The Generation 40 group of self-exiled former ZANU PF members, who remained very close to the former first family mainly through the former First Lady, Mai Grace Mugabe seized Mugabe’s death to score embarrassingly cheap political points against President Emmerson Mnangagwa and ZANU PF in revenge for their own loss of the ZANU PF succession battle in 2017.
Heartless and inhumane designs
The matter, however, goes back to 2014 when one of the members, former Politburo member, Professor Jonathan Moyo schemed to succeed former President Mugabe by befriending his wife, Grace in order to achieve his ambitious design. While nursing ambitions to lead one’s country is neither criminal nor sinful, it is the heartless, inhumane and immoral to take advantage of an ageing leader to achieve the ambition which is most repugnant.
To buttress his designs and improve their chances of success Moyo roped in a Mugabe relative, Patrick Zhuwao, the former president’s nephew. Despite claims of flowery résumé of being an economist, agricultural and digital transformation researcher and strategist, Zhuwao is not blest with any outstanding achievements (except of course wearing his head in dreadlocks) to have been of any meaningful value to Moyo except to bolster his foot-in-the door strategy by virtue of being a Mugabe relative.
To this assemblage Moyo also added the then burly national commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere who, like Zhuwao, did not posses much political stock except the advantage of being in charge of the ZANU PF commissariat at the time. This is guy who broke new ground by buying Commercial Transport of Mutare before adding Johnston’s Transport of Kwekwe in the 1990s. He also formed Comoil, a petroleum retail concern before acquiring United Touring Company (UTC) in 2001 in partnership with Nicholas Goche.
By 2014, the time that Moyo set his plans into motion by convincing the then First Lady to get into politics full time as the ZANU PF National Women League Chairperson, most of Kasukuwere’s business empire had been run aground. Most of his trucks were sitting on bricks, service stations were franchised and UTC was liquidated. In view of this background Kasukuwere’s only value to Moyo’s scheme was his control of the ZANU PF national structures which Moyo hoped to leverage on his dreamy way to State House.
Enter the bulldozing Grace
At the secretly-convened Mazowe meeting which was disguised as a birthday celebration for the then First Lady at her orphanage in July that year, it was agreed that Mai Mugabe should get into politics full time. A subsequent Women’s League congress held that year saw her being endorsed to lead women despite having never been in any ZANU PF structure. So far so good for Moyo’s plans.
By October that Mai Mugabe was already on the political field bulldozing any people who stood in the way of the political scientist’s way to the ultimate crown such as the former Vice President, Joice Mujuru who she viewed as the most serious threat.
The end of 2014 marked the end of Mujuru who was jettisoned from the party unceremoniously. The same fate also befell other senior party members such as Didymus Mutasa, Rugare Gumbo.
The Youth League
After positioning Mai Mugabe politically, Moyo needed the other key wing of the party – the Youth League. He roped in the then Kudzanai Chipanga-led youth league who was quickly taken under Mai Mugabe’s wings. This time around Moyo’s target became President Mnangagwa, who was the Vice President and almost shoo-in successor both in the party in Government. Talk such as pana amai ndopane vana (the youth and women’s leagues work together) became common.
With Moyo playing the puppet master in the background, Mai Mugabe was soon on the road again fighting President Mnangagwa at her meet-the-people rallies. Moyo on the other hand took the fight to Politburo seeking to get its approval to have President Mnangagwa expelled from the party using falsehoods such as that he had formed an opposition party.
The political scientist meets his comeuppance
The women and youth leagues culminated in the Presidential Youth Interface rallies of 2017 which were mainly fora for Mai Mugabe to denigrate, embarrass and fight President Mnangagwa all in the name of preparing for the following year’s polls. Lies such as that he had attempted to remove the former President from power in the 1980s became standard fare at such gatherings. Attempts were even made at the President’s life through poisoning and any members who were deemed sympathetic to President Mnangagwa were summarily expelled.
Mai Mugabe’s fights respected no one. She ended up even poking her finger in the eyes of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) daring them to shoot her. While concerned by the fights in ZANU PF and how Moyo and his G40 coterie was literary taking over the party and tarnishing former President Mugabe’s legacy, the ZDF kept a distant but interested eye. When the former President expelled President Mnangagwa on 6 November 2017 the ZDF could not continue watching Moyo’s drama. It quickly put into motion Operation Restore Legacy which culminated in the former President resigning on 21 November 2017.
Heartless political scientist
While Moyo was a hardworking asset to former President Mugabe, he was equally hard-hearted. It only takes the only Professor Moyo of Zimbabwe to be so mean-spirited as to use Mai Mugabe to happily bulldoze his threats out of way in the most sincere belief that she was doing it for herself when, in fact, she was slogging for the scheming professor. It only takes a cruel Professor Moyo to use both the then President and his wife for his own designs.
Even when the iconic liberator passed, Moyo did not relent. He used his body to fight President Mnangagwa by influencing Mai Mugabe to refuse a national shrine burial as befitted the national hero in a bid to embarrass the President. He sowed confusion and division between the Mugabe family and the Zvimba royal clan to which the late hero belonged. It is very sad that Zvimba Chiefs had to stay away from the burial thanks to G40 shameless machinations.
As the former President was being buried, Moyo was tweeting a eulogy with a hypocritical tear down his cheek:
“Without fear or apology, while still on this earth, I will in my own small way stand tall by you, your legacy & the abiding national, African & human ideals & aspirations that you shared with Umdala Wethu uJoshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo!” he said.
As the nation puts the matter behind it, the world should know that everything that befell the national hero since the fateful July 2014 Mazowe meeting is squarely the responsibility of the G40 led by Prof Moyo. Future generations will ask why he was not interred at the National Heroes Acre and they should be told the truth of Moyo’s hand in that national aberration.
They should be told of how Moyo most unculturally, inhumanely and very heartlessly disregarded the bereaved and mourning state of Mai Mugabe and used her to pursue a narrow, personal, vindictive and selfish vendetta. They should know that everything that went wrong with former President Mugabe’s legacy was Moyo’s handiwork.
