The tiny sculpture of Mbuya Nehanda stands invisibly on a visibly gigantic unused foot flyover. Beneath it lays two great statesmen in the make of Julius Nyerere and Samora Machel ways.
The statue of the iconic spirit medium sadly gazes towards the Reserve Bank of the country. Mbuya Nehanda is observedly in short of tears as she permanently watches over the empty coffers in the national bank.
“My dry bones will rise again,” the look of puzzlement fills the eyes of the aged statue as she tries to figure out if she is a spirit medium enough or if her dry bones had surely risen or merely a clutter of steel had been resurrected to watch over the empty coffers.
Just a few metres from the “Unreserved Bank” of the country lies the supreme and the constitutional courts. Mbuya is thereby forced to constantly watch the rot and lawlessness prevail at the highest courts of the land.
The white judicial system which presided and adjudicated over her poor self and led her to be hanged along one of the illuminary son of the soil, Tongogara way was even ‘saint’ than the “black skin, white masks” presiding over the highest legal state of affairs in the country. Surely the saying that, ‘in a court presided by the hyena the goat is always guilty’, the spiritless statue of Mbuya has been made a witness to.
The clutter of steel in the resemblance of the great daughter of the soil has been crucified and unlike Pilate in the bible who washed his hands, the first man, himself presided over the crucifixion.
A pariah place, the statue humiliatedly hangs as the restrictive state apparatus blockade anyone trying to pass over the bridge and fathom as well as show empathy to the great, great grandmothers of the land.
Perpetually she will hold her tears so as not to spill it over her poor grandchildren trying to escape the hornes and bumpers of cars from the congested road. She will continue contemplating if the resurrection of the clutter of steel purported to be her was it not an inconvenience to travellers besides walloping the “unreserved bank” of a great treasure.
