Unlike Stanley Nyamufukudza’s anti-hero Sam in The Non Believer’s Journey, Job Ken Saro Wiwa Sikhala is the post-independence and anti-native coloniality protagonist who is not ambivalent towards the conflict and the crisis in Zimbabwe.
After returning home on $50 000 bail having spent a month in maximum prison for allegedly inciting violence he proclaimed that freedom is coming to the people of Zimbabwe without fear, equivocation and hesitation. We had lost ground and revolutionary time to exchange notes during his period of incarceration so as soon as he returned from the furnace I enquired on the status of his resolve and tenacity. The comrade I have grown accustomed to then confided that, it is unfathomable that human beings live in Chikurubi Maximum Prison and even an elephant would not survive beyond one day.
A defiant Sikhala had outside the prison gates announced that Chikurubi will be turned into a museum in the new order that he is willing to sacrifice for. “My friend it was hard in there but it has to be done,” to which I followed up with a biblical reference of how the precious metal gold is refined through fire incidentally capturing the trials and tribulations that saints will face during their ministry on this earth. As accurate as he dissected the Zimbabwean predicament, Job Sikhala views the country as a macrocosmic image of Chikurubi Maximum Prison which Dambudzo Marechera aptly and prophetically described as the House of Hunger.
Job Ken Saro Wiwa Sikhala frequently reminds me and also did to the nation during his laborious trial that his arrests under the regime are now nearing the centennial mark and as the political persecution speedily rushes towards that historical record so equally does the freedom of the people of Zimbabwe draw nigh. In 2003, the persecution veered towards the grotesque route of torture where he was ill-treated and cruelly punished for 8 hours. As humble as he is, Job Wiwa Sikhala lamented the arrest of Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku whom he paid tribute to and in deference recognized their 5-year imprisonment at Chikurubi Maximum Prison suggesting that his incarceration pales into insignificance compared to those pre-colonial freedom fighters.
His doctrine related to the struggle for dignity and freedom for the people of Zimbabwe is consistent and emphatic when it comes to selflessness and martyrdom. Job Sikhala believes the sick and hunger laden days and the abuse by overzealous prison guards in Chikurubi are the panacea to dismantling a moribund autocratic system and there is a price to pay for genuine freedom.
The thunderous welcome he received from his family, friends, constituency, and political comrades energized him and proved to him that his struggle for the marginalized and oppressed poor is not in vain.
Being in Hopewell Chin’ono and Jacob Ngarivhume’s company Sikhala retorted, was a “privilege and as revolutionary as it comes.”
By Charles M. Mutama