A land dispute on Masvingo’s peri-urban farming fringe has drawn in the police, a sitting legislator and hundreds of households, after a 42-year-old mother and her two-year-old child were detained for a night over a plot the family says it has occupied since 2002.
Nancy Rikitai Gwaindepi was taken into custody on Monday together with her toddler and a neighbour, according to accounts given to local media, and the three were released the following afternoon. Her husband, Prichard Tafirenyika Masocks, said the family had been left traumatised by the episode and that two of their older children, aged 16 and 19, had fled the homestead and could no longer be located.
How the confrontation unfolded
Gwaindepi’s account is that a group of men arrived at her plot in Clipsham and began putting up a fence that stretched across four adjoining holdings, each measuring 1.5 hectares. She said she pleaded with the workers, telling them the move would leave her family homeless, when a police vehicle carrying two female officers and a driver pulled up. She, her baby and the neighbour were then arrested.
Masocks, who works as a driver in Shurugwi, said he has had to abandon his job to remain with his family. He added that police had been to the area twice before, warning plot holders that a person of considerable influence was coming to take over the land.
Workers putting up the fence reportedly told the family they had been sent by Chivi North MP Godfrey Mukungunugwa.
Competing claims over the same ground
Contacted for comment, Mukungunugwa confirmed the matter but said the plot belongs to his brother, Day Mukungunugwa, who he said was allocated the land by the ministry in September 2025. He described Gwaindepi as an illegal occupant who had been given notice to vacate, and said the area has been re-designated for agro-business plots. He also asked that the story not be published, arguing it would damage his reputation, and maintained he had never personally set foot on the plot.
However, the legislator confirmed that Gwaindepi had been arrested — a detail that sits awkwardly with the provincial police position. Masvingo provincial police spokesperson Inspector Kudakwashe Dhewa said a check of records had turned up no trace of Gwaindepi’s name.
Families on the other side of the dispute say they hold offer letters issued by the then Minister of Lands, while the new occupants are said to carry fresh letters from the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works. Those being moved out say they were only ever given verbal notice to leave, with no written communication.
A community of more than 700 in the balance
Clipsham is regarded as one of Masvingo’s most prized peri-urban agricultural areas, and the pressure on it is far wider than a single household. More than 700 people are said to be facing eviction, among them war veterans, former police officers and civil servants who have lived in the area for two decades or more.
Plot holders allege that some of the incoming occupiers include permanent secretaries, directors in various ministries and staff from the office of Masvingo’s Minister of State, Ezra Chadzamira. Speaking anonymously, some residents claimed that ZANU PF figures involved in the takeovers are already multiple farm owners with sugarcane holdings in Chiredzi and properties elsewhere, and that the exercise is being conducted with little transparency.
- The family: Gwaindepi, her husband and their 11-year-old son are still on the plot; two older children have disappeared from home.
- The response: Police say Gwaindepi does not appear in their records, yet the legislator at the centre of the row confirms she was arrested.
- The paperwork: Long-standing residents hold old lands ministry offer letters; new claimants reportedly hold local government letters.
- The scale: Over 700 people, including war veterans, ex-police officers and civil servants, face removal from plots occupied since at least 2002.
Questions the authorities have not answered
Efforts to extract details from the relevant government departments over the past two years have produced nothing, leaving families without a clear route to challenge the allocations. Another resident, 72-year-old Moffat Chikozho, said he has farmed the same piece of land since 2002 and has been unsettled by the latest turn of events.
Gwaindepi said the stress has pushed her to the edge of despair, describing sleepless nights and moments when she has contemplated taking her own life. Her husband said the family simply wants to know whether they still have a home.
The case now poses hard questions about how peri-urban land in Masvingo is being allocated, who is authorising the transfers, and why families with two decades of occupation are being asked to leave on the strength of verbal instructions rather than formal process.
