War veterans’ leader Jabulani Sibanda’s bid to take his terror campaign to Masvingo Urban hit a snag on Sunday after residents snubbed him, leaving a handful of Zanu PF supporters, mainly women, attending his rally at Victoria Junior Primary School.
Sibanda — who was billed to address the people under his widely-condemned Operation Kubudirana Pachena (Come out in the open) at 2pm — started an hour late while activists on Zanu PF-hired buses unsuccessfully combed the residential areas in a bid to force people to attend the rally.
Only two high-profile politicians, politburo member Dzikamai Mavhaire and Zanu PF Masvingo Urban aspiring MP Jusbee Omar, attended in what has been described by political observers as humiliation.
Residents said they had little to learn from Sibanda, who claims he is engaged in a year-long “revolutionary contribution” to Masvingo.
“What has he to tell us? If he wants to teach us about the revolution, why did he not start with his home province Matabeleland, other than spend the whole year in Masvingo? After all, people in Matabeleland hate Zanu PF more than anyone else in this country,” said a resident on condition of anonymity.
Sibanda, who leads a faction of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association, has repeatedly defied orders by the Zanu PF Masvingo provincial executive to vacate the region where he is accused of intimidation ahead of any future polls.
In his address to about 150 people, in sharp contrast to thousands of villagers reportedly coerced to attend his rallies in rural areas, Sibanda blasted MDC-T leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai threatening to “crush” him once again.
“Tsvangirai is a little Satan that is moving. If the MDC-T rules the country, Zimbabwe would slide into a Sodom and Gomorrah because these guys want to legalise gay and lesbian marriages. But, I will not allow that to happen. They won’t distract us, there will be a time to crush the lice,” he said.
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He likened President Robert Mugabe to the biblical Noah who built the Ark and said Zimbabwe was “the biblical Israel of today”.
Sibanda warned people to repent and get into the ark (Zanu PF) before it was too late. “Be careful, time is running out, where we are going, there is fire to come.
There shall come a day when you don’t have time to put on your clothes and you will mistake your pants for a skirt. Repent now and get into the ark before it’s too late, even if the ark is hot or smelly, it is worth enduring,” he said.
He mocked Home Affairs co-minister Theresa Makone, who last week addressed a rally at Mucheke Stadium calling for his immediate ouster, and described her as a daydreamer.
“Who and what is Makone? Is it a girl or a boy? The problem is that most of these people in MDC-T are so ugly that it is difficult to recognise them,” he said, amid laughter from the handful of Zanu PF supporters.
