The Sunday Mail
When news broke out of the break-up of Alick Macheso’s marriage to his second wife, Tafadzwa, few anticipated that the fallout would be that acrimonious.
The latest twist, bizarre you might say, coming from the Macheso camp is that besides claiming that the two children were not his, Macheso has gone a step further and is insinuating that Tafadzwa might not have even carried the two pregnancies.
Stuff that would make Mfundi Vundla, the producer of Generations, very green with envy.
The information coming from within the Macheso camp is that at one stage Tafadzwa was staying with a sister at her Eastlea lodgings. It is the sister who got pregnant first and some few months into her pregnancy, it was said that she had miscarried. And she continued staying with Tafadzwa.
At about the same time, Tafadzwa is said to have gotten pregnant and “delivered” at a hospital in the Harare’s Avenues area. The Macheso camp says that the sister who was said to have had a miscarriage never had a miscarriage in the first place, and is the one who carried the baby to full term.
Now how the sister might have carried a pregnancy to full term under Macheso’s nose is something that the camp is not able to explain, save to “pamwe aisunga”, a reference to the concealing of a pregnancy.
As for the second child, it is said Macheso was told of Tafadzwa’s pregnancy when she was two months into her term, and miraculously (please spare the prophets), she delivered five months later. In short, she delivered a normal baby at seven months.
Dr Sibusiso Matchaba-Hove, the gynaecologist who handled both Tafadzwa “deliveries”, when contacted to verify the claims coming from the Macheso camp, preferred not to say anything, citing the Hippocratic oath, which places doctor-patient confidentiality at the apex of a physician’s conduct.
Insiders within the Macheso camp claim that the sungura musician was alerted to some of the anomalies arising from Tafadzwa’s pregnancies, but as someone who was “so much in love”, he never listened. Besides, some within that camp also suggest that there could have been use of juju in the whole saga.
Reminiscent of the Dino Mudondo-Cecilia Depeta romantic escapades, when Dino used to eat raw fish, if you care to remember, dear reader.
To cement their claims, the Macheso camp is saying the “delivery” of Tafadzwa’s first child, the one named after Alick, was perfectly timed around 2am, about the same time that Flight MH370 disappeared. Whereas others call it the “dead hour”, others call it the witching hour, when the rest of the world is supposed to be sleeping. And further to that, Macheso was out of Harare for a musical tour.
The Macheso camp is hinging their arguments not only on the pregnancy anomalies but a whole host of lies that was Tafadzwa’s relationship with Macheso. When she came into Macheso’s life, they allege, she claimed to be a medical doctor.
One music promoter even testified, off the record though, to have been introduced to Tafadzwa by Macheso way back in 2010. “I want you to meet the new person in my life, she is a medical doctor and if you have any problems, please feel free to contact her,” the promoter recalled last week.
The other lie that Tafadzwa is said to have pulled was that of her being known to Akon. In fact, having been Akon’s personal medical doctor. Several calls were allegedly made by someone in the United States who spoke to Macheso, such that Macheso was made to believe he was speaking to Akon.
One journalist even testified to have been in Macheso’s company at one time back in 2010, when Macheso took a call and spoke for quite a while, in English (the first time the journalist had heard Macheso speak fluent English) and after the call, he said: “That was Akon on the line.”
Then came the “I am related to the First Lady” lies. Macheso is said to have received several calls from people who claimed to have been sent by the First Lady or had links with the First Lady, at times threatening him not to call off his marriage to Tafadzwa. It was only after the intervention of the wife of a high-ranking army official that Macheso finally found some sleep.
In a wide-ranging interview a fortnight ago, when she spoke publicly for the first time about her troubled marriage, Tafadzwa dismissed all the talk of her having links with the First Family or the Akon story. “I stayed with Macheso for four years and how could someone stay with someone for that long and not find any evidence of me being linked to the First Family? Those are all lies to tarnish my name, but God is the only one who knows the truth,” she said.
It is against this background, of these and other untold Tafadzwa lies, that the Macheso camp is arguing that Tafadzwa should have her children tested for fatherhood. “People are mistaking Macheso’s stance,” said the insider, “he is not saying the kids are not his but is rather comfortable, if he is going to be maintaining them, that he does so fully aware that they are, indeed, his kids.”
Which seems quite a contradiction.
The Macheso camp, as further proof of the hold that Tafadzwa had on Macheso, alleges that almost everyone who tried to intervene or give counsel to the sungura musician was thrown by the wayside. One such example is Panganai Hare, who used to be a popular Macheso promoter. He was based in Bulawayo. Efforts to track him down were unsuccessful as he is said to be no longer practising law.
Hare is said to have detected the anomalies in the Macheso-Tafadzwa relationship right from the outset but he was shoved by the wayside — by none other than Macheso himself. At the height of their love, Macheso is said to have gone and discussed with Tafadzwa everything that had been raised by outsiders.
