Former Cabinet minister Olivia Muchena has spoken of how she was fired by the late president Robert Mugabe after spending a day with him at a university graduation.
Muchena (OM), whose last government position was Higher and Tertiary Education minister in 2014, told Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN) on the platform In Conversation with Trevor that her dismissal letter was delivered at 3am.
She was among several Zanu PF bigwigs that were purged for allegedly supporting a plot by former vice-president Joice Mujuru to topple Mugabe. Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: Dr Olivia Muchena, welcome to In Conversation With Trevor.
OM: Thank you Trevor.
TN: I have just finished reading your book; and it is a powerful book.
It is authentic, you decided to be vulnerable, to be candid.
It is a book that I think and have no doubt anybody interested about the direction of our country and our continent ought to read.
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Those in business, those in politics, those in places of faith, this is a powerful book to read.
I want us to start almost at the end, and then we will walk back.
The end for me in this particular moment is, and I will quote from the book page 3:
“My service in government was terminated in December 2014, and my political career came to a dramatic end in May 2015.
“I was expelled from the Zanu PF party during the inter-factional purging of party members around succession issues on allegations of plotting to remove the president of the country and party by unconstitutional means, allegations which later on proved to be false.”
That is a powerful statement. Talk to me about that period of your life.
You were a Zanu PF card carrying member, loyal member, and you get fired in these circumstances?
Share with us that experience?
OM: Trevor it was a fundamental, personal, as well as family, constituency and party experience that we were going through.
I was not the first to be fired, there had been other people so it was like waves that we were going through.
However, what was dramatic about it is, though we had been going through like stage by stage hearing things in the media, discussing things in meetings, until it came to the final point, you know, you were going along with what was happening.
There were certain moments and times in that process that were very significant.
For example, we were at the Midlands State University graduation, and I as the Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development minister.
You go through the ritual of robing, the whole ritual that accompanies graduations. So we were in this tent, and his Excellency the president…
TN: Robert Mugabe.
OM: Yes, was being robed in his corner.
We wait for him to finish robing then we come to the minister and so forth.
I could sense the tension even at that moment.
TN: Without him saying anything?
OM: No. Not even him but…
TN: The people around him?
OM: Right. So at some point I overhear one of the security persons talk to him about me having been recommended for, not firing, for removal from my leadership positions.
The recommendation coming from the province.
I was the political commissar of the women’s league.
So I hear this little bit of conversation, and the president’s reaction was that he just shrugged his shoulders.
Of course you know, it was coming.
That was that. We had to go through the graduation ceremony.
TN: As if all was normal?
OM: Yes. You know genuinely, dutifully doing my assignments.
For example, it was very hot and I felt the president needed a fan near him.
So I had to find ways of attracting attention and so forth.
Anyway it was done. On our way to Harare after the graduation, we are in the car.
Usually in the car there are three of us, the driver, the aide or security person, and myself at the back.
We have our radio on, I already knew what had happened.
The two I was with I don’t know about then, but I had not told them.
A news bulletin comes, as was those days, it would start with the latest expulsion, and my name was announced together with another provincial leader.
I could sense the tension of these two people in front of me.
Like a painful tension.
I just felt I should do something to lessen the tension.
So I just made a comment, and I said, ‘oh I hope you are not hearing this for the first time’, because I had heard it before the graduation.
They kind of relaxed a little bit, but it was a long drive.
TN: I can imagine.
OM: The actual day of it, first I was fired from government, my address at that time was my farm, which was driving distance.
I used to go back and forth from the farm, but at some point I had moved out and one of my sons married with a young baby were living at the farm.
At about 2am or 3am, you know cars came flashing and they knock and so forth.
Yes it disturbed them, it agitated them.
Then they told them that, you know, she is at the Harare address. So as soon as they left, we were alerted that there are people coming, so it gave me a chance to prepare.
I didn’t know whether I was coming to be collected and go wherever I was going, but it gave me time to adjust.
In fact, we had another couple at the Harare address who had a baby, so one of my family members suggested why I do not strap the baby on the back so that it gives you time to adjust and so forth.
So it was dramatic in that sense.
When they did arrive they just wanted me to sign that I had received a letter, and this was about 3am.
TN: What was the letter saying?
OM: It said I was relieved of my duties as a minister because I was no longer following the government.
TN: And then you get fired from the party too?
OM: Yes…
TN: Is that another process?
OM: That is another process. I was at that time a senator.
By proportional representation I had become a senator of Mashonaland East Province.
So I was still a member of Senate.
The firing from government was in December 2014. The firing from the party was in May 2015.
So there was a period.
TN: So the letter gets delivered at 3am? Did it have to be 3am? Could they nor have waited for normal working hours?
OM: I cannot answer that question!
TN: Hahahaha. Tell me, what is going through your mind as you have been told they have been to the farm, they are now coming to your place?
What is going though your mind? Just describe to us what is going through your mind?
OM: Firstly I felt for my children at the farm, having to go through this traumatic experience.
They are young people, they have a baby, it is collateral damage at its worst, emotionally.
Yeah. Secondly, as they are coming, I do not know what they are coming for.
Trevor, there is something about having a living faith.
When I read about the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, I have lived that.
So I was not panicking like what should I do, you know all over the place.
I just waited to see what was happening and when I got the letter…
TN: Were you worried at some point about your own safety?
OM: Not really. The day I would have been worried about my safety was when this whole discussion started at a politburo meeting.
I cannot, because of the secrecy, give the details but that day I was worried and I actually sent a message to one of my sons that I do not know what might happen.
That day I was worried, but subsequently it was long drawn.
TN: Wow.
And you say allegations which were later proved to be false?
So you never participated in trying to get rid of Robert Mugabe unconstitutionally?
OM: Hahahaha.
TN: You laugh?
OM: Of course. Of course.
TN: Explain to me why you are laughing?
OM: It is the same laughter actually that I did in the politburo when that accusation was raised, and it raised the anger of the president.
He said “Yes, you”, and he saw my disbelief.
So for me it was that, so I am substantiated of such an improbability of great proportions, knowing who I was, how loyal I was to the president, to the party, to the people of Mutoko South.
However, this is why people need to know politics, that there are games that you need to understand.
TN: So this was a game?
OM: Later on, I think it was in the public media, one of the people/main actors said, oh it was just political banter, referring to how (former) vice-president (Joice) Mujuru had been treated.
TN: This is a political game? That has raised your anxiety?
You were worrying about your son who was at the farm?
You were worrying about the people that you were living with? What a game this is?
OM: I know at the end you will ask me about books? One of the books that I read in the early 1980s and made an impact on me was Games Mother Never Taught You, with a subtitle Corporate Gamesmanship.
Written by Betty Haragar to women, that if you are wanting to go into the public space, whether it is in academia, business or politics where you want to break the glass ceiling, you have to know and understand that for men it is a power game.
It is modelled on the military, it is modelled on sports, and because women are not socialised through sport or military we start on ground zero as it were.
TN: So your firings, the other side of the bookend, and your hirings, a fascinating part of the book and you capture it very well. You say:
“A phone call came from the chief of protocol on that 15th day of April in 1995, sent me into a panic mode.
The president Of Zimbabwe, His Excellency Robert Mugabe, wanted me to report at the State House at 11am that morning.
What had I done? Why did he want me there?
And which is State House of the two complexes on Borrowdale Road?
I asked all these questions at once without waiting for an answer.”
So you have been fired and get to hear that these are political games?
That you were not equipped? You get fired now you are hired.
You are as innocent as they come.
Talk to me about the excitement, the anxiety after the call as you process? You have been hired?
OM: Yes.
TN: You are a Cabinet Minister now?
OM: Yes I didn’t know that. I was coming from academia, I had gone into politics because I was tired of common room political discussions and so forth.
I was charged and I wanted to go and work with the people of Mutoko South.
I had won the elections so I was ready.
Actually, that particular morning I was getting ready to go and see the chairman of my department, I was in the department of adult education.
I was going to talk with Dr. Matshazi about having a timetable that would…
TN: The late Dr. Matshazi?
OM: Yes. A timetable that would enable me to combine my parliamentary duties with my lecturing.
Then this phone all came. So when the chief of protocol detected the anxiety, the panic, he was like it is alright don’t worry it might be something good.
You might be appointed as a deputy minister or something. And I went into an even greater panic!
TN: Hahahaha! Why?
OM: I mean I was not ready. I had not imagined myself getting into politics at that level.
Anyway the long and short of it is, I get there (to State House), and I am appointed Agriculture deputy minister.
So I had to mentally adjust, and then go through the process of learning what it is to be a minister and an Member Of Parliament at the same time.
- “In Conversation With Trevor” is a weekly show broadcast on YouTube.com//InConversationWithTrevor. Please get your free YouTube subscription to this channel. The conversations are sponsored by Nyaradzo Group.
