This report from the New Zimbabwe, London, first published on 8 March 2023.

Former Big Brother star Munya Chidzonga and colleague Elizabeth Bakasa have sued directors of Ivory Medical, a licensed medicinal cannabis-producing company, for fraudulently removing him as a co-director.

National Aids Council (NAC) board member Nathan Kalumbu and Gilbert Chahwanda, the two remaining directors, are alleged to have removed Chidzonga and Bakasa from directorship of the company without their resignation.

Kalumbu, who is a former President of Coca-Cola Africa and owns vast businesses in various sectors, and Chahwanda reportedly then moved operations from Chiredzi Prison farm where they had been based to the latter's farm in Headlands.

"Whatever cultivation and production of cannabis being conducted at Kamando Farm in Headlands is illegal in that it is based on an amended licence obtained through fraudulent means by the 1st and 2nd respondent," said Chidzonga and Bakasa's lawyer Admire Rubaya.

"The process of seeking an amendment of the 3rd respondent's (Ivory Medical) licence was never a lawful process because it was on the basis of a fraudulent CR14 (now CR6) which deceived the Registrar of Companies that the 2nd applicant and I had resigned from our positions."

Chidzonga and Bakasa want the amended licence to be declared void and their directorship of Ivory Medical acknowledged by the High Court.

Government approved farming of cannabis in 2019 for purely medicinal purposes.