Own Correspondent|President Emmerson Mnangagwa today returns to Bulawayo for the third annual National Thanksgiving and Dedication Service at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair Grounds.

The church service is being organised by the Faith for the Nation Campaign — an interdenominational grouping of local churches.

Faith for the Nation Campaign chairperson Reverend Andrew Wutawunashe said that the President was expected to outline his vision for the nation, so that the church prays for it.

“The National Thanksgiving and Dedication Service is an annual event which was inaugurated by the President in 2017, to be a time when we shall meet, on a platform of Faith for the Nation Campaign, so that we can have a thanksgiving for the nation as well as a prayer of dedication for God’s blessing for the following year,” said Reverend Wutawunashe.

“We do it as an interdenominational group where all churches are welcome and the leadership of various sectors of our society like business and commerce, politics, chiefs and the general citizens attend for prayer and dedication for the nation.”

In a similar event last year, ten Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) youth, protested at while President Emmerson Mnangagwa was attending the church service saying he was part of the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s.

The 10 youth were thoroughly beaten by soldiers and detained at Brady Barracks before they were dumped at Bulawayo Central Police Station.

The youth, claimed that Mnangagwa participated in the killing of more than 20,000 Zapu supporters in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces when then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe deployed the North-Korean trained Fifth Brigade to eliminate what he said were dissidents linked to Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo.

The two provinces were Zapu strongholds.