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The graphic shows Thulani Moyo, the taxi driver (top left), Milton Sdakwa Ncube husband to the deceased (bottom right) and police details taking the corpse away from Basch Street Terminus

Temba Dube Senior Reporter—
A 59-YEAR-OLD injiva allegedly travelled from Johannesburg, South Africa, with his wife’s dead body in a cross-border Toyota Quantum and later tried to dump the corpse in a metered taxi. There was pandemonium at Basch Street Terminus, popularly known as Egodini, on Tuesday afternoon when touts and vendors threatened to burn the Quantum and the taxi.

Acting Bulawayo police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Abedinico Ncube confirmed the incident and said the cause and time of death was subject to investigation.

Witnesses said Milton Sdakwa Ncube also known as Scorpion who was travelling in a cross-border Quantum, arrived at Egodini at about 2.30PM.
They said he struggled with his wife, Rita Dube, 52, who looked dead and put her in a taxi. He  then waited for the taxi driver who had gone to buy an airtime recharge card.

“Ubengagobi ugogo lowo, sihle sazibonela ukuthi kaphili. (The old woman’s body was stiff and we saw at once that she was dead. I told the driver when he returned that his passenger looked dead. He checked for himself and called the police,” said a tout.
A vendor said he suspected Ncube wanted to dump the body in the taxi and run away because he acted furtively.

Another vendor said Ncube could have been trying to cut costs of moving a dead person as it costs about R16,000 to transport a corpse from South Africa to Zimbabwe compared to the R300 fare for a passenger.

The taxi driver, Thulani Moyo, 23, said Ncube wanted to be taken to Brunapeg in Mangwe.
He said he went to buy airtime to call his boss, who told him not to take the trip because it is illegal for metered taxis to travel more than 40km  out of Bulawayo.

“I returned to the vehicle to find a mob saying they wanted to burn it up. They said there was a dead woman in it. They also wanted to assault the Quantum driver and the man who wanted to hire me. Someone in the crowd had taken the ignition keys of both vehicles to prevent us from driving away,” said Moyo.

He said when the police arrived, the unruly mob demanded action.
“One of the officers then ordered us drive to Drill Hall Police Station to settle the issue but the crowd would have none of that. They accused the police officers of having been bribed by satanists and said the issue should be settled in their full view,” said Moyo.

He said an ambulance arrived at the scene and the crew pronounced that the woman could have had been dead for at least 24 hours.
Chronicle caught up with Ncube at his home in Magwegwe West yesterday and he said his wife died in the taxi.

“My wife was very ill but she died at Egodini. People said all sorts of nasty things when I found out she was dead. I loved her and would not have subjected her to the indignity of using public transport to carry her body. She is the mother of my eight children,” said Ncube.
He said his wife had been ill for a long time in South Africa but doctors could not find out what was wrong with her.

Ncube said his family decided to transfer her to Brunapeg District Hospital in Zimbabwe.
He said: “We left South Africa on Sunday but we encountered numerous problems with the police along the way. She finally died on Tuesday before we could get her to hospital.”

Ncube added that he had requested that a postmortem be done at the United Bulawayo Hospitals to determine the cause of his wife’s death.
He said she will be buried in Brunapeg on Saturday.