The day everything went up in smoke: Mazibisa
From Page 7 Also my relationship with the late journalist, Busani Ncube led me to the passion I now have in journalism. Busani was my brother, advisor, confidant and many other things. I remember he was so in love with journalism that at one point he once had three publications all headlining with his stories, they were meant to be four but the fourth for some reason did not byline him and Busani being Busani was not pleased. One day I wish I will come up with an award especially dedicated to Busani.
VD: As we wind up Mr Mazibisa, tell us about your family, how many kids do you have?
SM: Before I respond to that question, I think you have realised that even on my social media posts I have tried by all means to keep my family away from the spotlight, I have reasons for doing this. I must, however, emphasise that I have a lovely family, a lovely wife and daughters, that I can confirm. They are very supportive, my eldest daughter is doing Form Three at a local private school, she is amazing and very intelligent to say the least.
Why I have avoided giving them the limelight is because I think it is very unfair — maybe coming from a lawyer’s background — to expose our families and our children to the public. You can imagine if my wife and children were public knowledge when all this was penning out, how they would have felt. So I have discouraged them from having any direct media or social media impact because when my daughters grow up I want them to be free to make independent choices and decisions; whether they want to be public figures like their father or they want to live their lives but for now I am happy that my family has decided to keep away from the public eye.
Those who also privately know my family have also been very supportive including from schools where my children go they have been supportive, fellow students have not mocked my children, in fact my eldest daughter, who I mentioned is in Form Three, has seen
her performance vastly improve because I taught her at an early stage that you can see Sindiso Mazibisa but you cannot inherit Sindiso Mazibisa, you must instead build your own name and life.
VD: Lastly what does the future have for Sindiso Mazibisa the unregistered lawyer?
SM: I must point out that when all this Cheda and Partners issue was penning out, I had two choices, to flee or fight. If I could flee I could have left the jurisdiction of the country and they were many opportunities but I couldn’t run away from the cases that were pending and for the record I have assigned my business advices and a team of lawyers to deal with any residual issues that the Law Society of Zimbabwe still has. I chose that I had to fight this battle and I co-operated as much as possible to see all issues pen out, to see all the criminal issues that were being raised also pen out.
Concerning the future I also had two issues, to go underground and start some private businesses and pretend I am not Sindiso Mazibisa but what the newspapers have done and who I have always been is being a public figure, a service provision person. In 2004 I formed the Royal Legal Aid Trust, which basically is in the same manner as Clientel Legal and Scorpion Legal Aid. The greatest challenge which I noticed in practice is that we have litigants who can’t access justice because they cannot afford the money needed by lawyers.