Who killed Nchindo?

| Monday February 15, 2010 00:00

If he committed suicide...

Louis Godwill Nchindo was mortal. Like any mortal being he would have been weighed down with life's cumbersome load - a little too heavy perhaps. Here is a man, who has in the last few months appeared in the news for all the wrong reasons. First he was, together with three accomplices, Jacob Sesinyi, Joe Matome and his son, Garvas Louis arraigned before court for charges ranging from corruption to fraud. The seesaw case has been going on for nearly two years. Just two weeks back Nchindo and his co-accused partly won an appeal where they requested the state to provide further particulars to their case. A junior court had ruled in the state's favour.

A recipient of the Presidential Order of Honour Award Nchindo had many friends, among them former president, Festus Mogae. Now faced with a possible jail term, Nchindo allegedly went to Mogae to persuade him to talk to the state to drop charges against him. Mogae says he refused, as he believed that would amount to treason.

When that failed, Nchindo must have thought about the various ways that he could persuade the state, and by extension the BDP government to have the 36 charges against him dropped.

Then he dropped a bombshell. He would not go down alone. He told of how the company he once directed, De Beers, once donated P5 Million Pula to former president Sir Ketumile Masire to pull him out of Bankruptcy. Forced with questions from the media, the unions, opposition parties and the nation, who all saw the De Beers gesture as an invasion of democracy and a sell-out of the country, Masire conceded that he had indeed received the 'loan' and that he regretted it. That appears to have brought a rift - or at least widened the rift between Nchindo and his friends. Most of them, the most powerful, abandoned him and publicly disowned him. His ester-while friend, former president Festus Mogae, in remarks that essentially deflated Nchindo's 'parachute' of surprises told the Botswana Guardian that Nchindo had tried to blackmail him by saying he would tell about Mogae's extramarital affairs. Still, he says, he had refused to bow. If at the beginning of the case Nchindo had lost some of his friends such as Festus Mogae, surely he must have lost more after Mogae's statement. Now he was a pariah. Despised and rejected by friends. He was now disdained even by the lowest of the low in society who had read about him from some newspaper. Meanwhile he faced a possible jail term, if the court were to find him guilty. Here he was a victim of a system that had chewed him like snuff and spat him out like snuff-tainted phlegm. He also had businesses whose survival he had to ensure and he would certainly from time to time ponder the future of the businesses in light of the din around his life.

An apparent man of wealth and good taste, Nchindo was recently in the South African media amid allegations that he had fathered babies with two teenage girls and dumped them. Would these revelations have affected his relationships with those close to him?

Then there are allegations that the taxman was after Nchindo. That he owed far much more than was originally stated and that the taxman was moving in to attach his property, which would possibly near-bankrupt him.Only Louis Nchindo and perhaps his family would have known the emotional demands that he laboured under. Were the demands so much that the man would give up on life?

Some suicidal cases may 'jokingly' talk to friends and family about how they want to end it all, and if he were the type, Nchindo might have said something to that effect to an acquaintance, and the person may have taken him lightly. For here was a man whose very aura spoke about his love for life. His flamboyant and confident presence was a clear statement that he would never do such a thing. He was only joking.

On the day he left, Nchindo might have, as always, waved good-bye to his family, or hugged them. He would have remained the tough dad that he obviously was. But, he would have been at the loneliest point of his life.... Then, once in Kasane, he might have left a suicide note, with some information about why he was calling it quits, and where more information could be found. He certainly drove from his home, not in any of his trademark blue expensive vehicles, but in a white Toyota Hilux.

Out of reflex, he would have locked the van and walked away from it, the mophane bushveldt sprawling, beyond where the eye can see, the forest eternally rolling away, world without end. Perhaps death would be merciful....But there are those who think he might have been murdered.

Louis Nchindo had made too many enemies, business, political and otherwise. Too many people would simply rejoice at his death. Perhaps on the day of his demise he had a scheduled meeting. A strong premonition normally visits family and victims of those in danger. It would have Nchindo. Self-preservation would have driven him to remember his gun. He would have been confident that the issue at hand would be put to rest before the weekend was over. The meeting had to be of utmost secrecy, away from the prying eyes of the public and the newshounds. No one should disturb him. Even his family should not disturb him and he would probably have to lock his phones in the safe. He could always call the family or his business associates back. It might have occurred to him to leave a note in the safe, telling his family those secrets that he had kept from them - you never know if you will come back alive if you go to a possibly dangerous meet. If that happened, his note will tell the story that he would otherwise have told some other time. He reached home and as usual, greeted the servants and spent a few minutes with them. Then he drove out, with a promise that he would be back. He might have spent a few minutes at one of the town's rendezvous and had drinks and a chat with acquaintances.

He would have driven towards the appointed spot. He would need the car upon completion of this business, so he'd better lock it. A single shot, possibly to the head, and his killer would stealthily have gotten away.

A little away from the scene a lioness would have scented human blood and death. Somewhere atop a hill a crow, and an eagle in the distant east saw it all. The jackal lifted his other ear and howled, even as the eagle shrieked her long, piercing, eerie cry. The dove shifted mournfully atop a branch. None of them would have understood that the man who had just been murdered at the age of 69 was Louis Goodwill Nchindo. The scavengers, hyenas possibly, devoured the corpse, as the dove and the quail fluttered away in fright. Only some remains of his body would be found by the search party. 

The forensics will hopefully tell. Perhaps his family will want to hire a private pathologist. The nation mourns with the Nchindos. The man may not have been liked by some, may have had his own weaknesses, but he was human, and deserved some dignity, even in death.

However, this man is likely to still talk in death. Louder maybe. And his story may never cease to amaze. It is the realisation that he might continue to tell even in death that will leave too many an uneasy head on the pillow.