TWENTY-ONE years ago, Munetsi Masheedze, also known as Murandawashe, was arrested on suspicion of being mentally unstable because he wanted to meet the President.
Back then, the President was Robert Mugabe.
He was arrested outside Zimbabwe Newspapers House, convicted and forcibly taken to a psychiatric unit in 2004, where he spent three days.
The self-imposed spiritual healer has resurfaced again, claiming to have the same message.
Now, there is President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
“I have a message for the President. It is from our ancestors. The message is intended to change economic prospects,” he said.
Murandawashe said the same challenges that led to the economic downturn under Mugabe still persist and they need to be solved quickly.
“I have been quiet for a long time because the ancestors, who are guiding me, had told me to stop,” he said.
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“Now the time has come, I must meet the President and deliver him the special message in person, not through an intermediary.”
He said if the President does not want to meet him or people close to him prevent the two from meeting, he would ditch the meeting altogether because “I am not begging for attention”.
“I will just leave it to the spirit which is guiding me, the spirit will reveal itself through supernatural things,” Murandawashe said.
The first thing people do, after reading this or hearing his plea, is to conclude that the man is mentally unstable.
At some point, he featured regularly in a weekly vernacular Kwayedza newspaper between 2007 and 2008 as a gospel freelance writer.
He also hogged the limelight in 2009 for dragging the late popular Apostolic Faith Mission pastor Phanuel Dzangare Chiweshe following his expulsion.
Murandawashe was seeking to be refunded his tithe because the church had ordered him to cut his dreadlocks before being allowed to take part in running the church’s affairs.
His argument was that the church allowed him to pay the tithe while he donned that hair style and hence could not ask him to cut the hair because he wanted a position in the church.
The matter was never resolved as Chiweshe was unwell before he passed on later.
