HOW JUJU HELPED IN RECOVERING STOLEN PROPERTY

ONE morning in August, 1993, a Lusaka businesswoman was seated at her Woodlands home in Lusaka when a certain young man approached her. From the way he looked, she thought he was seeking for a job, which she didn’t have any way. But to her surprise, the young man knelt down under her feet and pleaded with her to forgive him for what he had done to her! “Please, mum, please forgive me! I am your son!” “What are you talking about?” the businesswoman asked, shocked. I should forgive you? Forgive you for what?” The young stranger replied: “I know this will surprise you, mum. If you remember well, a month or so ago, thieves broke into this house and made off with a lot of goods. Well, I have come here to confess that I was the mastermind of that robbery.” BUSINESSWOMAN (raising her eyebrows, unable to believe what she was hearing): “What! So you are a thief, er? And where are the goods – the colour TV set, the video player, the fridge, the four-plate cooker and the other stuff?” STRANGER: “Don’t worry about those things, mum, because I know where they are. My main purpose of coming here is to ask for your forgiveness. If you recover your goods, at least the major ones, are you prepared to forgive me?” The businesswoman assured the self-confessed thief that if he could return at least the colour TV set, the video player, the four-plate cooker and the fridge, there was no way the police would lay their hands on him because she would refuse to give evidence against him if he was to be taken to court at all. Later, both the businesswoman and the self-confessed thief went to Woodlands Police Station where the latter repeated his confession. Two police officers, one of them armed and in uniform, and the other a detective who had been investigating the case, were accordingly detailed to help in recovering the stolen property. The young suspect led the police all the way to Choma where the four prized items – the colour TV set, the video player, the four-plate cooker and the fridge – were recovered from three different townships. Some of the property could not be recovered because the self-confessed thief could not remember all the people he sold the goods to, although most of them were in Choma. If the businesswoman was surprised by what had happened and treated the whole thing as a sheer stroke of good luck, it was not the case with her husband who knew the secret but had not divulged it to her in case things didn’t work out as planned. The house had been ransacked in broad daylight while the couple were away at their shop, leaving only the children at home. The children were approached by three people, one of whom was dressed as a police officer and armed with a rifle, who told them that their parents had been arrested and were in police custody and that the police had been ordered to confiscate their property. Convinced that they were being told the truth, the children even assisted the conmen in loading the goods on a white van which they had brought with them. It later transpired that the van had been stolen from a Makeni resident. Naturally, when the couple returned from the shop in the evening, they nearly collapsed with shock upon discovering that their house had been rendered virtually empty, with property worth thousands of Kwacha stolen. The property stolen included a 21-inch colour TV set and a video player recently bought, a fridge, a four-plate cooker, clothes and other goods too numerous to mention. The matter was reported to Woodlands Police Station but all efforts to recover the stolen property seemed futile.... until the husband was advised by a friend to try and consult a well-known Lusaka witch-doctor called Dr Lekani Nyanga (Stop Witchcraft) of Chawama Township. The businessman was to tell this writer in an interview: “I was one of those who were quite sceptical about the activities of witch-doctors. I thought all of them were fake. But after consulting Dr Lekani Nyanga, I discovered that some of these people are actually genuine. He assured me that through his medicine, he could trace the people who had stolen my property. “That said, he took me into a room and applied some powder on my forehead. He then asked me to fix my eyes on a piece of white cloth which was hanging on a wall. All of a sudden, I could see people arriving at my house in a van and stealing my property with the assistance of our own children. “It was like watching a movie. After the show, Dr Lekani Nyanga assured me that my property, at least most of it, would be recovered. I didn’t inform my wife because I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in case things didn’t work out as planned. “I was only prepared to divulge the secret upon proving that what the witch-doctor had told me would actually come to pass,” he said, adding that it was a blessing in disguise that the self-confessed thief first approached his wife who had no idea of what had transpired earlier . Not unexpectedly, following the publicaton of the story, the Zambia Daily Mail, for which this writer was working as Senior Research Editor at the time, was inundated with calls from readers requesting for contact details of Dr Lekani Nyanga so that he could help them recover their stolen property. Unfortunately, Dr Lekani Nyanga, whose real name was Patrick Nkhoma, was to leave this world some ten years later. May his soul rest in eternal peace.