Pastor, predator, president: How the Canaan Banana scandal shook a young Zimbabwe

When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, Reverend Canaan Sodindo Banana seemed like the perfect symbol of moral integrity for a new nation.

A soft-spoken Methodist minister with a knack for charisma, he preached reconciliation, justice, and forgiveness. He could charm diplomats, quote scripture from memory, and even get hardline revolutionaries nodding along to his sermons.

Banana was more than a ceremonial figure. Mugabe, as prime minister, ran the government, but he needed Banana’s holy image to reassure both church and state that the revolution was virtuous.

The pastor-president blessed independence, cut ribbons, gave speeches, and represented Zimbabwe abroad. To the public, he was a moral compass. Behind closed doors, however, a much darker story was unfolding.

Enter Jefta Dube: The Aide Who Would Expose the Truth

In November 1983, Banana noticed a young police officer and footballer named Jefta Dube playing for the Black Mambas. Impressed, he summoned him and offered him a prestigious job as his aide-de-camp and a place in the State House Tornadoes football team.

For Dube, raised in poverty, it felt like a divine opportunity.

But within his first week, the boundaries of professionalism and safety were shattered. At dinner with Banana’s family, he felt honoured, believing it was part of familiarising himself with his new role.

That night, after others had left, Banana played ballroom music and insisted Dube dance with him.

“He held me tightly,” Dube would later testify. “I felt his erection. Then he kissed me.” When Dube excused himself, Banana patted him on the buttocks and murmured, “This is the food of the elders.”

A Pattern of Abuse

The incidents escalated. Banana warned Dube that he could be “sly and cunning” and punished him if he resisted. He was excluded from trips, forced to work weekends alone, and repeatedly cornered for private meetings.

In June 1984, Dube says Banana spiked his drink and assaulted him while he was semi-conscious.

“I woke up before dawn,” Dube recalled. “I was covered with a duvet, trouserless, and with slippery stuff between my buttocks. Banana stood over me smiling. He said, ‘We have helped ourselves.’”

For years, Dube suffered in silence. When he reported the abuse to senior police officers, they refused to act. “It involves the president,” they said.

Acting President Simon Muzenda allegedly admitted he was “not surprised.” Even army chief Solomon Mujuru withdrew his officers from State House after hearing rumours, acknowledging privately that something was wrong.

By 1986, Dube was quietly transferred to Gweru, away from Banana’s orbit. He thought he was free, but the trauma lingered.

The Breaking Point: A Shooting at Skyline Motel

Years later, in 1995, Dube’s trauma erupted. While drinking at Skyline Motel in Harare with fellow officers, one mocked him for his past, calling him “the president’s woman.” In a flash of rage, Dube drew his service pistol and shot the man dead.

Psychiatrists testified that he was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, a direct result of Banana’s abuse.

His nightmares, flashbacks, alcoholism, and marijuana use all stemmed from years of sexual exploitation. The court accepted this, convicting him of culpable homicide rather than murder and ordering psychiatric treatment.

It was this tragic event that ultimately forced the abuse into public scrutiny and led to Banana’s eventual trial.

The Trial That Shook a Nation

In 1998, Zimbabweans watched in disbelief as Banana stood trial for eleven counts of sodomy and indecent assault. Dube’s testimony, delivered with quiet dignity, exposed years of abuse.

“My male conscience had been tampered with,” he said. “I was angry because I had been turned into a woman by another man.”

Other victims came forward, confirming a pattern of coercion and assault. When the verdict came, the judge stated bluntly: “The accused abused his position to gratify his lust.” Banana was sentenced to ten years in prison, with nine months suspended.

Public reaction was mixed. Mugabe condemned homosexuality as “un-African” but stayed silent on Banana personally. The ZANU PF elite treated it as a private scandal rather than a systemic failure.

The moral authority of the liberation generation, so central to the nation’s identity, was shown to be fragile.

The Theologian Who Wanted to Rewrite the Bible

Before his public disgrace, Banana had already stirred controversy with his theological writings.

His 1990 book, The Gospel According to the Ghetto, argued that the Bible had been distorted by colonialism and needed to be “rewritten” to reflect African realities. He said Western missionaries had used scripture to justify oppression and mental colonisation.

“We have been misled for too long by a Eurocentric gospel,” he said. “We must write our own Bible and bring God back home to Africa.”

His words provoked outrage. Churches branded him a heretic, and even the Methodist Church expressed discomfort. Yet Banana’s real intent was theological: he wanted a reinterpretation of scripture through an African lens, similar to liberation theology in Latin America.

Unfortunately, the scandal surrounding his personal life overshadowed any intellectual merit.

The Culture of Silence

Perhaps the most shocking element of this story is the cover-up. Police intelligence reports about Banana’s misconduct date back to 1981.

Senior officials, acting out of loyalty or fear, turned a blind eye. Banana’s position as a founding father, a liberation hero, and a symbol of moral authority made confronting him politically unthinkable.

Even after his trial, the government allowed the story to fade quickly. State media covered it briefly, then moved on. Banana had outlived his usefulness. The system’s preference for loyalty over justice left victims like Dube to suffer quietly.

Legacy and Lessons

Banana served six months in prison before being released on medical grounds. He died in November 2003, insisting he was innocent, and received a modest state-assisted funeral.

In Zimbabwe’s textbooks and public memory, his presidency is often sanitised, focusing on ceremonial duties and his role as a clergyman.

Yet his story remains critical. It exposes how power, faith, and loyalty can be twisted to protect predators. It shows how revolutions, no matter how righteous, can falter when truth is silenced. And it reminds us that the cost of silence is often borne by the most vulnerable.

Jefta Dube’s courage in speaking out and surviving both trauma and tragedy stands as a testament to resilience.

Banana’s theological provocations, including his call to “rewrite the Bible,” remain an uneasy footnote in Zimbabwe’s intellectual history, a reminder that brilliance and moral corruption can coexist in the same person.

In the end, Canaan Banana’s life was a cautionary tale about faith, power, and the human cost of silence. His scandal shook a young nation, leaving scars that are still visible in Zimbabwe’s political and moral landscape.

Gabriel Manyati is a hard-hitting journalist and analyst delivering incisive commentary on politics, human interest stories, and current affairs.