A night in the cells
Police in Masvingo detained a 42-year-old woman and her two-year-old baby on Monday after she refused to give up her plot in Clipsham, in a land dispute that has drawn in Chivi North legislator Godfrey Mukungunugwa. Nancy Rikitai Gwaindepi and a neighbour were held overnight and released the following afternoon, according to family accounts.
The confrontation began when a group of men arrived at Gwaindepi’s plot and started putting up a fence that covered four adjoining plots of 1.5 hectares each. She pleaded with them, saying her family was about to be left homeless. A police Mahindra then arrived carrying two female officers and a driver, and Gwaindepi, her baby and the neighbour were arrested and taken to the station.
‘We do not know where they are’
Her husband, Prichard Tafirenyika Masocks, said his wife spent the night in custody. He told Masvingo Mirror that two of their children had just left home and the family did not know their whereabouts. “They fled because of the situation,” he said.
Masocks works as a driver in Shurugwi but said he had to leave his job to be with his family. Gwaindepi, her husband and their 11-year-old son wept as they described the trauma, with Gwaindepi saying she was so distressed she sometimes thought of taking her own life. She said two other children, aged 16 and 19, had disappeared from home as harassment by police and the MP’s workers intensified, and should have been in school.
Hundreds facing eviction
The family has lived in Clipsham since 2002. They are among more than 700 people facing eviction, a group that includes war veterans, former police officers and civil servants who have been on the land for more than two decades.
Affected plot holders say they hold offer letters issued by the then Minister of Lands. They claim the new occupiers — said to include permanent secretaries, directors in various ministries and workers from the office of Masvingo Minister of State Ezra Chadzamira — are armed with fresh letters from the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.
Those being pushed out say they were given only verbal notices to vacate. Plot holders allege the new scheme is shrouded in secrecy. Attempts by Masvingo Mirror to obtain details from relevant government departments have yielded nothing for the past two years, the publication reported.
One resident, Moffat Chikozho, 72, said he has lived on his plot since 2002 and has been left disturbed by the latest developments.
MP says plot belongs to his brother
Contacted for comment, Mukungunugwa confirmed the case but said the plot belonged to his brother, Day Mukungunugwa. He described Gwaindepi as an illegal occupant who was given notice to move out when Day was allocated the land by the Ministry in September 2025.
The MP said the area is now designated as agro-business plots and that his brother had been in communication with the “illegal settlers”. He asked the newspaper not to publish the story, arguing it would drag his name through the mud, and said he had never visited the plot himself.
Provincial police spokesperson Inspector Kudakwashe Dhewa said Gwaindepi’s name was not in their records. “I have checked our records, and we don’t have that name,” he said. Mukungunugwa, however, confirmed that Gwaindepi was arrested.
Questions over land and power
Speaking on condition of anonymity, some plot holders claimed ZANU PF politicians involved in the takeovers are multiple farm owners with sugarcane farms in Chiredzi and other farms elsewhere. The allegations have not been independently verified.
The dispute raises uncomfortable questions about land governance, the use of police in civil disputes and the vulnerability of long-standing occupants who say they have followed the law but now face losing their homes. For Gwaindepi’s family, the fight over a piece of paper has already cost them their peace, their children’s schooling and, for a time, their freedom.
