The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
IRONY. Yes, it is. For how else can one explain that the two most squalid, neglected, unkempt and dirty blocks of flats in Bulawayo – the Sidojiwe and Burombo flats that house hundreds of the city’s residents are named after royalty and nationalistic heroism.
The block of flats in Ward 6 and Ward 7 in Bulawayo are a ticking health time bomb that is waiting to explode and it is only plausible to say it is by sheer lucky that Covid-19 and other diarrheal diseases have been avoiding the two filthy places that are densely populated and lack the most basic facilities that fits them into a town settlement.
The bigger section of the two flats have no running water and no electricity. The inside is dark and the walls are plastered with a layer of soot while a pungent smell of rotten garbage that overpowers the aroma of firewood cooked food welcomes the visitors and escort them into flats’ environs. A good number of windowpanes are broken down forming different shapes and sizes of glass openings and no effort has been put to cover them with cardboard or plastic.
Children could be seen running up and down without masks despite the high number of tenants that evidently far outnumber the required number in the flats that were built as bachelor accommodation for industrial workers. They have learned to forgo the luxuries of watching cartoons on television because the other part of the flats have no electricity.
What one finds ironic is that the two flats – Sidojiwe and Burombo are named after two figures whose social and political stature is definitive of the country’s history. They are important names and one can easily be forgiven for suggesting that the two flats could have been an embodiment of either royalty and or heroism.
They are not treated as such. They have been turned into slums. They are the opposite of the stature and contribution of the people they are named after and the city council sees no problem with that.
The anomaly is ignored, just like streams of sewer that flows everywhere and unkempt roads where thickets are forming right into town and are becoming mugging spots and a lot other things that are a sore to the eye and an affront to the palace that the City of Kings and Queens used to be.
One wonders if the city fathers will be proud to take the two revered historical giants to the two blocks of flats if they are to wake up today and show them the places that their names are canonised through. That the two residential places have long been condemned as unfit for human habitation is telling. But that they, despite the condemn are still home to a section of residents in the city is only evidence of how far the Bulawayo City Council owned properties are from getting the attention that they urgently deserve.
Or perhaps we are getting it wrong on the interpretation and for thinking that the dead cannot cry out for justice and that it is the duty of the leaving to do so on their behalf, and demanding some kind of reverence of the names under the impression that they represent the people’s history.
But what is in a name?
The block of flats in Ward 6 – Sizinda close to Belmont industrial area are named after Prince Sidojiwe Khumalo – the son of the last Ndebele King – Lobengula. Sidojiwe, meaning “we have been found, and literally we have been picked up,” was the youngest of King Lobengula Khumalo’s sons.
And maybe, judging by the people who stay there, the name Sidojiwe in its literal meaning makes some sense, for they are mostly not people of means. Whether it is a by coincidence or accident that those who reside at Sidojiwe seem like they were also picked up is interesting and maybe, just maybe the city council want the place to maintain that status but that should not justify the filthiness of the place.
That their economic situation is not a pleasant one and forces them to endure a torturous exertion of staying in a dilapidated place should not make the city council neglect its responsibility of providing essential services at its properties. It only tells the full story of a city that is slowly but surely dying in standards and it looks like no amount of noise will jog the city council into doing the right thing in a city that was founded by Prince Sidojiwe’s family.
According to historian Pathisa Nyathi Prince Sidojiwe’s mother was Ngotsha Dlodlo who was a sister to Mgandane Dlodlo the chief for Inxa or in full, Inxazonke Regiment/Village. He was born at a time when colonists, in particular the British, represented and led by Cecil John Rhodes were keen to colonise the Ndebele State and subjugate its people.
When the Ndebele State did finally fell into the hands of the British South Africa Company, Cecil John Rhodes sought to ensure there were no royal sons that would provide some rallying point towards the revival of the erstwhile Ndebele State.
Older royal sons Njube, Nguboyenja (some say the name should be Nguboentsha) were whisked out of the country ostensibly to receive Western education at the Cape. However, the young Prince Sidojiwe was not one of the sons who were taken to South Africa. At the time of the collapse, he and other Ndebele people tried to flee to the land of the Shangani. They however, did not succeed in their effort. The Prince came back but was keen to follow his brothers in the Cape. His wishes did not materialise. He was to stay in Southern Rhodesia and Marirangwe, a Native Purchase Area (NPA) was to become his home.
When the Prince died in the 1940s, he was buried at Entumbane Hill, an outlier of the Matobo Hills where his grandfather King Mzilikazi had his remains interred in a rock cave. It was he and his older brother Nguboyenja who were buried next to their grandfather King Mzilikazi Khumalo. Nyathi said the current Sidojiwe hostels were very far from pointing to the true history of royalty from where the name was derived.
As for the Burombo flats that are in Thorngrove, they were named after Benjamin Burombo (1909-1959) who was born in Buhera, Manicaland and was to become a leading trade unionist based in Bulawayo. During his time the Southern Rhodesian government did not offer higher education to Africans. Like others of his time, he went to South Africa for his education. South Africa became a training ground in both trade unionism and nationalism.
“In 1947 he formed the British African National Voice Association (BANVA). At the time he was living in Bulawayo.
However, his trade union movement took part in the defence of rural Africans who were facing evictions following the implementation of the 1930 Land Apportionment Act (LAA). He and his trade union movement worked tirelessly in Insiza District where whites returning from World War II (1939-1945) were settling on the land and embarking on agricultural production.
“Cattle were being culled and it took Burombo to campaign against the racist economically disempowering laws of the Southern Rhodesian government. He worked closely with the likes of Jimu Sikhathi Mafu son of the famous Chief Maduna of Godlwayo,” said Nyathi.
Burombo is also remembered for his role in the landmark 1948 General Strike which was initiated by the umbrella Bulawayo Federation of African Workers Union (BFAWU) whose leadership included the likes of Grey Mabhalane Bango.
His death in 1959 came at the dawn of the birth and rise of African nationalism. His name was canonised though the construction of blocks of flats that were named after him. Councillors for Ward Six and Seven where Sidojiwe and Burombo are located concurred that the two blocks of flats did not give the correct picture of the names of people they were named after. Ward Six Councillor Tawanda Ruzive said there were proposals to refurbish the flats and control the number of tenants.
“It is true that the flats were far from assuming the correct status of the people they were named after but council is aware of the problems. The flats have been condemned and people were once moved to Cowdray Park and Emganwini but within a short space of time there were more families again. We understand the economic position of the people there and it has been difficult to move them from the hostels to nowhere,” he said.
Ward Seven Councillor Shadreck Sibanda also echoed the same sentiments about Burombo flats admitting that council hadn’t done much in bringing sanity to the hostels despite the history and the health risk that was evident.
“I am not very sure about the numbers of people staying there now but what I know is that they are more than the required number and City Council have been failing to control that. There are clandestine deals that are done by caretakers responsible for those places. And City Council has just been overwhelmed,” he said.
He added that a lot of work needed to be done to ensure that the two places represent the people they were named after if the naming was to have a proper story to tell.
