The father of Oliver Mtukudzi’s widow, Daisy, Mr Fred Gasho says the late national hero was buried without him being told of his death or ...
The father of Oliver Mtukudzi’s widow, Daisy, Mr Fred Gasho
says the late national hero was buried without him being told of his death or
burial.
“I was never told of
the illness of my son-in-law, and later his passing on. It is very difficult to
hear that your son-in-law has passed away, without hearing of his illness.
“Then we were shocked as everyone when we heard the news of
his death on radio. We were waiting for official communication, as per our
customs, but no word has come through. Therefore, we could not travel to a
funeral which we were not informed of,” he told The Sunday Mail.
Mr Gasho and Elizabeth Mashonga had Daisy but the two
didn’t get married. Mrs Mashonga migrated to Zambia where she bore five other
children, of which three are surviving. When her husband passed away in Zambia,
she relocated to Zimbabwe where she is said to have lived the life of a loner.
She was found dead and her memorial service in December and
that was the last time that Daisy visited her mother’s home, which has since
been sold.
When her mother left for Zambia, Daisy was left in the care
of her maternal uncles, the Mashongas, to where a bus was recently dispatched
to ferry mourners to Mtukudzi’s
funeral, a development that has raised the ire
of Mr Gasho.
“I am Nzou Samanyanga, so was Oliver, and that is why he
did the song Cheka Ukama, as he wanted to marry my daughter. Then years later,
when I pestered him for the remaining lobola for Daisy, he did Nyanga Yenzou,
in which he was mockingly asking me where he could find an elephant tusk to
finish off the lobola. Then he did Ndotangira Poi, another song he said was a
tribute to me. So how can I have been denied a chance to send off my
son-in-law, who loved and admired me so much?”
Mrs Agnes Gasho, the stepmother, said they enjoyed cordial
relations with their in-laws, indicating that when Oliver’s mother was still
alive, she used to visit them. Sunday Mail
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