The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa Weekender Correspondent
A MUTARE court gallery was left in roars of laughter when an irate man accused his brother-in-law of using his two sisters as baby-making-machines and demanded instant bride price during the court session.
The fuming Nhamo Nhamo demanded the bride price after he had been dragged to the courts by his brother-in-law Caxton Manyangadze who claimed to have had enough of Nhamo’s incessant lobola requests.
Manyangadze was also suing his son Adonis Manyangadze whom he accused of being Nhamo’s right hand man in harassing him and disturbing his peace.
The matter was presided over by magistrate Miss Nyasha Kuture.
The angry Nhamo insisted to the court that he was only demanding his family’s dues when he asked Manyangadze for his sisters’ lobola. He accused Manyangadze of being an ungrateful person who failed to thank the Nhamo family for giving birth to the two women with whom he married and sired children.
“He took my sisters Your Worship and yet he does not want to pay his dues. He has lived with them for thirty years but has failed to even show respect and spare a dime to my father.
“Just to show that he is very disrespectful, he has 12 children with my sisters. He is treating them like baby-making machines yet he is stingy and does not want to give the family its dues. We want their dowry but he seems to be thinking that we gave him our daughters for free,” said Nhamo angrily.
Asked by the magistrate whether he had fully paid lobola for his own wife, Nhamo told the court that he had indeed paid and promised to bring the book in which all bride price negotiations were recorded.
“Your Worship, it is not like I love money too much but it is just a tradition that a man pays lobola for his wife. What makes it worse in this case is that he took two sisters from the same family and has lived with them for 28 years.
“Our parents are now complaining, they cannot take it anymore and because I am their son they send me to ask for the lobola,” said Nhamo.
Caxton however, insisted that Nhamo was a violent in-law who comes on countless times demanding for the bride price of his two sisters.
He accused Nhamo of destroying his property and smashing the windows to his Sakubva home the last time he visited him asking for the bride price.
“He also influences my children, Adonis no longer respects me as he should because he has suddenly become Nhamo’s right hand man,” said Caxton.
Adonis however, told the court that the reason he disrespected his father was not because of his uncle but because his father did not love him.
“Your Worship, my father hates me. I am a University of Zimbabwe dropout because of him. He failed to pay for my fees yet I helped him in his business,”said the bitter son.
The protection order was granted to Caxton against his son Adonis and brother-in-law Nhamo. The magistrate however, advised Nhamo to send an emissary for the bride price collection.
