Honey trappers double-crossed
The two men who engineered the honey trap that caught Bulawayo Archbishop Pius Ncube in bed with Rosemary Sibanda have now told me: "We are very bitter. We were promised big money when the job was done, but we've received nothing."
The men are private investigator Ernest Tekere and the woman's husband, Onesimus Sibanda. It was Sibanda who first approached Tekere with the plan to film the Archbishop (left) secretly.
The result was a dramatically revealing and explicit videotape, showing Ncube and Mrs Sibanda making love on the Archbishop's bed. The tape was played on national television, and stills from it appeared widely in government newspapers, thus saying: "Pius has been embarrassing our leader for years with impunity. Now is our effectively silencing the courageous Archbishop's attacks on Robert Mugabe's government.
Tekere told me: "I was first approached early this year by Sibanda, who was accompanied by someone who called himself Commander Dube. Both men I knew to be members of the ruling Zanu PF party in Bulawayo. They told me what they wanted me to do, and I refused. I am a committed Christian."
Two weeks later Sibanda and Dube approached Tekere again. The investigator secretly recorded the meeting, and he played me a tape of Dube saying: "Pius has been embarrassing our leader for years with impunity. Now is our opportunity to nail him and silence him for good."
Tekere said he was still reluctant, until the men made him a cash offer of US$10,000. "Who in Zimbabwe can possibly refuse such a sum? I have my family to maintain. So I accepted."
He was paid US$2,000 up front, with the balance to be paid as soon as the assignment was completed. It never materialised. "They told me the country is short of foreign exchange at the moment, and they would try and pay me later. But I know they are conning me." When I spoke to Mr Sibanda, he was also disappointed. "I was promised US$5,000 to arrange things, and I was also told I would get a non-constituency parliamentary seat next year. I have been given no money, and I think all their promises are worthless." But Tekere is not giving up on the US$8,000 he believes he is owed. "I have investigated several of the top men in Zanu PF in the past. I have tapes of their own extramarital affairs. If my money doesn't come I will release those tapes to the foreign media." I suggested that might be dangerous. "Let them kill me if they can. I want my money." Archbishop Ncube has still not denied the relationship with Mrs Sibanda.
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