Former Zanu-PF strongman and co-founder, Enos Nkala, is on a “Mugabe Must Go” campaign, saying the Zimbabwean leader has become a political “Frankenstein” resistant to democratic change.
“‘Mugabe must go’ means there will be a new political order in Zimbabwe,” Nkala told the Mail & Guardian from his Bulawayo home. “[Edgar] Tekere, others and I have agreed to tear down Zanu-PF if he refuses to go. We are the creators of Zanu-PF and as creators we can tear it down.”
Nkala (74) served in a number of positions in Mugabe’s Cabinet, holding the finance, national supplies, home affairs and defence portfolios. He was number four in power until 1989 when he resigned from government and Zanu-PF after admitting to lying in a scandal involving the sale of scarce new cars. Now a full-time rancher and a born-again Christian, Nkala admits that there are no constitutional mechanisms to remove Mugabe except the ballot. He says past meetings with Mugabe over national issues have yielded nothing. In 2006 he met Mugabe twice and criticised him over land invasions and about insulting United States President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“Apparently he is impervious to reason. I have had many meetings with him. I think he is politically sick. I would not want to use the word mentally sick. There are no constitutional mechanisms to remove him and that is our problem. You do not counsel a man who is impervious to analysis and to admitting mistakes, so why should I spend my time engaging in an unproductive exercise?”
But Nkala also believes that the disintegration of the ruling party could hasten Mugabe’s demise.
“Once Zanu-PF is torn into pieces and you have a massive election, Zanu-PF will suffer a massive defeat, for Mugabe has turned Zanu-PF into a vehicle for his own greed, political preservation and foolish things that take place at congresses”.
Nkala and Tekere are the two surviving members of a trio that formed Zanu-PF in Nkala’s Highfield home in Harare 44 years ago. Tekere recently published a book, A Lifetime of Struggle, detailing his role in the country’s politics and blaming the country’s economic woes on Mugabe, a hero of the liberation struggle who has lost his political way. Subsequently there have been recommendations within Zanu-PF circles that Tekere be expelled from the party for criticising Mugabe.
In the era of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Public Order and Security Act a number of Zimbabweans have been arrested and charged with insulting the president. Is Nkala not pushing the limits of his political expression?
“I have never been a coward, cowards die many times before their deaths,” he declared. “If Mugabe wants to arrest me I am prepared and at that point I will spill the beans, I will really massacre him. I am not afraid of Mugabe”.
“You know it angers me when you ask me such a question. I am not afraid of his ministers either and have called them running dogs. In fact I am being provocative for him to come out and I will produce more.”
On his yet untitled book, Nkala said he was writing “devastatingly about Robert Mugabe”. After earlier suggestions that the book be published after his death, Nkala has agreed to have certain innocent portions serialised in newspapers.
“But certain areas where I say so-and-so killed so-and-so; so-and-so was an informer, I would rather it comes out when I am gone.
“You know I was a friend of Mugabe and I do not like mudÂslinging in our lifetime,” said Nkala, adding “Tekere and I are the two of three who authored, sponsored and were present at the formation of Zanu at my house, Mugabe was not there. Mugabe was in Tanzania. We nominated him in absentia. We could have left him out, but I have said that he goes around pretending that he and he alone delivered independence of this country. I called it one of the greatest lies.”
Rumours of Nkala’s involvement in the Matabeleland mass killings of the early 1980s are probably his bête noire. In a statement made available to the M&G, Nkala says it was Mugabe who created the Fifth Brigade — also known as Gukurahundi — which was dispatched to Matabeleland in 1983 to contain dissident activities. Under the leadership of Perrence Shiri, now air marshall and commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe, more than 20 000 civilians were killed in the operation.
“It has been alleged by certain mischievous people and newspapers that I created, equipped and trained the Fifth Brigade and that I was responsible for the atrocities committed by the Fifth Brigade,” Nkala said, adding, “Mugabe and his associates were responsible … I therefore call upon my old friend and president, Robert Mugabe, to appoint either an internal commission or an international one to investigate and make recommendations as to what the truth was and is now. I am prepared to give evidence to this commission in respect of the creation, training, equipping and dispatch of the Fifth Brigade.”
The M&G was unable to get a comment from the government spokesman, George Charamba, on Nkala’s claims.