JONATHAN Moyo has revealed how President Emmerson Mnangagwa used him to land the state Vice Presidency when Joice Mujuru was fired in 2014. Jonathan Moyo has said that while the Vice Presidency position was supposed to go to Oppah Muchinguri, as “a woman was supposed to replace another woman”, Mnangagwa used Moyo to trick former President Robert Mugabe.
Said Moyo: “Throughout the (Joice) Mujuru saga in 2014, there was never an indication that Mujuru’s ouster would open a door for Mnangagwa. This is because it was always clear that Mujuru’s replacement, in the event she was removed from office as vice president, would be Oppah Muchinguri. This was the deal. The idea that a man would replace a woman was a no, no. We all understood that.
“More significantly, I drafted the amendments to the party’s constitution ahead of the Zanu PF December 2014 Congress.
“I did the drafts for Mnangagwa and Chiwenga who would comb through them and cause me to redraft 70 by 70 times. I used to have endless meetings with Mnangagwa at his office, many more with one of his assistants but most of the meetings were between Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and myself at Chiwenga’s house or at some house used by Mnangagwa on Churchill Avenue, just after Second Street towards Avondale.
“During the drafting, the only position that was contemplated for Mnangagwa was that of Prime Minister in government and National Chairman in the party. But the Vice Presidency was always going to Oppah Muchinguri, for her to replace Joice Mujuru.
“Closer to the December 2014 Congress, about two or so weeks, inexplicable concerns started mushrooming about Oppah Muchinguri’s suitability as a replacement for Joice Mujuru.
“Mnangagwa asked me to remove from the amendments we were working on, the provision that “one of the two vice presidents shall be a woman”.
“He said this was a directive from President Mugabe. This was the bombshell that caused the fallout. I could not believe my ears.
“I did as I was directed and from then on, the draft amendments were not sent back to me as had become the approach but were finalised between Mnangagwa and Patrick Chinamasa with Mnangagwa saying he was working directly with President Mugabe.”
The former Cabinet minister and Tsholotsho North MP further clarified that he was never close to Mnangagwa as widely reported in media that their fallout stemmed from the 2004 Dinyane High meeting, commonly called the Tsholotsho Declaration.
“The claim that I was close to Mnangagwa in the period leading to the so-called Tsholotsho Declaration is a myth which exposes the lack of factchecking in the Zimbabwean media and scholarship. It’s simply not true.
“There’s no corroborating evidence to support that claim. Nobody can point to any gathering or meeting or activity that links me with or in which I participated with Mnangagwa prior to the prize giving event at Dinyane High School. A swallow does not make a summer.
“It does not make sense for people to conclude that I was close to Mnangagwa on the strength of one event that I became associated with by virtue of coming from the district where the event was held.Prior to the Dinyane event, there was a similar speech and prize giving event at Ntalale High School in Matabeleland South which I did not know about until after the fact. There were other Mnangagwa events elsewhere around the country and I attended none of them. So how did I become close to him simply by attending the Tsholotsho event?
“Add to this the fact that I was not on the panel of speakers at the Tsholotsho event, whose leading lights were Patrick Chinamasa, Jacob Mudenda and Josiah Hungwe. Claims that I have ever been close to Mnangagwa are legion yet fanciful.
“My beef with Mnangagwa is rooted in his direct, instigatory and supervisory involvement in Gukurahundi atrocities; and his leading role in the enforcement of the Rhodesian State of Emergency from 1980 to 1990.
“While the Fifth Brigade was specifically created for genocidal purposes against Zapu and Ndebele people; and while arguments have been made to distance Mnangagwa from the Fifth Brigade under claims that he was not in charge of the army; the fact is that atrocities in Matabeleland started well before the deployment of the Fifth Brigade with Mnangagwa’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) as the frontline perpetrators of those atrocities.
“Under Mnangagwa the CIO was a killing machine, especially in Matabeleland where the cold-blooded killings followed gruesome torture. Even after the Fifth Brigade was deployed, it is Mnangagwa’s CIO that used to make indications of targets for the Fifth Brigade and CIO operatives used to participate in the torture and killings together with the Fifth Brigade. This is documented history.
“The fact that Mnangagwa did not defend me when I was punished for attending and supporting his Dinyane High School event in Tsholotsho is not an issue to me.
“President Mugabe thought it was an issue on account of my anger when I narrated it to him and the politburo last year. Prior to that angry narration, Mnangagwa had openly threatened to kill me, after I presented a video on his and Chiwenga’s coup plot in the politburo in July 2017, by declaring to the politburo that the best way deal with people like me is to do what they used to do to “sellouts” in Maputo whose necks used to be separated from their shoulders.
“Mnangagwa’s threat to me was also a confirmation of his murderous deeds in Maputo. I sat in the politburo looking at him and thinking of what happened to my father and I got very angry, leading to my angry outburst which was referenced by President Mugabe.
“All said, my considered judgment has always been that Mnangagwa is not presidential material. He is a very cruel person and his threat to separate my neck from my shoulders in the politburo and his boast that they used to separate necks from shoulders of comrades in Maputo is an example of extreme cruelty and barbarism.
“While he is clearly streetwise, he’s not a statesman by any stretch of the imagination.
“National and world leaders are well read people of letters. President Mugabe was and still is a man of letters. He is a well-read gentleman.
“I have always wondered whether Mnangagwa has ever read any book besides school and college textbooks he had to read as a student.
“You can tell whether a person reads books by their speech. People who read books are great speakers and great thinkers.
“Mnangagwa is not in this category.In any event, it cannot be right that a person who oversaw the CIO during the Gukurahundi days and the state of emergency when the CIO was a killing machine that used extreme torture methods can become a president of a constitutional democracy. It just cannot be.
“It is not surprising that it took a military coup for Mnangagwa to become president.He had no other path.It is also not a surprise that the same military stole the election for him. Again, he had no other path.”
— ZOOMZim