Hero status for CIO boss?

ZANU-PF Matabeleland South has requested the party to confer national hero status on the late Central Intelligence Organisation boss, Zenzo Ntuliki, who died on Friday night.

Ntuliki (57), the Assistant Director in the President's Department in charge of the Western region, died at Mater Dei Hospital in Bulawayo after a long illness.

The Western region covers Bulawayo, Masvingo, Matabeleland North and South as well as Midlands.

Zanu-PF Matabeleland South provincial executive secretary for administration and Umzingwane legislator, William Dewa, confirmed the development in an interview at the provincial party headquarters in Gwanda yesterday.

"Yes we have made a request that he be accorded national hero status. We haven't received any response as yet from the leadership. We looked at his work before and after Independence. We think he did a lot for the country and the province, so he deserves such a status," said Dewa.

He said Zanu-PF had lost a committed cadre who was reliable in doing party business.

"As the Matabeleland South executive we feel so grieved. As a party, we want to send our condolences to the family. We lost one of us who was a very reliable leader and assisted the society and the community within Zanu-PF," said Dewa.

"From the Land Reform Programme he was there. We really lost a hard worker. We sincerely send our condolences to the family and we want them to know we share their loss".

An accomplished war veteran, Ntuliki whose war pseudo name was Maphekapheka, joined the President's Department soon after Independence in 1980 where he worked in various portfolios until the time of his death.

Ntukili was born on August 8, 1959, in Gwanda District's Matshetsheni area in Matabeleland South.

He, however, grew up in Mawabeni in Esigodini where he did his primary education.

For his secondary education he went to Gwanda High School which he left in 1974 when he was in Form 3 to join the armed struggle in Zambia via Botswana.  He was 15 then.

Ntuliki is survived by eight children, three girls and five boys and six grandchildren.

Mourners are gathered at his residence Number 19 Kildare Road in Burnside, Bulawayo.