The man who made headlines last week when he was found naked in a yard and was labeled a wizard, has come out of “hibernation” to clear the storm and set the record straight.

As promised in the last edition, Limpopo Mirror traced the alleged wizard to his home at Itsani-Matieni outside Thohoyandou during the weekend and conducted this exclusive interview with him.

After the entire storm last week, Nditsheni Ngwalulngwalu (32) looked confused and reluctant to speak at first. After some explanations, he looked relaxed, as if nothing had happened, and voluntarily poured his heart out.

“Are you going to help me clear my name? If you have come for that, then we can speak…

“Please tell the world that I am not a witch. I am a normal person like anybody else and deserve to be treated as such,” were the first words he uttered during the interview.

“How could people stoop so low to label me a wizard? They should be sympathetic towards me after all the trauma I went through. I have suffered at the hands of those ruthless thugs and to label me a witch is an insult,” he said.

Nnditsheni claims he came back home from a night vigil in the village to find three men sleeping at his house. “I identified one of them as being on the run from the police,” he said. He said he objected to their presence and ordered them to leave as he feared police would also arrest him for harbouring the fugitives.

He said the men ignored him and he was forced to leave his home.

“I had made up my mind to go and report them at the satellite police station.

“Before I could reach the place, I heard footsteps that were following me. I ran without knowing where I was running to as it was dark,” he said. He said the man caught up with him and badly assaulted him before striping him naked.

Nnditsheni was at pains to narrate his ordeal; his mouth was still swollen to indicate that he was assaulted. “I have never experienced what I went through that day; three men taking turns to beat me. I will never forget it,” he said. Nnditsheni said he ran for his life, finding himself stark naked at Mufunwaini’s yard.

“I could not even shout as I could sense that they were after my blood and any movement could have meant death to me,” he said. He said he waited until the next morning, but could not go out as he was naked.

“All hell broke loose when the owner of the house woke up in the morning. “I tried to explain my presence, but he did not believe me … I was saved by the timely arrival of the police, otherwise the community could have killed me,” he said.

To prove his innocence, he said his torn clothing was also found at the scene and there were signs of a fierce struggle.

“How can I be labeled a witch when I have suffered this much? I deserve some sympathy from the community and not this humiliation,” he said. The illiterate Nnditsheni said he is still prepared to sit down with the Mufunwaini family to iron the matter once and for all. “I am clean, I am not a wizard and people should just leave me alone,” he said.

His aunt, Ms Shoni Ngwalungwalu, said he had been leading a turbulent type of life and did not listen to any advice from anybody. “I always tell him to stop his drinking. Not long ago, he was badly beaten by unknown people at Mugumo, an adjacent village,” she said. Shoni said that, on the day of the incident, she had warned him to stop drinking as it might land him in trouble again. “When I learnt that somebody was found naked at a certain house, I even remarked that he should have been killed, because he was a witch. To my surprise, I heard that the alleged wizard was a family member. How disappointed I was, knowing that I had reprimanded him the previous day,” she said.

Shoni said she was just glad that the Mufunwaini family opted to call the police, rather than allow people to deal with him. “They would have killed him and we would be talking a different story all together. We are very thankful for what the Mufunwaini family had done,” she added.