Chamisa says 'they want us dead'

THE opposition Citizens' Coalition for Change (CCC) says its leadership is in danger, with the party leader Nelson Chamisa saying several attempts have been made on their lives.

In the recent past, the party leadership has been under siege and, only this Thursday, yet unknown assailants attacked CCC senior official Tendai Biti's house and physically assaulted his mother and security guard, seriously injuring them in the process.

Reasons for the attack were not immediately given, but Chamisa this week said there is a plot to attack the party leadership and warned them to be on high alert.

"It's only that we don't say much and the people who were doing this are the people who have been making attempts on our lives. They were celebrating that we poisoned him when he was in Botswana, I don't normally eat but it shows you wicked people who believe in eliminating elements."

"We have told all our leaders, all our candidates that please eat with a lot of care, it is good to have appetite but control your appetite. Be careful, not everything is food, we are in a dangerous zone. Be careful about your cars, just last night they sideswiped our car."

Chamisa told The NewsHawks this week that the regime believed in eliminating opponents, indicating that they did that to the founding MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai who died in 2019 after suffering from colon cancer.

"I will not say much, but that is who they are. They thought they had poisoned us," he said.

"We exposed them but our focus now is to prepare for the Bulawayo rally and the burial of (Mboneni) Ncube that they are trying to hijack. Just also know they killed Tsvangirai," he said.

Chamisa is expected to attend the burial of Ncube who was killed by Zanu-PF supporters during the CCC rally in Kwekwe last Sunday.

Aspiring Mbizo member of Parliament Settlement Chikwinya said suspected state security agents took over the funeral wake of slain CCC activist until his burial.

"I was told that there were people claiming the body, saying they were family. I abandoned what I was doing to check what was happening. I was told they were saying they used to work together with the late and were under instruction from their company to take over the funeral," Chikwinya told The NewsHawks on Tuesday.

"They were told they were awaiting postmortem as it was a murder case so the police was supposed to be involved."

"ln the afternoon I received a call from someone who said he was a Ncube and thanked us for what we have done so far, saying as a family they were now taking over the process. He said they no longer want anything political so that they mourn their person. I said we have been cooperating well and I chose the casket  at Nyaradzo Funeral with one of the brothers because we want to prepare and we are working with Friday as the burial date," Chikwinya said.

"We said the funds we have now can pay for some of the things so that we know we are good to go after the postmortem. I asked him where he was yesterday when we spoke to the family. He said we are the family and we have taken over."

"They want to block us from the funeral," he added.

According to a relative in a recorded conversation with Chikwinya, the family was worried about politicisation of the funeral wake, saying there will be consequences for them as a family if they do so. Ncube was killed after the suspects, who were confirmed to be Zanu-PF activists by the police, unleashed violence on a CCC rally in Kwekwe.

The violence has received condemnation locally and internationally amid calls for a peaceful campaign ahead of the by-elections and 2023 general elections.

Commenting on the attack on Biti's house by four men armed with machetes and a gun who did not take anything after the raid, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition chairperson Peter Mutasa wrote on microblogging platform Twitter: "These gory pictures of Biti's security employee show that our situation has deteriorated. No one is safe anymore."