'Mugabe consults witch doctors'

Despite his public statements denigrating spirit mediums and traditional healers, President Robert Mugabe has consulted sangomas himself, says Rugare Gumbo, a war veteran and former Zanu-PF information secretary.

"Mugabe has been consulting sangomas and all who have belonged to his inner circle know that. It is surprising that he now wants to talk as if sangomas are an unfamiliar thing to him.

That's utter hypocrisy," said Gumbo, a war veteran and former Zanu-PF information secretary, of late, Mugabe has publicly attacked his former deputy, Joice Mujuru, for allegedly using traditional healers to gain magical power to get rid of him so that she could take over.

The allegations emerged in the run-up to the Zanu-PF congress and Mugabe repeated them again during his 91st birthday bash in Victoria Falls.

Mugabe claimed that, among other things, Mujuru hired sangomas from Nigeria, a country famed for weird magic stunts, to enhance her chances to take over from him.

"She (Mujuru) even hired some Nigerian sangomas, who ordered her to get 10 chickens and each was named after all of us who were believed to be against them. All the chickens were slaughtered in belief that all of us including Amai Mugabe and [Vice President] Mnangagwa would not live up to this day," alleged Mugabe, an avowed Roman Catholic. But he did not explain how he got the information. Mugabe fired Gumbo from the party ahead of the congress last year, accusing him of plotting to kill him, but the former information secretary dismissed that as his former boss's "imagined shadow".

Gumbo and former secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa, who has also been fired for siding with Mujuru, recently filed an urgent court challenge against their dismissal from the ruling party.

Gumbo said numerous other top leaders of Zanu-PF frequently visited sangomas to get political power enhancing charms. A Zanu-PF source told The Zimbabwean that one of the vice presidents was recently involved in a car accident on his way from a Sangoma.

Gumbo said Mugabe also consulted apostolic sect faith healers to get prophecies on his future and life in general. In 2010, the president was photographed attending a Johane Marange Apostolic Faith sect service clad in white robes and clasping a church walking stick.

There has been speculation that the sangomas are the ones who claimed to Mugabe that Mujuru was dabbling in juju.