Own Correspondent|President Emmerson Mnangagwa refused to attend the memorial service let alone the high profile burial of the late liberation war stalwart Dumiso Dabengwa on claims that the family had requested a private burial by merely declining a Heroes Acre burial.
Shockingly, his state apparatus however failed to give the family a similar respect for a private burial as they continued to try and manipulate the programme and events at the service and burial.
Perhaps the biggest task that the state security team was given by Mnangagwa’s office was to completely shut out opposition leader Nelson Chamisa from being recognised and even being offered an opportunity to address the huge gatherings at the two events.
It is no secret that the adored young MDC leader had struck a cosy relationship with late Dabengwa who publicly endorsed Chamisa as the next President of the country. Dabengwa had to go all out and step down from contesting the 2018 elections inviting his party members to back Chamisa in the presidential race.
Besides the public knowledge of Chamisa and Dabengwa’s affection, the government Joint Operations Command that claimed to have taken over the mourning and burial programmes just would not have anything to do with Chamisa.
On Friday, at the memorial service held at White City Stadium, Chamisa was denied VIP treatment and not even accorded a seat in the tightly controlled VIP tent. He had to find space in the public gallery tent that housed some distant Dabengwa relatives and some few lowly ranked ZAPU officials.
It had to take a very dramatic moment on Saturday for Chamisa to be allowed to address the gathering at the burial and get an opportunity to mourn with the Dabengwa family that had for long embraced him as their child through the late Dr Dumiso Dabengwa.
The dramatic moment came after Dabengwa’s widow, Zodwa Dabengwa (known affectionately as MaKhumalo) stood her ground and insisted that the young opposition leader should be allowed to speak.
“Yekelani umtanami akhulume, (allow my son to speak),” gogo MaKhumalo was overhead by sources close by while she was instructing members of the president’s office who were fighting to manipulate the programme.
Chamisa was not on the list of scheduled speakers and had already personally accepted the order and settled to see the programme through. However, at MaKhumalo’s insistence, Chamisa gave an impromptu speech in which he emotionally extolled the virtues of Dr Dabengwa and promised to honour all the ideals he had stood for.
Chamisa finished his speech by firing a salvo at President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his deputies for failing to grace the occasion despite the fact that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa saw it fit to send emissaries.
“Is it not a sad indictment that we have (South African) President Cyril Ramaphosa sending his emissaries, yet in this country we have our own vice President and even President who is not available to mourn with us?”, Chamisa said.