Television personality Rebecca Chisamba, popularly known as Mai Chisamba through her talk show, has dismissed as “malicious, wishful thinking and baseless” allegations that she was involved in an extra-marital affair with Anglican Bishop Nolbert Kunonga.
Television personality Rebecca Chisamba (Photo: Bulawayo24)
“Maybe it’s a Christmas joke. I don’t actually know where this is coming from, but whichever way, this is not a pleasant one. These claims are just unfounded and are part of a destructive agenda,” said Mai Chisamba.
“These allegations have been doing the rounds since 2007 with some assertions that we were frequently spotted together at midnight. But even my husband can testify that at these alleged times I would be comfortably by his bedside, if not in his arms.”
The former teacher who has won numerous awards as a talk show host said they were only related to Bishop Kunonga through Gogo Chisamba, mother to her husband, whom she said was a close relative of Gogo Kunonga, Nolbert’s late mother.
Chisamba also said it was just unfortunate that Gogo Chisamba had passed on a month ago, saying her testimony would have put the matter to rest.
On her position in the Anglican Church squabbles, Mai Chisamba said, “I am not a spokesperson of either side, but we all understand that Zimbabwe has freedom of worship and as an individual I am free to exercise that right. However, as a law-abiding citizen, I respect court processes and the laws of Zimbabwe.”
Responding to allegations that her alleged relationship with Kunonga saw her landing the post of a marriage officer in the Anglican church, Mai Chisamba said this was just imaginary as far as the Anglican Church doctrine was concerned.
“In the history of the Anglican Church, only priests can be marriage officers and there has never been a female priest in the Anglican Church the world over, unless I am the first one to change that doctrine of the Anglican Church,” she chuckled.
On reports that she was the best lady at the Kunongas’ wedding anniversary in 2007, Mai Chisamba said, “Actually, it was another bishop and his wife from the region who were the best man and best lady respectively,” she said.
The mother of five and grandmother of two said, as a social activist, she remained apolitical and that in the quest for a better Zimbabwean society, she is spurred by such tribulations.
Chisamba, the motherly figure who at one point scooped the Communicator of the Year Award said she believed in communication as the ultimate route to a better world and said her message was “peace only”.
According to Bulawayo 24, Chisamba said this referring to Kunonga’s Anglican Church of the Province of Zimbabwe, “It is God who made a choice for me to go and worship there.”
When asked if she would accept Bishop Chad Gandiya‘s offer to return to the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa on condition of repentance, Mai Chisamba, who was deputy chairperson of the Mothers’ Union of the Kunong faction, said, “I go where I like. I also have respect for inter-denominational churches and I have been associated with the Methodists and Salvation Army.”
She admitted that there was need for action to ensure that the Anglican feud in Zimbabwe is resolved once and for all, a move she said would help to return sanity to the church.
“My wish is for the Anglican church members to unite so that things go smoothly. There might be differences but they need to be ironed out,” she said.