×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Wizardry saga: Chigwedere demands paternity test

News
Former Education minister Aeneas Chigwedere, who is embroiled in a nasty witchcraft saga with his son, Mangwiza, has now approached the High Court seeking to compel the latter to undergo paternity tests to determine if indeed they were related.

Former Education minister Aeneas Chigwedere, who is embroiled in a nasty witchcraft saga with his son, Mangwiza, has now approached the High Court seeking to compel the latter to undergo paternity tests to determine if indeed they were related.

BY CHARLES LAITON

Former Education minister Aeneas Chigwedere
Former Education minister Aeneas Chigwedere

Chigwedere filed his application on Monday after efforts to compel Mangwiza to undergo DNA tests failed.

“Since birth of the respondent (Mangwiza), I have been having doubts about his paternity, my suspicions being based on the fact that the respondent’s mother had not been faithful,” Chigwedere said in his founding affidavit.

“However, I assumed the rights and responsibilities of parenthood over him with the intention of resolving this issue of paternity through cultural means, something which I regrettably delayed doing.

“Respondent, however, throughout part of his childhood and adulthood, has been acting out in a way that brought up the question of whether or not he really is my biological child.

“I have been subjected to emotional stress raised by frivolous and vexatious allegations of witchcraft against myself by the respondent. These allegations have now spilled into the courts and the matter is currently pending in the Constitutional Court (ConCourt).”

Chigwedere further said the witchcraft allegations had prompted him “to seek the court’s help in establishing genetic proof whether I am truly the respondent’s biological father, as I am of the view that a scientific determination of the respondent’s paternity would materially assist in the matter pending before the ConCourt”.

The former minister also said Mangwiza and himself had competing rights and interests, which required the truthful verification of paternity by scientific methods, as Mangwiza stood to benefit from his estate as a beneficiary in the event of his death.

Chigwedere and Mangwiza have been at each other’s throats for a considerable time after the latter accused his father of causing untold suffering in their clan.

In November last year, five members from Chigwedere’s clan approached the ConCourt, urging it to compel Chigwedere to undergo an exorcism ceremony by the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers’ Association with a view to cast out alleged goblins tormenting their families.