Mugabe death rumours: The truth

Zanu PF youth Activist Energy Mutodi has said reports that veteran Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has died are false as he is actually in Singapore attending to private business, an intelligence officer linked to his office has said.

He posted on his Facebook wall that Mugabe (92) is Zimbabwe's only ruler since independence from Britain in 1980 and is credited for giving out land to landless blacks, promoting education and self-reliance as well as championing black people empowerment through sustainable utilization of Africa's natural resources.

He said during the 1970s, Mugabe together with several other nationalists such as Joshua Nkomo, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Joice Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, Edson Zvobgo, Simon Muzenda, Hebert Chitepo, Dumiso Dabengwa just mention a few waged a war of independence against a settler government led by Ian Douglas Smith, culminating in the country's independence in April 1980.

"They were complimented by a string of brave guerrilla army commanders such as Solomon Mujuru, Josiah Tongogara, Constantino Guvheya Chiwenga, Josiah Tungamirai, Perence Shiri among others who successfully defeated a British-trained army under General Peter Walls' command in 1979," wrote Mutodi.


"Following independence, Mugabe became the first black Prime Minister to rule Zimbabwe and later became Executive President in 1987 after the signing of a Unity Accord that sought to unite former liberation war parties ZAPU and ZANU under one party called ZANU PF."

He said Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe had contested the 1980 elections superintended by a British Governor Lord Soames as separate candidates representing PF and ZANU respectively.

"Nkomo lost the election and Mugabe's failure to successfully invite him to be part of his government sparked a tribal war between the Mashona who form the biggest proportion in the country's 14 million population and the Ndebele who constituted the bulky of ZAPU members," said Mutodi.

"The civil war took toll between 1983 and 1986 and has been known as gukurahundi-a Shona term usually used to denote late rains that wash away chuff soon after harvest time in the country's seasonally humid tropical climate.

Although Mugabe remains one of the most celebrated statesman in Africa in the same league as the late South African hero Nelson Mandela, Julius Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania and Kwame Nkurumah of Ghana, he has been criticized for holding on to power for too long."

Mutodi said at an advanced age of 92, Mugabe has refused to name a successor but has left his party subjects fight each other uncontrollably as they seek to outperform each other in bootlicking him in the hope of winning his favor and nomination for the country's top job.

"He has manipulated his party's constitution several times to suit his personal goals and has used repressive measures to thwart dissent in order to remain in office. The heavy-handedness with which his police force has dealt with civil protests against his alleged mis-rule mainly characterized by corruption and human rights abuses have prompted critics to describe him as worse than Ian Smith, a white supremacist that he succeeded," he said.