ZaPu has accused Zanu PF youths of desecrating the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo’s legacy after they converged at his statue in Bulawayo and later visited his Pelandaba house on Friday, ahead of President Robert Mugabe’s interface rally at White City Stadium on Saturday.
BY SILAS NKALA
Zapu said it was ironic that Zanu PF activists now rever Nkomo yet the same party once attempted to assassinate the politician, accusing him of leading former PF-Zapu insurgents.
During the visit to Nkomo’s home, the ruling party youths proposed to turn the property into a memorial heritage site. Zapu deputy spokesperson Iphithule Maphosa yesterday described the gesture as a sign of hypocrisy.
“The lack of shame by the Robert Mugabe party beats the mind. This is the same Nkomo whom they hunted down like an animal during the 1980s. They even raided his house in Pelandaba, killing his driver as the then PF-Zapu leader evaded death,” he said.
“Following the failed attempts on the life of Father Zimbabwe, Zanu PF displayed in every government office, parastatals, and some public places a photoshopped cartoon picture of Dr Nkomo dressed in an old woman’s petticoats allegedly crossing the border into Botswana.”
Maphosa said this was after Nkomo went into exile in Britain through Botswana running for his life.
“Zanu PF must remember that Joshua Nkomo of yesterday is the same Joshua Nkomo of today. The same murderers who were after Nkomo’s life yesterday are the same people who today pretentiously present themselves as saints in the era of the nation and world,” Maphosa said.
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“These are the same people who will go to Bhalagwe and make rituals disguised as commemorations of the Gukurahundi victims. They will shed crocodile tears at the mass graves dotted all over Matabeleland and Midlands, just as they pretended at Nkomo’s statue.”
Maphosa said Zanu PF destroyed Bulawayo’s industrial base.
“Everyone knows when they kneel at the statue they do it in celebration of their Gukurahundi and not in honour of Dr Nkomo, whose supporters they massacred between 1982 and 1987, annihilating Zapu in the process.”
