By- Latest details on the Monday ouster from the cabinet of the State Security Minister, Owen Mudha Ncube, revealed that he was fired on the instigation of the newly installed Zanu PF Midlands provincial chairman Larry Mavhima.
According to NewZimbabwe.com, Mavhima held a three-hour-long meeting with Mnangagwa at his Pricabe Farm in Kwekwe last Sunday, where he complained about Mudha’s violent behaviour.
The news portal said Mavima sought an emergency meeting with Mnangagwa intending to resign from the chairmanship after an aborted Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) meeting in Gweru the day before.
The meeting was abandoned after Ncube threatened to assault Public Service Minister Paul Mavima and Gokwe Nembudziya legislator Justice Mayor Wadyajena during the proceedings.
Ncube had also bussed machete-wielding thugs to surround the venue of the meeting to intimidate his opponents.
During the meeting with Mnangagwa, Mavima (Larry), reportedly said he could not work with Mudha because of his violent tendencies.
Mavima is reported to have told Mnangagwa that numerous provincial leaders were considering leaving the party because of Ncube’s conduct. Said a ZANU PF insider:
What happened is that after the Saturday fiasco at the PCC meeting, some senior ZANU PF members advised Mavhima to go straight to the president and give him a full report of what transpired.
And so on Sunday, he went to the president’s farm and they spent about three hours conversing about the issues.
The message he carried to the president was simple and clear: nobody was able to work with Mudha anymore.
So it was a question of either to retain Mudha and risk dismantling the province or sack him and save the situation. Any leader in that situation would decide the way that ED did.
You should visit the province and see how excited people are about this development.
In fact, this axe had been hanging over his head since last year when he started deploying some CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation) operatives and machete gangs to harass his rivals in a bid to win the provincial chairmanship position which he wanted.
So basically, the man had the rug proverbially pulled off his feet and when the province decided that Mavhima should be the unopposed chairman, he resorted to fighting for his proxies who were seeking other positions through violence and intimidation.
The situation had become very tricky and the President really faced the inevitable choice of having to fire him.
But he was not working alone. He was working in direct consultation with July Moyo, who leads a faction in the province that wants to dominate affairs here.
It will not, therefore, be surprising to see the axe falling on him because he is basically the master controller and these are his runners.
Ncube was fired from the Government on Monday for “conduct that was deemed inappropriate for a Minister of Government”.