10 Reasons Why I Wouldn't Mind Gumbura Being Freed. (Part 1)

Pastor Robert Martin Gumbura (59) is currently serving 40 years at Chikurubi Maximum Security prison for raping female members of his RMG Independent End-Time Message Church.

As I wrote this piece on 5 August 2015, the 'liar, cheat, sugar daddy, horny grandfather with a twisted mind, and disgusting man with a sexual appetite that can’t be satisfied’, was set to appear before Justices Felistus Chatukuta and David Mangota.

The High Court looked into his appeal against both conviction and a 40-year effective jail term for raping his female congregants.

The purpose of this article is not to make the 'sex maniac' appear to be an angel, but to simply put to light to whoever has time to listen, 10 Reasons Why I Wouldn't Mind Gumbura Being Freed.

1. At sixteen, I had only gone past Form Two, having pulled out of the 'A' class at Mambo High in Gweru owing to lack of financial assistance. I grew up in the care of a single mum, who shoved the parental responsibility to an already overburdened uncle. Less that two years after attending his church, I was staying with Gumbura, eating the food that his children ate, driving in his state-of-the-art wheels, and staying at his double-story mansion with a twin-port garage where six car could park. That was around 1995.

He bought me my first complete school uniform, and did foot my educational bill. I sat for my ordinary level exams while learning at his Aquila College in Gweru.

Later my mother fell sick, and I remember the 'good' pastor giving me money to visit her at Driefontein Sanatoriun near Mvuma

"He must be a very kind man, " whispered my mother, who was never to fully recover. Later I became a journalist, and strung for The Herald in 2003, the defunct Daily Mirror around late 2004, was the first Midlands correspondent for NewsDay in 2011. I later left to focus on community newspaper journalism.

My personal Facebook account Nhasi muGweru now has 8200-plus  followers, in addition to the maximum 5000 friends required by the social network. My vision is to turn it into a weekly community newspaper that 'upholds the right of Gweru people to know', consistent with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

More than 7000 people like my Gweru Today page, where I also daily update people on Gweru goings-on, as well as repeat stories that place Gweru, my beloved home town, in the spotlight, while giving credit to the initial publishers of the news items.

Five years before his arrest, I painfully decided to leave Gumbura's church. I could not help noticing how he was becoming the absolute, with biblical commandments only coming second to his doctrines, rules, and dogmas.

Never mind that he had once told the whole congregation during a national gathering that God had shown him that I had been divinely raised to write the true history of his church, and that I would be a pivot in the church media and public relations ministry, the Spirit bade me, go.