Sibanengi Dube: In life Khupe disrespected Tsvangirai, in death she invades his grave

By Sibanengi Dube

In life Thokozani Khupe disrespected her late boss Morgan Tsvangirai and in death, she invaded his grave to give him posthumous orders.

MDC-T interim leader Khupe’s dreadful ambush of late MRT has set the tongues wagging, leaving Zimbabweans gasping for answers.

Khupe and his lieutenants Douglas Mwonzora, Elias Mudzuri and Morgen Komichi, broke the lock down rules to criss-cross Zimbabwe to Buhera to perform superstitious sacraments at the grave of the late iconic Tsvangirai.

This is the man she shunned until his death and defied his directives to jointly take Zanu PF head on as a political alliance in the 2018 elections. Instead, she opted to defile the virtuous electoral gains of an Alliance which MRT mooted, a project he defended until his last breath at a Johannesburg hospital. Who is the biggest beneficiary of her political jaunts? You guess is as good as mine.

As if that was not enough deception, madam went ahead and did zvinorova kuBuhera last weekend. Despite enjoying overt tacit support from ED, Khupe and her sect turned to ritual politics and voodoo graveside drills in desperate attempts to wrestle power from the tumultuous popular Nelson Chamisa.

Addressing the spirituality of the dearly departed Khupe could be heard praying to the cadaverous Tsvangirai to piously pave their way to power. Without mentioning Chamisa by name, Khupe identified Nero as the enemy and not Zanu PF.

In a clear display of desperation Khupe invoked the posthumous intervention of the MDC Founding Father to fight against his own cause, much to the amazement of millions of Zimbabweans who had access to the widely circulated video clip which went viral on social media. What is vague in her prayer is Khupe’s desire to turn Tsvangirai ’spirits against what he died for.

Fuming supporters of Save, as Tsvangirai was affectionately known in political and social circles took to social media to vent their disapproval to such colossal intrusion of MRT’s sacred place of resting.

The majority of the people berated her prayer to the dearly departed as ‘Satanism’ while others condemned the whole procession as ‘unmitigated witchcraft.’

A Religious Professor at a KZN University, who elected to remain anonymous, lamented the ritual as ‘traditionally off-side and bordering on intrusion, disrespect and as a disturbance to the resting spirits.’

“To start with, Khupe has no right whatsoever to stray into the spirit world of the Tsvangirais because she is an outsider in the family. Only a blood relative of Tsvangirai can communicate with him through his grave,” he said.

The Professor urged the Tsvangirai family to immediately fix the profanation of their grave by Khupe adding that there was a danger that services of a sangoma might have been roped in the performance of rituals.

“A grave is a sacred place which is sacrosanct and a preserve of family members of the deceased, so an invasion of this nature is not good for the dearly departed who deserve eternal rest. We might take it lightly but she might have been given some concoctions to throw at the grave,” he said.

He maintained that it was very unAfrican for an outsider to awaken the spirits of a member of another family adding that even Tsvangirai’s mother was traditionally excommunicated from the spiritual world of her son. He said Khupe’s graveside lyrics were tantamount to summoning avenging spirits to torment her enemies.

What is also shocking is the absence of an identity of the person who endorsed Khupe’s access Tsvangirai’s grave. If such permission was granted by the correct structure of the family such an event would have been attended by a headman of the village and children of the deceased other than being a ‘rushed nicodemus affair’ under the cover of a lockdown.

Was the eldest son of the deceased, Edwin Tsvangirai’s consent sought before intruders invaded his father ‘sacred resting place?

Such an ugly development has a danger of leaving a lot of burning questions unanswered. Why has it become an emergent matter during lockdown for Khupe to visit Gogo Tsvangirai to “formally apologise to the family for the ill treatment that she allegedly suffered at the hands of youths during her son’s funeral? How come that the graveside ritual took centre stage of her visit to Buhera?

Was the apology a mere smokescreen to her primary intention to access Save’s grave? At what moment didn’t Khupe realise the need to pamper Gogo with groceries? Why was Gogo exposed to possible Covid 19 carriers who didn’t even bother to put on masks?

Sibanengi Dube is a Zimbabwean journalist based in South Africa