By Farai D Hove | At a time when Senior Politburo member, Mabel Chinomona infers that the late Gen Douglas Nyikayaramba was assassinated, ZANU PF President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday, performed a slip of the tongue on the real cause of death.

Ambassador Gen Nyikayaramba buried Saturday afternoon at the national heroes acre following a short struggle reported as of the COVID-19 disease.

His death was first announced by Mnangagwa himself during the first Cabinet briefing at State House Tuesday.

Mnangagwa said, Nyikayaramba succumbed to COVID-19 Tuesday morning in the capital Harare.

Nyikayaramba, 64, retired from active military service to take up civilian role government in 2019.

While state agencies reported saying, Nyikayaramba is now the fourth general to die from COVID-19 related complications after former Agriculture Minister and former Air Force of Zimbabwe commander Perrance Shiri, former Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo and ex-prisons chief Paradzai Zimondi, Senator Mabel Chinomona has said he is in fact the fifth (5th) of the soldiers who assisted Mnangagwa remove former President Robert Mugabe in 2017, dead.

She forwarded a message into ZANU PF WhatsApp group saying of the 8 who assisted Mnangagwa, 5 are now gone. She using the 5/8 figure, went further to say Zimbabwe is left with only 3 of the respected ZANU PF cadres.

Meanwhile, Mnangagwa, who last year caused controversy when he flung out a pile of papers during the death of Perrance Shiri, announced saying: “Today he (Nyikayaramba) is gone, snatched away from us by a various, a virus, which has wreaked havoc in all nations on the planet…”