Sikhala to reveal assassination plot at South Africa trial

Outspoken opposition politician Job Sikhala says he will expose individuals he claims are plotting to assassinate him when his case goes to trial in South Africa later this month.

Sikhala is currently out on bail after explosives were allegedly discovered in a vehicle he was travelling in last November while in South Africa. He has remained in the neighbouring country since his arrest and says he will return to Zimbabwe once the matter is concluded.

The former Chitungwiza legislator has consistently denied the charges, insisting that the explosives were planted in his uncle's car by people intent on eliminating him.

"In their relentless desperation, they followed me from Botswana, where I had addressed the Botswana Patriotic Front congress as an invited international guest, to South Africa to assassinate me," Sikhala said.

"They ended up planting explosives in the car of my uncle, Alexander Thema, to blow me up. After realising their plan had failed, they tried to recruit rogue elements within the South African intelligence system to incriminate me — an antic that has horribly exposed them," he added.

Sikhala said the trial would reveal evidence pointing to what he described as desperate efforts by individuals based in Harare to silence political opponents.

"Much of the evidence will come out at trial. I will expose how the people in Harare have become so desperate that they resort to trying to assassinate opponents," he said.

The founder and chief facilitator of the National Democratic Working Group claimed that those targeting him were panicking and had resorted to extreme measures.

"It shows they are panicking and have resorted to terrorism against the masses," Sikhala said, adding that Zimbabweans would not be deterred from demanding political change.

"Zimbabweans know what they want and will not be stopped from demanding their country back from dictatorship and tyranny. All efforts to subdue the masses will fail. It has failed before, and it will fail forever," he said.

Sikhala further claimed that 2026 would mark the resurgence of people power, as citizens push back against what he described as oppression.

"No oppressor will defeat the united force of our people," he said.

He also alleged that he was poisoned by a waiter at a South African hotel in October last year, an incident he said he survived "by the grace of God".

"The poisoning bore all the footprints of the evil regime," Sikhala claimed.

Last year, Sikhala's house in Chitungwiza was damaged by an explosion while he was in South Africa launching his book, Footprints in the Chains: The Life of Job Sikhala.

South African authorities have not publicly commented on Sikhala's latest claims.