By Don Chigumba |I did a serious critique of Grace Mugabe’s PhD thesis and published the report for public consumption. I also warned Zacc and University of Zimbabwe department of sociology to follow proper procedures in revoking Grace Mugabe’s PhD. I am on record telling President Mnangagwa and the Ministry of higher education to put UZ lecturers in the department of sociology under’ library arrest’ so that they could read procedures of revoking degrees at university level.
I informed the public that Zacc has no role to play in revoking university degrees. Today, the case against Grace Grace Mugabe is crumbling in a Zimbabwean court. Therefore, this piece seeks to support the view that Grace Mugabe will win the case against her PhD for now until such time when the university procedures of revoking degrees are followed and the current Vice Chancellor Nyagura should be out of office by then. Vice Chancellor Nyagura is alleged to be the man behind cooking Grace Mugabe’ PhD.
It is true that the rights of Grace Mugabe as a student were violated by taking her to court. When handling such matters, the judges do not know Grace Mugabe a politician, what they know is Grace Mugabe a student. That is why I warned people against politicizing Grace Mugabe’s PhD case. I am confident that the court shall discharge the case or rule in favor of Grace Mugabe because the procedures of revoking university degrees were violated.
May I take this opportunity to thank the ministry of higher education for distancing itself from Grace Mugabe PhD case. The ministry is on spot telling the court that only the university senate and council have powers to handle Grace Mugabe’s PhD case. The ministry is also not sure whether Grace Mugabe PhD issue is a criminal case according to the laws of Zimbabwe. The position of the ministry is likely to weaken the case against Grace Mugabe in court.
I told you before that a university is a ‘small State within a State’, an eye of the society where economic, political, scientific and social matters are solved and resolved. The politicians should look forward to universities for advice and support because a university is a melting pot of ideas, where life of any society begins. That is why the international law gives universities different kinds of freedoms and against political interferences with the university operations.
Conclusion
Let us swallow our pride as Zimbabweans and allow the university to deal with Grace Mugabe’ case according to their rules. Currently, Grace shall win in courts and may win again at university level because of the subjectivity of Vice Chancellor Nyagura.
What people should do now is to push for Vice Chancellor Nyagura to resign through legal demonstrations from stakeholders and students or the university faculty assembly should push for the impeachment of Nyagura or the university council should suspend/terminate Nyagura. If all these strategies fail, therefore, the last option will be for serious Christians to prey for the death of Nyagura. Below is my previous caution on handling Grace Mugabe PhD published on:
Follow proper procedure in taking away Grace Mugabe PhD
You can also get my critique of Grace Mugabe PhD thesis on:
Don Chigumba is a mixed method research specialist based in South AfricaThank