THE late national heroine and Masvingo Provincial Affairs
minister Shuvai Mahofa succumbed to high blood pressure after she reportedly
received reports of Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s alleged food poisoning,
a close family member has claimed.
Mahofa’s daughter, Nyengeterai, told NewsDay last week that
her mother “cried for two hours” fearing for Mnangagwa’s life.
“She (Mahofa) was stressed when she learnt that the VP (Mnangagwa)
had been poisoned. She was stressed greatly and cried for two hours. Her blood
pressure rose dramatically, she then collapsed before we took her to hospital
where she was pronounced dead,” Nyengeterai said.
“We are not interested in what people really said or did
not say. We are accepting this as the way that was chosen for her to go.”
Mahofa, long labelled as a Mnangagwa ally, passed away on
Thursday after reportedly battling a litany of ailments that her associates in
the ruling party said had been exacerbated by “poison” she reportedly ingested
at the Zanu PF annual conference held in Victoria Falls in December 2015.
Both Mahofa and Mnangagwa stand accused of turning Masvingo
province into their personal fiefdom and blocking top Zanu PF officials from
invading sugarcane plots in the Lowveld.
Other sources claimed that shortly before her death, Mahofa
had an altercation with a senior Zanu PF official over the phone.
“Late last Sunday, Cde Mahofa realised she had missed 10
calls from (name withheld). When she returned the call, they had a verbal
altercation for some two-and-a-half hours,” NewsDay heard.
“The person at the other end of the line lashed out at
Mahofa, accusing the resident minister of blocking her access to Tongaat Hulett
sugarcane farms.”
Three weeks ago, First Lady and Zanu PF women’s league
chairperson, Grace Mugabe, implored her husband President Robert Mugabe to push
the Lands ministry to act decisively on Tongaat Hulett.
Yesterday, chaos marred Mahofa’s burial at the National
Heroes’ Acre, as her supporters occasionally disrupted the proceedings by
singing and chanting slogans denouncing their rivals, while scores walked out
on Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko, who presided over the event.
Mphoko had been roped in to stand on behalf of Mugabe, who
stayed away from the burial although he had arrived in the country a few hours
earlier from a Sadc Summit in South Africa.
Attended by a few mourners, the burial was tense, with Zanu
PF youths, suspected to have been planted to humiliate the VP, singing and
chanting their slogans without paying attention to the formal proceedings.
Anticipating trouble, officials dispatched police,
soldiers, State security operatives to try and calm the crowd, but with little
success.
Mahofa was widely believed to be in the Zanu PF faction
pushing for Mnangagwa to take over from Mugabe.
The Mnangagwa bid is, however, being fiercely contested by
a rival faction led by Grace.
Initially, there were reports that the Mahofa family and
her supporters did not want Mphoko to preside at her burial, citing factional
differences.
All hell broke loose when some operatives were deployed to
fish out troublemakers during the time Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo
was introducing Mphoko.
“We can’t be treated like we are criminals when we came
here all the way from Masvingo to bid farewell to our mother and these guys,
because they are in suits, want to beat us up for singing, we sing at
funerals,” one of the youths who had been attacked said.
Police had to be deployed to seal out exits to save Mphoko
the embarrassment of addressing an empty arena.
The law enforcement agents had a torrid time in controlling
the crowd as droves of party supporters walked out in protest over their
alleged harassment by State security agents.
However, Mphoko seemed unfazed and continued with his
prepared speech. newsday
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