Mudede finally leaves

In 2007, a self-proclaimed spirit medium, Rotina Mavhunga, led former President Robert Mugabe and his cabinet up the garden path with the ridiculous claim that diesel was oozing from rocks hear the Chinhoyi caves.

Although Mugabe later tried to place himself above this incident, ridiculing his top officials, among them senior ministers Didymus Mutasa, Sydney Sekeramayi and Kembo Mohadi for showing up, barefoot, at Mavhunga’s ‘diesel shrine’, he had actually put together a cabinet committee to explore the ‘oil find.’

Mudede’s central role in the Chinhoyi ‘diesel’ scam came to light during Mavhunga’s trial. The senior civil servant had not only introduced her to Mugabe, he had subsequently harboured her as the police hunted for her.

Magistrate Ignatius Mugova raked Mudede over the coals for his role in the diesel debacle.

“From the evidence of Rotina Mavhunga, it is abundantly clear that Tobaiwa Mudede had an interest in the matter, whether it was for the benefit of the nation, or for himself, it’s unknown to the court,” Mugova said while sentencing Mavhunga to 39 months in jail.

“Further, the court noted something disturbing about his behaviour. As the police sought Rotina Mavhunga, Tobaiwa Mudede kept her in hiding and fed her.”

Earlier, the court had heard that Mudede had supplied the diesel which Mavhunga had used to trick the senior government officials. Mudede had also convinced Mugabe to pay Mavhunga two head of cattle, large sums of money, a farm, and even three buffalo.

That the Registrar-General’s office is known as “KwaMudede” is both a sign of the power he wielded, and a signal of how long he had stayed in office.

Makombe Building, the R-G’s Harare office, in many ways, reflects Mudede himself; old fashioned and grim. Few things make a Zimbabwean as prayerful as the prospect of having to go “KwaMudede”.

There, they are led through a maze of dimly lit corridors and forced to hop from one rubber-stamping bureaucrat to the next, just to get passports, birth certificates and IDs. Despite some recent improvement, Makombe building still fills many with dread.

Mudede never made it easy to get ID documents. In fact, one UNICEF report said that 67 percent of rural children under the age of five had no birth certificates. In response, Mudede arrogantly said the UN agency was just trying to “justify the donor funding they received”.

He also denied many Zimbabweans their right to citizenship. Under his regime, many Zimbabweans were forced to queue at foreign embassies to renounce claims to citizenship of countries that many of them had never set foot in.

If a parent was born outside the country, one had to get a letter from that country declaring that you were not one of theirs. Many faced the heartbreak of having to let go of their Zimbabwean citizenship.

The 2013 Constitution allowed dual citizenship, but still Mudede remained defiant. Even after businessman Mutumwa Mawere won a court case against him, setting a legal precedent, Mudede simply refused to comply.

“As the Ministry of Home Affairs, we have decided that we are not going for realignment (of the Citizenship Act to the Constitution), but for amendment,” he said.

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