Robert and Grace Mugabe.
Former Zanu-PF youth chairman for Mashonaland Central Godfery Tsenengamu made some statements in a press conference was in Harare last week that were quite unlike the usual reverence reserved for Zimbabwe’s president.
The former youth chairman directly attributed Zimbabwe’s problems on Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace Mugabe, calling them a liability to both Zanu-PF and the country.
Tsenengamu, who was once a staunch supporter of Mugabe and a member of the inner group of youth leaders often likened to a “praise and worship choir”, held nothing back in his indictment of the 92-year-old president.
Tsenengamu readily admitted he was a member of the ‘Mazowe Crush’ group that backed Mugabe’s wife on her tour of the country’s provinces, denigrating members of Zanu-PF’s leadership that had been targeted for expulsion. He further accused Mugabe of adopting the same antagonistic tactics employed by the former prime minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, who once promised that white rule in Africa would endure for 1 000 years.
He went on to question why the president sent Zimbabwean finance minister Patrick Chinamasa to the US and UK, begging bowl in hand, while indoctrinating Zimbabwean youth to hate the West. Going on, Tsenengamu also commented on Grace Mugabe’s ‘spurious’ nature questioning the financial sources for the First Lady’s construction projects in Mazowe Valley.
Tsenengamu claims that in 2014, the youth leaders from seven provinces were called by Mugabe to a clandestine meeting at the State House to be briefed on how and why they should take on the top leadership of Zanu-PF, including then Vice-President Joyce Mujuru, on the pretext that they wanted to stage a coup in both the party and the country.
Mugabe allegedly informed the group his life was in danger from within the party. Mugabe was also reported to have painted himself as an embattled nationalist father figure who was under siege for standing for national interests.
Read the scanned copy of the press statement by the founder of the Save Zanu-PF campaign:
