Mugabe-death pastor deserted

As much as he is outspoken and daring to the point of poking the country's feared authorities in the eye, activist cleric Patrick Mugadza is a lonely man  who appears at his routine court hearings with no one to lend him any support, no family, no friend,  or the evergreen civil society.

While his public profile skyrocketed when he made a controversial prophesy that put him in the soup, when he carries his light frame to the country's courts, Mugadza is mostly alone with no one to offer him a shoulder or a hand.

Mugadza, who prophesised that the increasingly frail President Robert Mugabe would die later this year, has been a guest at the country's prisons far from his family in Kariba and a 50-member church that eventually crumbled in his absence for many times now.

"My family has been very supportive of my ministry and I can confirm that they have not been coming to my court sessions and it is not because they do not want but I have serious financial constraints and cannot afford to have them in every sitting," Mugadza said.

"…going to my extended family I can say the way this junta has been working over the years has inflicted fear in not just them, but the rest of the Zimbabwean population. Some of my relatives do not even want me to visit their homes fearing that if our relations are known they might find themselves in trouble."

Mugadza said his relatives did not want to be identified with him owing to the controversy he has created through his work in activism.

He has justified his friends' absence saying it was because he did not invite any of them to stand by him through the court sessions.

"I used to hurt over that but finally comforted myself in knowing that I am not doing this for myself but the nation.  My wife always complains that if it happens that I die, she and the children will be affected the most - not the nation," Mugadza added.

"People have said that family comes first but that is not the case with me. I put God, his assignment, then my family at the end. I have come to understand that family is something that came after God had designed assignments for all of us.

"I am not in need of solidarity I go to court as part of my calling to speak for the suffering children of Zimbabwe."

Mugadza is convinced that God has a plan to bring change to Zimbabwe through people like him and equates himself to the Biblical Moses who led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt.

"I feel that my ministry goes hand-in-hand with activism and for so long we have lived under a misconception that it is a taboo but it was just a trick by the regime to make sure that the most powerful entity - the church - remains quiet pinned to the pulpit.

"…if Moses was here today I am convinced he would parade a placard written; "Let my people go" right in Mugabe's face. What I am doing is what God wants me to be doing at a time like this."

The cleric has been privileged to be afforded the services of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights throughout his court appearances and for that he is ever grateful.

"…wonderful people they are. They have stood with me throughout the persecution I have endured at the hands of the government and I thank God for them."