The Sunday Mail
Garikai Mazara
CHRONICLES from the 2nd Chimurenga
While the country has produced internationally renowned authors and prides itself as having one of the highest literacy rates on the continent, sadly that does not count when it comes to the documentation of the country’s protracted and arduous road to independence in April 1980.
Most of the luminaries of the struggle, the Second Chimurenga, have departed without penning a single word, which makes Dr Obert Mpofu’s hot-off-the press, “On The Shoulders of Struggle: Memoirs of a Political Insider”, a very welcome development.
What makes the book a must-read for any follower of Zimbabwean politics is the role that Dr Mpofu played since joining the liberation struggle in 1967 — at a very tender age of 16 — to present-day Zimbabwe.
The question that is uppermost, when one looks at Dr Mpofu’s character, without even reading his autobiography, is trying to understand, given the treacherous nature that is the political landscape, how he has survived from serving under Dr Joshua Nkomo to former president Robert Mugabe and now President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Is his self-given “your most obedient son” a true reflection of his personality?
How has he survived dumping ZAPU in 1980 to join ZANU, seven years before the signing of the historic Unity Accord in 1987?
Is it because he was a visionary who saw that unity was the only option for the two political formations?
History will record, though, that he is not the first politician to jump ship from ZAPU to ZANU, as equally prominent luminaries like Rex Nhongo, born Solomon Mujuru, had done that a decade earlier.
Having described himself as “your most obedient son” to Robert Mugabe, he went on to be part of the transition that was Operation Restore Legacy.
In fact, he presided over the ZANU PF meetings that recalled Robert Mugabe.
Now in the New Dispensation, he is serving full-time as secretary for administration.
How has he managed that transition?
These are questions that he answers in his 284-page autobiography, which goes some considerable distance in answering a lot of questions pertaining to the Second Chimurenga.
“At independence, my commitments to the nationalist movement remained unwavering. After intense retrospective and introspective insights in a bid to map out my future in politics, ZANU PF became my new political home. It was in ZANU PF where I was ‘born again’ politically.”
Tribalism
Commendably, he tackles the issue of tribalism in Zimbabwean politics, especially during the formative days of the country’s nationalism.
Was PF-ZAPU a grouping of Ndebele political players?
Did it have room for non-Ndebele speakers?
With Joshua Nkomo behind bars, and PF-ZAPU suffering a leadership crisis, was there an ideological warfare between James Chikerema and Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo, the two trusted to stir the ship forward? Or tribal differences were at play?
He confesses: “Later on, I came to understand that the ethnically charged tensions of the late 60s and 70s were visible proof of the unresolved ethnic roots of post-independent Zimbabwe conflicts. To this day, our history has scantly confronted this gloomy side of our past.”
But was tribalism and ethnicity confined to PF-ZAPU? Was ZANU immune?
“This factional wrangle which led to the formation of ZANU-PF was premised on ethnic, constitutional and personality contradictions as well as the clash of interests among the nationalists,” he notes in his autobiography.
Having had a front-row seat to the war of independence, the autobiography at times comes short of giving the reader some of the riveting stuff that a war documentation of this nature should be.
The reader could have done with more information of the Wankie and Sipolilo battles — two battles which defined the Second Chimurenga.
Maybe the passage of time — the battles having been fought in 1967— has contributed to the sparsely described battles.
One would have assumed, given that Dr Mpofu was part of the reconnaissance teams that preceded the two battles, he would have given edge-of-the-seat descriptions of how the battles were fought and won.
To put the reader into perspective, the Wankie battle, which was a joint operation between ZIPRA (the armed wing of PF-ZAPU) and Umkhotho weSizwe (the armed wing of the South African National Congress) was led by none other than Chris Hani and Ackim Ndlovu.
Hani went on to become a folk hero in South Africa and Ackim Ndlovu was declared a National Hero here.
If Dr Mpofu, in his autobiography, had given time and detail to this battle or the Sipolilo encounter, I am sure such description would even have spawned a movie.
Love
The autobiography, though, is not all war and blood, as he dedicates considerable time to Sikhanyisiwe, his wife of 40 years.
Probably borrowing from the language and style of the 80s, when love letters were the most common means of conveying love, unlike today’s emojis, Dr Mpofu oozes: “with the smooth aching of my nerves when I first met her, I knew that was the cosmic signal that my heart had fallen in love with this girl.”
That is how he describes his “love at first sight”.
In the same chapter he dwells on how he transitioned from war mode into a professional career, as well as building his business empire.
It might tickle the reader’s imagination to know that Dr Mpofu, having obtained a diploma in journalism, kicked off his professional career as a trainee manager with Zimpapers (1980) Ltd.
He talks of his movement from the Ministry of Finance, which he had joined after Zimpapers, to joining Tregers, and says he was instrumental in ZANU PF acquiring a substantial stake in the company, as well as National Blankets.
Corruption
Then he tackles corruption head-on, taking the reader through the Willowgate Scandal, which claimed the life of Maurice Nyagumbo.
Ironically, Enos Nkala, then ZANU-PF’s secretary of finance, had agreed to buy a stake in Tregers with a little bit of nudging from Nyagumbo.
There have been suggestions across the socio-political divide, with the majority insinuating that Dr Mpofu built his empire, which straddles property, tourism and agriculture, through corrupt means.
He demystifies all these myths, explaining, blow-by-blow, how he built his empire, starting off with the golden handshake he got from Tregers when he was forced out.
Born in Matabeleland North, specifically Jambezi, and for a long time a Member of Parliament for the Umguza constituency, it is without doubt that Dr Mpofu tackles Gukurahundi, that sore point in the country’s history of which the two Matabeleland provinces bore most of the brunt of the dark episode.
Bravely, Dr Mpofu gives insights of the genesis of the conflict, how it affected the common people, how the conflict was resolved, which subsequently saw the signing of the historic Unity Accord.
He even proffers some recommendations on how the conflict should be addressed, going forward.
What is refreshing about “On The Shoulders of Struggle: The Memoirs of a Political Insider” is that as much as it offers a glimpse into history, it is equally handy as a guide to contemporary politics as the author chronicles his life serving under Dr Joshua Nkomo, Robert Mugabe and President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
In Chapter 14, “Power Struggles and the Military in Zimbabwe”, he tackles the role of the army in Zimbabwe’s power dynamics.
The chapter opens up with General Vitalis Zvinavashe’s speech, then the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, ahead of the 2002 general election, in which he famously declared that, “let it be known that the highest office in the land is a straitjacket whose occupant is expected to observe the objectives of the liberation struggle”.
He concludes the narration of his life story by a chapter dedicated to Operation Restore Legacy and the exit of Robert Mugabe.
Dr Mpofu’s autobiography makes as much good reading for political science students as it does for anyone who wants to know the country’s politico-economic trajectory.
