Gun-toting men raid Gandawa’s rural home

By Farayi Machamire

Independent candidate for Magunje, Godfrey Gandawa, said he is now living in fear after his family, including his mother, were temporarily abducted by four gun-toting men at his rural home in Magunje.

Gandawa, who was expelled from Zanu PF for dabbling in G40 factional politics,  told the Daily News the men stormed into his rural home looking for him, claiming they were law enforcement officers.

He said they abducted his mother and five other family members in the dead of the night at their home in the Njengenja area of Magunje on Wednesday night.

They reportedly drove the terrified family members for about six kilometres before returning them home.

This harrowing incident comes after the former Higher and Tertiary Education deputy minister urged his supporters to vote for Nelson Chamisa and not President Emmerson Mnangagwa in the July 30 polls.

Gandawa claimed the heavily-armed men who arrived at his home around 1am in a white BAIC double cab truck and burst into his home, had a mission to assassinate him.

“I had gone away, so I escaped,” Gandawa told the Daily News.

“I had been tipped-off of the assassination plot disguised as an investigation,” he said referring to his ongoing Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund $400 000 corruption case before the courts.

“The informant told me not to take chances and I obliged. My family is not safe at all and even I am not safe and those that support me closely,” he said.

“I couldn’t go to the police considering status of the informant.”

Asked if the incident will deter him from campaigning, Gandawa retorted: “Of course this deters my campaigns for I can’t be on the ground when four men armed … are hunting for me.”

As an independent candidate he will face Zanu PF’s Cecil Kashiri, Tonderayi Kusemamuriwo (MDC Alliance) and Henry Madiro of Zimbabwe Partnership for Prosperity. Daily News