,” he said via his twitter handle.
Meanwhile, the granting of bail after conviction, has since exposed the regime’s disregard of the rule of law. Under normal circumstances bail is granted when someone has been put in custody pending trial, and not the other way round.
Mutodi who is a rhumba musician and ndombolo dancer is however, not new to controversy, he recently came under fire for alleging that Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance youth leader Sekai Muchaina who survived abduction and torture at the hands of ZANU-PF thugs was a prostitute, who had been attacked by fellows.
“No matter how democratic our government can be, we can never guarantee that drunkards & prostitutes stop fighting,” he wrote.
