Strange sickness attacks Sikhala in prison – ‘hope it’s not colon cancer’

Job Sikhala, the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Vice Chairman who has been incarcerated for seven months for voicing against the murder of party activist Moreblessing Ali claims that he is extremely sick at the Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison where he is jailed an suspects colon cancer.

Ali was allegedly murdered by suspected Zanu-PF thug Pius Jamba in June last year in Nyatsime. Her body was found in three pieces without a head, rotting in a disused well.

Sikhala, his fellow party official Godfrey Sithole and 14 residents of Nyatsime were arrested on 14 June 2022 and charged with incitement to commit public violence to avenge the murder of Ali.

The Zengeza West legislator is the only one left in the country’s biggest and most notorious jail after others were granted bail.

He applied for bail more than nine times with no success. He is also being charged with obstruction of the course of justice.

In his latest letter to the public, Sikhala highlighted a depressing situation he is facing in jail. He said he was extremely sick and he is suspecting colon cancer.

“Dear Zimbabweans, it is with regret and most unfortunate that I now share with you, a personal issue that I have kept to myself for the past three weeks. It is something that I did not share with anyone and kept to myself for these past 3 weeks.

“I had kept it to myself for the sake of my children and my wife. I know how much it will affect them,” he said.

“I have not been feeling well for the past three weeks. A pain that started mildly on the left side of my abdomen has steadily grown to be extremely heavy and excessive by each passing day.

“There is some painful strike that exudes itself from the left side which I don’t really understand and do not know what it is. I pray that it is not colon cancer. It is worrying me very seriously.

“Since the day I vomited and had a ceaseless running stomach, some time ago, which was widely reported, the prison authorities refused to allow my doctor to attend to me. This is despite the fact that my doctors came several times in the company of my lawyers Beatrice Mtetwa and Doug Coltart.

“Since then, I have stopped requesting the permission of my doctor to attend to me. The pain is severe during the night especially when I sleep by that left side. I ask all of you dear Zimbabweans, to pray for me to be healed of this pain. There is nothing beyond the cure of God.

Sikhala further outlined how the democratic space has been closed under the Zanu-PF regime.

“I know the year 2022, like all the years of the past decade, has been catastrophic to all of us. The economic decay and the suffering of the general masses of our people has reached tragic levels.

“There has also been closure, completely, of all the democratic space in the country, sharp growth of impunity, arbitrary arrests,” he said.

Sikhala said there have been “escalation in human rights abuses, which has resulted in some of us becoming long term guests at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in extremely curious circumstances, the passage of oppressive laws, similar in nature and context to those administered by Ian Douglas Smith’s Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.

“The use and application of terror and violence as instruments of political coercion witnessed during the past by-elections, the barring of CCC political races in various places,” Sikhala added.