A section of the Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) is accusing its former leader arch bishop Johannes Nyamwa Ndanga of interfering with the affairs of the indigenous church grouping after resigning from the organisation last year.
ACCZ is a body of 600 indigenous apostolic and Zionist churches in the country with an estimated membership of nine million congregants.
Last year Ndanga had indicated that he had quit ACCZ and passed on the baton to one Madzibaba Biggie Mutawu and Tobias Zunguzira as substantive leaders, to enable him to concentrate on other commitments.
“I am no longer focusing on Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe since I am now leading a continental organisational board, the African Christian Council International (ACCI) as its grand president,” Ndanga said then.
However, early this year Zunguzira alongside Timothy Muuya were fired from their positions as ceremonial president and secretary-general respectively.
A faction aligned to Zunguzira convened a meeting in Zvishavane last week where they agreed that by virtue of Ndanga publicly announcing his resignation, he had disassociated himself from ACCZ affairs.
They granted that Ndanga’s authority subsequently ended at the end of October last year according to the ACCZ constitution.
“We rescued the organisation from financial (debt-induced) comatose when he resigned from the organisation,” a member of the Zunguzira faction said.
“What we have witnessed was that, Ndanga technically deceived bishops and left the organisation in the hands of caretakers while pretending to empower the organisation to independently elect those two supreme leaders as substantive heads of our clergymen grouping.
“Now that we are in the post-election phase, Ndanga resurfaced and unconstitutionally made parallel appointments within the organisation he once left.
“He is trying to get back into his former position using unethical procedures.”
The source said Ndanga’s U-turn could have been necessitated by his failure to secure funding for the ACCI.
“We were informed that he failed to secure funding for the ACCI after donors allegedly requested proper registration documents in South Africa, of which he failed to produce the authentic documentation,” a member of the Zunguzira faction said.
“He could have been reported to the authorities by one of his former lieutenants.”
The Zunguzira faction insists that Ndanga’s return to ACCZ was through the backdoor and is convening meetings with a few selected bishops.
“All those leaders who questioned his integrity, allegiance to constitutionalism and authority are forcibly shown the exit door,” a member of the Zunguzira faction said.
This publication has established that ACCZ splinter groups have of late been convening a series of meetings in Bulawayo, Zvishavane and Harare over Ndanga’s “return”.
Efforts to contact Ndanga were fruitless yesterday.
ACCZ has over the years been embroiled in wrangles ranging from succession disputes, multiple legal battles, constitutionalism deficiency, corruption, political interference to embezzlement of funds.