ATTEMPTED murder is a heinous crime, a horrible act, worse if the victim is one’s own child, an innocent four-year-old soul.
ENOCK MUCHINJO
It is a ghastly thing, even by the standards of the wicked world we live in these days.
Kuda Mahachi (pictured), the gifted Zimbabwe footballer, was last week acquitted of trying to kill his ailing young son, named Diego, after under-going a seven-month long trial at the Bulawayo magistrate courts.
Even a heart so hard, a soul so dead, would have been left teary-eyed after going through the touching statement the 29-year-old Warriors winger released in the aftermath of his acquittal.
A jilted woman, his son’s mother, had been behind the extremely malicious allegations, that the footballer had burned the minor with boiling liquid in an apparent ritual practice to boost his fortunes, before sending him off home to Bulawayo from South Africa on a bus, to his death.
The little boy is alive, thank God, although the terrible sickness he suffers has claimed one of his legs following amputation.
In a harrowing tale, a broken Mahachi bared in the statement how his ex-lover had used the poor health of their son – who has a deadly skin disorder – to get back at him using false accusations, threats and exhortation.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say. But with her horrid allegations she also heavily armed the holier than thou in our midst, a lot of them men, some of them of repute, who in rabble-rouser style led a court of public opinion that harshly tried and convicted Mahachi with reckless abandon.
It was a nightmarish seven months for Mahachi, who in a flash saw his life turn into a horror movie as the self-righteous – who include even fellow footballers and some relatives – skinned him alive.
Seemingly sensible people, even those regarded as community leaders, were at the forefront of piling the agony on a young father bearing the pain of watching helplessly as an awful disease ate away at his child.
I guess such can be expected of self-anointed arbiters of morality, so-called philanthropists who do not know that one can still do good deeds without seeking attention.
Equally despicable are the footballers who kicked the man when he was down, making excuses for their own failures by claiming that Mahachi had in fact also bewitched them in their careers.
Then of course you have the jealous relatives who deep down were not amazed by the football star’s achievements, so rejoiced and amplified the negative vibe when one of their own was facing the unimaginable in the courts of law.
The deafening silence of those who unjustly judged Mahachi is as shameful as the first deed.
There is an air of sadistic disappointment about it, upset that a guy who has taken a lot of demonisation from all and sundry, has convinced everybody after all that he never attempted to kill his own unwell child.
For how do you explain keeping quiet now, as if nothing happened, when there has been this major verdict in a case that you went to town about for so long?
We do not know the type of action Mahachi would like to see from those that made his life a living hell over the past seven months. But those who harmed his reputation know themselves. They must do the honourable thing – offer unconditional apology with the same prominence and passion that they fueled and spread the wrong allegations.
That way they can at least salvage some level of decency. If they choose not to say or do anything about it, then they must forever hang their heads in shame.
