The Editor’s Diary: Out and About with Mutumwa Mawere Part 2: The Courts, Mentorship, Restaurants and Business Opportunities

It’s the 18^th of November early in the morning, Mutumwa Mawere enquires if we could attend a court case involving Connections2Communities (C2C) members in Palm Ridge, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Connections2Communities (C2C) is an initiative which seeks to build community power around effective problem solving on matters of interest including civic, corporate and governance issues.

With a media instinct and a passion for learning, I quickly grabbed the opportunity since as iniafrica.com we are working on legal literacy articles and this City Power related case that we were attending has been one of the case studies that we have been working on for some time.

By 10am, we were already at the Palm Ridge Magistrate Court where there was a hive of activity with lawyers, the police, the accused, the media and various many other interested people moving in every direction for different reasons including the search for justice.

Along the way to the court, we touched on various topics including the usual topic of mentorship in which Mutumwa highlighted an incident where a gentlemen by the name Cleophas Muguti had indicated that he enjoyed the time and sense behind the wisdom in Mawere’s talk shows.

[11/13, 11:04 AM] +61 451 455 754: Boss Mawere makadini. I enjoyed your time and sense behind the wisdom in your talk. I would want to grow a business with your insights on how to start. I am in Australia Zim born

[11/13, 11:50 AM] Mutumwa Mawere: Do you know anything about C2C?

[11/13, 11:58 AM] +61 451 455 754: I’ll have to read and research

[11/13, 11:58 AM] +61 451 455 754: I don’t know yet

[11/13, 11:59 AM] Mutumwa Mawere: Do you want to be a community builder?

[11/13, 12:00 PM] +61 451 455 754: Yes boss I am more than willing  to learn and be a community builder

[11/13, 12:00 PM] +61 451 455 754: I very much appreciate your time

[11/13, 12:01 PM] +61 451 455 754: My name is Cleophas Muguti

Muguti who is based in Australia indicated that because of such wisdom displayed by Mawere, he wanted to grow his business if given some insights on how to start but however later on went behind the scenes to describe Mawere as a time waster.

Mawere was notified by his mentee, Vimbai Chiuswa, a personal development coach who is a fellow member of the C2C initiative whom Muguti had communicated with that nothing good was to be gotten from Mawere except time wasting.

The extreme ends of Muguti’s view of Mawere in the whole incident were sudden and dramatic especially considering that both the glorification and demonization of the same person happened within a period of less than a week and this reminded me of the poem, The War of Words which I wrote in a poetry anthology titled General Emeritus – Wisdom, Mysteries and Dark Sayings whose fifth stanza reads as follows:.

Because of good words, some people have been loved and praised

Because of bad words, some people have been hated and bruised

Because of good words, some people have been hugged and kissed

Because of bad words, some people have been tramped and kicked

I related the contents of the whole poem to what is really happening behind the scenes in people’s lives across the world which when otherwise not shared publicly may hide the good and the bad spoken against people who inspire us by those who come into their circles.

Now back to the court issue, we waited for the session to start and then the matter was postponed to the following week as there were some verifications to be done on a particular document of one the accused.

In the same case, there had been some people who got added as the co-accused despite the fact that the nature of their crime was not stated and so, following the postponement, they complained that the whole procedure was financially draining.

One lawyer representing some of the co-accused had indicated that he was going to recuse himself unless otherwise paid and I saw the wife of one of the co-accused crying, expressing the pain that people who can’t afford legal fees get through in their search for justice

More so, two of the other co-accused had to pay R2500 each to their respective lawyer for court appearance and yet the case was postponed, meaning they had to pay the same amounts again next week even if they didn’t know if the case will postponed again especially considering that they are yet to be notified of the charges levelled against them.

Because of that, we engaged in a discussion on the effectiveness of the legal system and its openness to abuse and manipulation especially when there is no literacy initiatives such as C2C for people to understand what goes behind the scenes in legal circles.

From the court, we went to Daruma Restaurant in Waterfall, Midrand for some lunch on a delicious Japanese cuisine. The service was excellent in this food joint owned by Oskido, a popular DJ in South Africa’s music circle.

It was an inspiration to see people in the entertainment industry leading by example both in the music and business environment since people who look up to them as well as fans and many others can learn one or two lessons on entrepreneurship and investment towards wealth creation.

To see people using their gifts to do such amazing things resonated with one of the other books which I wrote titled Managing Your Gift. In this book I talk about how people can use their gifts to their advantage and to the benefit of others.

We then knocked of the day in Sandton where President Cyril Ramaphosa was addressing the South Africa Investment Conference under the theme Accelerating Our Economic Recovery.

Opposite, the venue of the conference, at around 6pm, we chilled and had some food at South Africa’s prime food joint, The Royal India Restaurant where we had the delicious butter chicken and Kashmiri rice plus the people’s favorite beverage, the Masala tea

Much was learnt on this day and such knowledge should always end up being for the benefit of our readers across the world so that they get better informed to work as communities in solving problems that they encounter from time to time.

Another day will come and with it another diary will be written. Keep inspired and learning.