Former War Veterans minister Tshinga Dube — who was sacked
from Cabinet earlier this week — says although he harbours no hard feelings
against President Robert Mugabe, he paid the price for being “too honest” and
for backing calls for the nonagenarian to name a successor.
Dube lost his cushy job together with three other ministers
— Prisca Mupfumira, Abednico Ncube and Farber Chidarikire — in a reshuffle
which has drawn wide criticism from many Zimbabweans who say it was all about
consolidating Mugabe’s power instead of improving the lives of long-suffering
citizens.
The amiable former
freedom fighter, who is regarded by many people as one of the few decent local
politicians, is believed to have lost his job on account of lingering
perceptions that he was an ally of embattled Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa
who is currently facing a savage onslaught from his rivals in Zanu PF who do
not want him to succeed Mugabe.
“I am not sick, neither am I in shock following my removal.
It’s life and I am carrying on with my other responsibilities.
“I am not sure why I was sacked ... but I feel I was just
expressing an opinion (on succession) and people should not suffer for
expressing their opinions.
“At the end of the day what people should realise is that
our problems are caused by the dire state of the economy, and it is unfortunate
that people then start finding scapegoats,” Dube told the Daily News in and interview yesterday.
Among other claims,
he was also said to be too sympathetic to war veterans led by his ministerial
predecessor Christopher Mutsvangwa — who was also fired from the government by
Mugabe after his executive issued a damning communiqué against the
nonagenarian.
The ex-combatants have publicly put their weight behind
Mnangagwa’s mooted presidential aspirations, even warning that if the VP does
not succeed Mugabe, there could be bloodshed in the country.
But Dube said
yesterday that he was neither a Mnangagwa ally nor a member of Team Lacoste —
the Zanu PF faction backing the VP.
“The problem with these allegations is that I do not even
know what Lacoste is. Nobody ever talked to me and said join Lacoste ... It’s
all the same with the days of (former vice president Joice) Mujuru.
“Indeed, I was never part of the Gamatox (Mujuru) faction.
I never even had three minutes talking to Mujuru, but still there were people
who said if you are not with us then you belong to that faction.
“My relationship with Mnangagwa was very cordial, just as
was the case with other superiors ... there was never anything special between
us,” he added.
Although Dube
survived the ruling party purges which claimed the scalp of Mujuru and other
former Zanu PF leading lights — on charges of plotting a coup against Mugabe —
he was still dropped from the former liberation movement’s influential
politburo, and only received a new lease on life after Mutsvangwa’s expulsion.
Dube, a liberation
war icon who fought on the Zapu side during the struggle for Zimbabwe’s
independence, set the cat among the pigeons in June when he publicly backed
calls for Mugabe to name a successor.
Speaking to
journalists in Bulawayo then, Dube said while former liberation war fighters
were happy with Mugabe’s leadership, and would want him to win next year’s
elections, they could not pretend as if there could never be a future without
him.
“Sometimes people don’t understand them (war veterans). For
instance, when they say they are now looking at the future leadership, some
people think they mean to say they are being disloyal to our president. No, not
at all.
“We respect our president. He has done so much for this
country. He has brought about land to the people who never had land. He has
brought education to our nation, but they are talking about the future.
“We are saying although we are very happy with our
president and we want him to win the next election, but eventually he will
decide to retire. We don’t know when, but when that time comes ... that’s what
the war veterans are saying,” Dube said.
“There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be a president if
you want to be, but it’s people who choose you. You can’t choose yourself.
“There is nothing wrong with talking about succession.
Succession is not a crime to talk about. This happens in every country.
“All the war veterans are saying is he (Mugabe) must groom
the next leader ... whatever happens, whether he retires or anything happens to
him, there is somebody we know,” Dube said in an interview which led to Mugabe
having a word with him after the Cabinet meeting of June 27.
“Otherwise it becomes very difficult for investors to put
their money when they don’t know whether there is going to be another
(Jean-Bédel) Bokassa (the former Central African Republic president) or Idi
Amin (former Ugandan president) coming into Zimbabwe.
“They want to know who is coming, who is the next person,
so that when they (investors) put their money they know it’s safe,” he added.
Dube was
subsequently forced to convene a hastily-arranged news conference where he told
journalists that Mugabe had “schooled” him on the process of choosing his
successor.
“He came to me after Cabinet. His Excellency talked to me.
He just reminded me that, look, I am only mandated by the constitution to
choose my deputies.
“He said the issue of choosing a successor lies with the
congress. He has given me the directive and, as my commander-in-chief, I
listened. He came in a fatherly manner, as a leader and as a teacher,” said
Dube in his damage-control exercise.
Mugabe has
consistently refused to name a successor, arguing that it is Zanu PF that must
decide through a congress when the time comes.
Zanu PF is currently divided in the middle, with a camp opposed
to Mnangagwa succeeding Mugabe — the G40 faction — involved in a life-and-death
tussle with Team Lacoste.
Of late, the name of
reclusive Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi, has also been thrown into the
hat, although the veteran politician who has served in Mugabe’s Cabinet since
independence in 1980 has refused to be drawn into the succession debate.
The party’s infighting took an ominous turn in August when
Mnangagwa fell sick during an interface rally in Gwanda, which his backers said
was a poison attack by his G40 rivals.
Mnangagwa was later
airlifted to South Africa where he had emergency surgery.
Mnangagwa later issued a statement denying that his illness
was caused by ice cream from the First Family’s Gushungo Dairies, although he
has consistently suggested that he was poisoned.
Recently, Mnangagwa
again suggested to hordes of people who converged at Mupandawana Growth Point
in Gutu, for the late Masvingo Provincial Affairs minister Shuvai Mahofa’s
memorial service, that he was poisoned in the same way Mahofa was in 2015.
“I came here to tell you that what happened to Mai Mahofa
in Victoria Falls is the same thing which happened to me,” he said.
Mahofa, one of
Mnangagwa’s fiercest allies left the Zanu PF conference in Victoria Falls in
2015 wheelchair-bound, amid suspicions that she had been poisoned by party
rivals.
She later spent two months recuperating in a South African
hospital, before she resurfaced in March 2016.
Days after
Mnangagwa’s address in Masvingo, his colleague Vice President Phelekezela
Mphoko, issued a scathing statement in which he attacked him for allegedly
trying to divide the country and to undermine Mugabe.
On Monday, Mugabe fired and demoted several ministers
perceived to be sympathetic to Mnangagwa, in a reshuffle which analysts said
was motivated by the desire to contain the Midlands godfather’s control and
influence of key government ministries. daily news
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