“Doctor Simba is here in Harare to help you solve all your failures and eliminate long sickness. Hurry! The doctor has spiritual and traditional powers to solve all your problems”, reads a pamphlet handed to me at a street corner in the capital city recently.

Down the road, I also bought the daily newspaper with the headline: “Four women gang-rape a man outside Masvingo town at gunpoint”. Without elaborating the process, the story suggested that this act was for ritual purposes.

Rituals and brutality
For some strange reasons, I find that more and more Zimbabweans now resort to traditional rituals in the belief to gain instant success. At times it even borders on brutality. Somehow, people do not believe anymore that hard work alone, that is without the help of so-called African "science", can bring prosperity. As a result, “Doctor” Simba and fellow traditional healers are making a lot of money on the back of an easy and vulnerable clientele.

Among other things on a very long service list, the healer's clients believe he can help with the following: attracting customers or boosting business, lucky charms for gambling, increasing wealth, penis enlargement, getting back a lost job, promotion, runaway wife, winning court cases, proper control of money and passing examinations easily.

Besides paying dearly, clients also engage in criminal activities, following strict instructions from their fix-it-all gurus. For example, gang-raping an unsuspecting young man by first drugging him with a strange concoction that causes an eight-hour erection as the newspaper article informs us. Others commit gruesome murders in order to get some human organs, while some rape infants supposedly as a cure for AIDS.

African TV movies to blame?
Sociologist Marian Mukura blames the influx of Nigerian-produced movies which are modeled along themes of witchcraft, rituals and strong belief in the underworld.

“These African movies on Ditigal Satellite Television (DSTV) and on cheap pirated DVDs have polluted our society into believing what they watch. The themes easily become popular with average Africans since the settings are all very familiar and involve middle-class characters. A lot of wicked rituals are undertaken in the belief that they create wealth and prosperity. No wonder, even our senior government ministers believed  Rotina Mavhunga, a witch doctor who told them that she had discovered diesel, very scarce then, generated by a granite rock, and the matter was even debated by cabinet”, recalled Marian.

Charms for top posts
Confiding in me recently, Uncle Joe, a well-known traditional healer from my neighborhood said: “You see, during election campaigns I am inundated with prospective members of parliament who seek for medicines to help them outdo their opponents. Towards cabinet reshuffles all sorts of top-of-the-range motor vehicles grace my home with ministers seeking charms, to ensure that the president appoints them for further terms in office. They can do any dirty things to achieve their goals”

Last month, my niece Zanele hurriedly quit her job as a domestic worker. One day, while her employers were away, she found herself rushing to her quarters outside the main house, because a huge python majestically made its way onto the sofa. She found out they had it for money-spinning rituals.

Listen to the interview with Professor Gordon Chavunduka, chairman of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (ZINATHA) speaking on the growing trend of the so-called healers and fortune tellers: