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Mujuru consulted n’angas: Mugabe

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PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday made sensational claims that discredited Vice-President Joice Mujuru, working in cahoots with members of her cabal secretly consulted n’angas seeking juju to kill him

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday made sensational claims that discredited Vice-President Joice Mujuru, working in cahoots with members of her cabal secretly consulted n’angas seeking juju to kill him in a bid to wrest power from him.

MOSES MATENGA STAFF REPORTER

Addressing a Zanu PF Central Committee meeting in the capital yesterday ahead of today’s 6th national people’s congress, Mugabe said Mujuru and her co-plotters also clandestinely plotted to assassinate him before their plans were exposed.

He spoke as the organ yesterday expelled suspended information secretary Rugare Gumbo from the party.

In an unprecedented move, there was tight security at the entrance into the central committee meeting with everyone including Politburo members being asked to leave their phones as they walked in. All ministers were searched thoroughly as they made their way into the congress venue.

Mugabe cut a lone figure as he sat at the top table in the company of national chairman, Simon Khaya Moyo as Mujuru and her alleged accomplice party secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa were in no show.

One of Mujuru’s top allies Public Service minister Nicholas Goche was also for the second day running conspicuous by his absence.

“How can you do that when the promise we made to the people that made us win the July 31 election have not been fulfilled?” Mugabe queried.

“That’s when you realise that this country was fought for and you can’t afford to sleep and dance with the enemy. Money, money, money, yes money can give us joy, but it can create sorrow for us.”

He added: “When you look at ourselves just one year after our resounding victory, we look at ourselves now, we say why are there only two faces at the high table? Where have all others gone? Where have all the soldiers gone? Yes, the soldiers who sacrificed for a good cause, they are not dead, they faded out. But those who die for a cause don’t fade away.”

Mugabe lambasted Mujuru for being power hungry and said she should have waited to challenge him and not to plot against him.

“Power, power, power, more power! You start from the bottom, you were a nobody; you acquire a position in the central committee and then you are promoted to be in the inner core of the Central Committee which we call the politburo, you are on the driving seat and it’s pleasurable and you want to occupy that seat even if you don’t qualify. Wanting the position at the very top . . .”

Mugabe said that from the liberation struggle, people were chosen into positions, adding that he assumed the presidency of the party following the departure of the late Ndabaningi Sithole.

“We all thought we were united from top to bottom and that there were no machinations amongst us, but alas, we were deceived. We did not know that as we went to elections in July, some of us from the top didn’t want those elections at all,” he said.

Mugabe said the Mujuru camp thought that after winning the election, he would relinquish power for her to rule.

“I go to elections, fight an election and I am expected to bow to my deputy and say I won an election, you can take over. Did I not hear that or read that this man was going to die in September? But the man refused to die in that September and is still refusing to die,” Mugabe said of himself.

He alleged that ousted Mashonaland East chairperson Ray Kaukonde sought the services of a sangoma and river beetles, one representing Mugabe and the other representing Mujuru to perform rituals as part of a plot to wrest power.

“One of the n’angas said look for two river beetles of different colours. One should be named Mugabe and the other should be called Mujuru and put them in water. That’s what happened. They were made to fight and if Mugabe’s beetle dies, then she will rule. How, if mine won against yours . . . It seems that is what happened then,” Mugabe added.

The veteran Zanu PF leader who turns 91 next February said Mujuru at one time attempted to force the apostolic sect led by one Mutumwa to anoint her as heir to the throne. But he said the church refused saying as long as Mugabe, who was “appointed by God” was alive, she would not succeed him. Mugabe said what he was sharing about Mujuru’s shenanigans were just minute details as compared to the dossiers he had about her.

He said the Mujuru camp had planned its structures and labelling others Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa’s faction.

“Mutasa, I asked the chairman [Simon Khaya Moyo] if they had an agreement. He [Mutasa] said he wanted to be chairman. I said it has someone already, who told you he was going? He didn’t deny he wanted that post.

“Others were plotting evil. Such ambitions . . . if that can’t happen, they use other means, let’s get the President out of the way so they even wanted to shoot the President,” he alleged.

Mugabe said First Lady Grace Mugabe could not stomach sabotage works by Mujuru even as she went around her tour around the country were people plotting to disrupt the meetings. He said he had seen a lot in the party including revolts including the one plotted by suspended party spokesperson Rugare Gumbo in 1978.

“Now people like Gumbo want to repeat that again after we pardoned them. If we are left with people like this, the party will die and we go back to whites because they said I am the hindrance to meet with whites and they will bring billions in our economy.” The party organ approved ammendments to the constitution.