FORMER Minister of State in ex-Vice-President Joice
Mujuru’s Office, Sylvester Robert Nguni, has been taken to court by his former
wife, Christine Silindeni Nguni, who is seeking an order to bring to life the
couple’s divorce matter that was determined and completed almost 24 years ago.
According to Christine, when the divorce matter was
determined in 1998, her legal counsel then, one P Nherere, was compromised to
such an extent that he presented the matter without her instructions,
culminating in unfair distribution of the couple’s matrimonial property.
Christine filed a court application for leave to appeal
filed on October 22, 2018 citing Nguni as the respondent. The matter is yet to
be set down for hearing.
“This is an application for leave to appeal against a
judgment granted by (the late) Justice Esmael Chatikobo on April 22, 1998. The
applicant’s (Christine) reasons for the relief sought are as follows: the
applicant’s lawyer was compromised by the respondent (Nguni) as he was offered
a position of directorship in Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (CCZ), a company in which
the respondent was a chief executive during the period of matrimonial
litigation process,” she said.
“The applicant was not consulted on how the matrimonial
property and assets were shared and applicant did not even consent to the
agreement of sharing of assets. The applicant should have benefited in equal
share to the matrimonial home (House number 4 Hathaway Close, Chisipite,
Harare) since the applicant contributed to the acquisition of the property in
question.
“The applicant did not give the instruction to Mr P
Nherere, who represented the applicant in case number HC6595/94 and number
HC6596/94 in question. It is, therefore, against this background that the
applicant prays for leave to appeal against the entire judgment of the
honourable Justice Chatikobo HH65/98 in case number HC6595/94.”
But in Justice Chatikobo’s judgment, Nguni claims he bought
the Chisipite property using money he obtained from United Kingdom and from
selling other items he brought with him. He said Christine never contributed
anything.
Justice Chatikobo said the cause of the breakdown of the
Ngunis marriage was saddening in that at one point, Nguni fell ill, but the
nature of his illness was not known.
According to the judge, modern medicine did little, if
anything, to cure Nguni’s illness and desperation forced both Nguni and his
wife to consult traditional and faith healers.
“One or two healers tried to cure Mr Nguni, but failed.
They found a lady faith healer who came and cleansed the house and treated Mr
Nguni and he made a miraculous recovery. The treatment went on for some time
and Mr Nguni steadily continued to recover,” Justice Chatikobo said.
“In the meantime, the faith healer had started demands for
some drinks and other niceties of life from the Ngunis until Mrs Nguni thought
the faith healer had outlived her usefulness. Mr Nguni thought otherwise. He
considered that his wife wanted him to die so that she could inherit his
assets, hence she was now objecting to any further dealings with the faith
healer.”
But according to Justice Chatikobo, Christine said as Nguni
improved, the faith healer started giving the treatment water to their children
as well.
She objected and it was her objection to the extension of
the treatment to the children, which led to the final breakdown of the
marriage. Newsday
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