Zimbabwean Pastor Patrick Mugadza, who was jailed six weeks ago for predicting President Robert Mugabe’s death, says he collected a tin full of lice to show the President the sorry state of prisons in Zimbabwe.
The vocal pastor was arrested in January for declaring that 93-year-old Mugabe would die on October 17th. Afterward, Pastor Mugadza was arrested and put in jail, where he says his experience was nasty and eye-opening.
In order to underscore his point, he collected a tin of lice.
“Unfortunately, I lost my tin of lice. I had collected lice, because I wanted to bring them over just to say, Mr. President, these are your boys in the prison who are just eating people,” Mugadza told the Daily News.
“I have never heard of any sickness that comes out from being bitten by lice as is with mosquitoes, but I am telling you that people got wounds from lice and I had a fever from lice.”
Mugadza adds that the current prison system in Zimbabwe is worse than what it was during colonial times, with prison guards oppressing and beating prisoners for no reason.
Milking Zimbabweans Dry
Mugadza similarly likens the tiny parasites in prison to the “parasites” he claims are sucking the Zimbabwean economy dry.
Like his fellow clergyman and activist Pastor Evan Mawarire of the #ThisFlag movement, Mugadza insists that the state of the nation is reflected in the state of its prisons.
“They are sucking our economy dry; they are sucking people out of every cent on roadblocks. The system is sucking people of every penny they would have earned in a very hard way,” says Mugadza.
Zimbabwe is currently suffering from one of its worst economic slumps in many years, with the government being forced to replace its local currency with bond notes in a bid to address the ongoing cash crunch.
Since the start of the #ThisFlag movement last year, a large section of Zimbabweans have been pushing for the retirement of President Mugabe, who has since promised to run for another term in office in the coming elections.
Being Part of the Change
It is the apparent failure of the incumbent administration to manage the country that has compelled Pastor Mugadza to officially join politics.
Mugadza has promised to announce his political party very soon, accusing some of the existing parties in Zimbabwe of trying to frustrate his political ambitions.
“I have always wanted to be involved in active politics, because I have realized that if you want to see a change, be involved in the change,” Mugadza said.
Since his popular one-man protest against President Mugabe in December 2015, Mugadza has become an influential figure in Zimbabwe, commanding a huge following of Zimbabweans who are tired of the current administration.
