RARELY would a prison become a place for members of the same family, particularly whose fading memory of each other spans more than two decades, but the script of Tafadzwa Hove’s story is a twist of fate and a rarity that confirms that.
From surviving a 369-year prison term to meeting his biological father who he last saw some 27 years ago when he was five years old, Hove’s life reads like a script from a crime film with unexpected turns.
While chances of father and son serving prison sentences in the same prison but not knowing each other are slim, it was an unusual coincidence for the duo of Hove (36) and his father, Biggy Dube who is ironically a pastor.
They found each other through a relative who knew both while in the confines of the high prison walls.
The two are incarcerated at Khami Maximum Prison, on the outskirts of Bulawayo for multiple robbery and rape cases.
Hove is expected to be released in 2055 a huge commutation of the sentence from the initial one where he was supposed to leave the prison cells in 2145.
Sunday News spotted Hove while he was entertaining visitors to the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service (ZPCS) Family Week recently and he agreed to share his story.
“I was arrested for 15 counts of robbery in 2016 and I spent some time at Zvishavane Prison. My life of crime was motivated by poverty. I was sentenced in 2018 to 369 years, the sentence was later reduced and I remained with 91 years. Later on, I was summoned to the courts where it was further reduced and I am now serving an effective 50-year prison term. I will be out in 2055,” said Hove.
He said he was distraught after the initial sentence and contemplated suicide.
“I wanted to kill myself, but I was counselled in prison as part of rehabilitation, they told me that the long sentence did not mean my life had to be over. My hope was rekindled, I became optimistic and it pushed me to want to learn a skill while inside and I decided on learning how to play a guitar.”
His reason for choosing that skill was futuristic.
“When I am released I will be old and weary to do hard physical work but with the guitar, I know I will still be able to play it,” he said.
Hove can now sing and play the guitar, a pastime he enjoys and has created a band named the Midlands Boys derived from his home district of Mberengwa in the same province where he comes from.
“I learnt how to play the guitar in 2019 and realised I can take this seriously because if I leave prison without a skill, it may push me back into a life of crime. It is something I can pursue and earn a living out of. I never used to play the guitar, but now I have the Midlands Boys Band, it used to be called Orchestra Mafaro Chete, but I discovered there were too many orchestras in Zimbabwe and looked for a different name,” he said.
Hove said his life was one of entanglements and described the reunion with his father who he believed was dead as an emotional episode of his life.
“I grew up with relatives from my mother’s side in Mberengwa because my father and mother separated when I was only five and my mother later died. I, however, met my father’s younger brother at Chikurubi Maximum Prison in Harare where I had gone for some processes and he told me that my father was at Khami where I was. It was the first time I saw him since he left me, but I used to see his pictures, which enabled me to recognise him when I met him physically in 2019,” he said.
Hove said he has been enjoying the new relationship with his father although his father has been an emotional wreck following their meeting.
“I was happy to meet him because I had been told he had died as no one was aware of his whereabouts. When I met him in 2019 it was bittersweet, I had to be moved to Hwahwa Prison in Gweru. I was hurt that I grew up suffering, I used to walk to school and failed to even complete my education because of hardships, but he was there. He was also hurt such that he could not talk to me in the initial days and would spend days crying. This then led to me being transferred briefly to Hwahwa and I then came back and the pain is better now for both of us,” said Hove.
On his part, Dube said he was elated to be reunited with his son. He highlighted that it still haunted him that his son chose a life of crime because he had no one to provide for him.
“I was a pastor at the Church of Christ, the man that you saw is indeed my son, he was born in 1988 after I had completed my Advanced Level studies at Dadaya Mission in 1986. Five years later, we separated with his mother as she did not want to be in a polygamous marriage as I had a senior wife then who is also a pastor now. So, Tafadzwa and his mother went to Mberengwa where she comes from,” said Dube.
Dube who over the years continued to marry, was arrested after he was reported for raping his administrator, by his fourth wife.
“I had fallen in love with my administrator at my company in Bulawayo and my wife said I had raped the lady. This is because I had spent seven months without going back home in Bikita where she was staying. I was sentenced to 18 years in prison and two were suspended so I am serving 16 years effectively and hope to be released in July 2029,” said Dube.
Coincidentally, Dube and his son were both sentenced in 2018.
“When I saw him I knew he was my son. He resembles my other children. We all cried and for some time I failed to speak to him. I was touched that he was into violent crimes due to hardships, I feel I was also to blame because I was not a part of his life,” said Dube.
Dube said his first wife knew about Tafadzwa and when they reunited, she paid them a visit in prison and has been a regular visitor.
Both Dube and his son advised other people to be law-abiding as a life of crime has serious consequences.
“Another point I want to stress is that polygamy was popular back in the day and not now, it is now a cause for strife within families and we must not do it. I have divorced four of my wives and left with one, the first one I married,” chuckled Dube.
Dube has 13 children with his five wives-two trained teachers, two working in Government departments as secretaries and one a pastor.
He also spoke against gender-based violence saying it was a social ill that society was supposed to do away with.
