What happened to Mugabe's mausoleum?

The mausoleum built for the late Robert Gabriel Mugabe at the National Heroes Acre stands completed, gleaming in its hut-shaped grandeur of glass, stone and symbolism. Yet, it remains an empty shrine - a monument in search of a body. It is a haunting metaphor for Zimbabwe's unresolved relationship with its founding father, a man who liberated the country only to later preside over its political and economic decline.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration seems determined to exhume Mugabe's remains from Zvimba for reburial at the shrine. The question is: why now, and at what cost?

The mausoleum itself is rich in symbolism. Its design, with the Zimbabwe Bird atop and roof patterns reminiscent of Great Zimbabwe, was clearly intended to immortalise Mugabe as a national icon. But the very fact that Mugabe's family refused to release his remains for burial there makes the structure feel like an elaborate stage set for a play that may never be performed.

One cannot help but speculate on the motives behind this project. Was it meant as an olive branch to those within ZANU-PF who remain loyal to Mugabe's legacy? Or is it an attempt by Mnangagwa to tether Mugabe's historical stature to his own administration, thereby cementing a narrative of continuity? The decision to push forward despite family objections hints at a political project dressed up as cultural reverence.

The legal wrangling that followed Mugabe's burial only deepens the mystery. Chief Zvimba's ruling in 2021 — fining Grace Mugabe and demanding exhumation — was as much political theatre as it was customary pronouncement. Mugabe's children countered it in court, insisting their father wanted a private burial in Zvimba. Who, then, does the mausoleum serve? The family, certainly not. The people, perhaps only in appearance. The ruling elite, most likely.

There are whispers, too, that the mausoleum's completion was not simply about honouring Mugabe but about securing contracts, supplying rare materials, and creating yet another opaque state project where public funds vanish with little scrutiny. If true, the shrine is not just empty of Mugabe's body but also of sincerity.

For all the rhetoric of “respecting the founding father," Mugabe's final resting place remains in Zvimba, surrounded by the soil of his ancestors. Unless his remains are forcibly moved — an act that would likely provoke outrage and deepen mistrust between the government and ordinary citizens — the mausoleum risks becoming a hollow relic, an architectural ghost of contested history.

Perhaps this is the most fitting legacy of Robert Mugabe himself: a leader who embodied contradictions, who fought for freedom yet clung to power, who preached unity yet sowed division. His mausoleum, now complete but empty, mirrors those contradictions — a place of honour that dishonours his last wishes, a shrine that stands but does not rest.

Until Mnangagwa decides whether to risk the political and cultural fallout of exhumation, the mausoleum will continue to loom over Heroes Acre as a silent question: is this a tribute to Mugabe, or a monument to the state's inability to let him go?