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MLF lobbies for Nkomo repatriation

Politics
Secessionist Mthakwazi Liberation Front (MLF) says it plans to lobby for the exhumation and repatriation of the body of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo for reburial in Bulawayo. MLF secretary for legal affairs Sabelo Ngwenya made the remarks during commemorations for the late nationalist jointly held by the MLF and Zapu at Boysens Hotel, in […]

Secessionist Mthakwazi Liberation Front (MLF) says it plans to lobby for the exhumation and repatriation of the body of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo for reburial in Bulawayo.

MLF secretary for legal affairs Sabelo Ngwenya made the remarks during commemorations for the late nationalist jointly held by the MLF and Zapu at Boysens Hotel, in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the weekend.

About 200 Zapu and MLF supporters reportedly attended the commemorations held in honour of Nkomo who died on July 1 1999.

“Joshua Nkomo was a Mthwakazian first and foremost and it is unfortunate that our Zimbabwean neighbours have showered him with empty titles like ‘Father Zimbabwe’ in an attempt to abuse his legacy,” Ngwenya said.

“The day we free Mthwakazi, we will repatriate our hero Joshua Nkomo’s remains from Zimbabwe to Mthwakazi and give him an honourable rest in Bulawayo or Matopos. The age of empty titles and promises is over.

“The Zimbabwe regime must honour Joshua Nkomo by taking concrete measures to uplift the lives of our people and this they are not prepared to do. They are just a bunch of crooks bent on abusing Joshua Nkomo’s legacy for electioneering purposes.”

He continued: “While we (MLF) would welcome the idea of declaring July 1 a national holiday in honour of the late Joshua Nkomo, we believe it must be backed by positive government-engineered steps designed to uplift the people of Matabeleland from the doldrums of 31 years of socio-economic marginalisation,” Ngwenya said.

Zapu’s chairman in South Africa Dingilizwe Mpondo, MLF spokesperson David Magagula and the MLF policy and research secretary Churchill Guduza addressed the gathering.

Mpondo paid tribute to Nkomo, the founding president of Zapu and its predecessor, the National Democratic Party.

Guduza bemoaned the mockery of titles given to Nkomo saying there was nothing on the ground to show for “the rhetoric around the legacy of this great man”.

“Nkomo’s greatest mistake was to fall for empty titles like Chibwechitedza when the very people who called him such did not think he was qualified to run Zimbabwe. He surrounded himself with wrong advisors who did not care about the interests of the people of Matabeleland,”Guduza argued.