Sally Mugabe's mother dies at 101

SEKONDI, GHANA – The mother of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s first wife the late Sally Mugabe, Mrs. Mavis Patricia Hayfron has died, Ghanaian News Agency reported.

Aged 101, Mrs Hayfron died at her residence at Sekondi, Nana Ninsin-Imbeah 11, the Mfantsehene of Anloga and Oforikrom and spokesman of the family, told the GNA on Friday.

She is survived by her daughter, Mrs Isabella V. Imbeah.

Meanwhile, Robert Mugabe has expressed his shock at the death of Mrs Hayfron. Mugabe paid tribute describing the late Mrs Hayfron as “one of the greatest women that I ever had the opportunity to relate to”. 

The Zimbabwean dictator said she was a great mother, counsellor and advisor, pious and a God fearing woman. When Robert Mugabe married his first wife Sally in 1961, he was a 37-year-old liberal nationalist who wanted to make his country to a model multiparty democracy.

In white gloves and smart suit, with a carnation in his buttonhole, the smiling bridegroom (in picture) is the man who has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. The man who took this never before published photograph, retired airline manager Kevin Nolan, was a guest at the ceremony.

He said he found the groom ‘such a well-educated, polite man’. And he added: ‘I had no idea of the way he’d turn out.’ The photo was taken at a Catholic mission in the capital Salisbury, now Harare.

When civil war broke out following the decision of Rhodesia’s white government to declare independence from Britain four years later, Mr Nolan and his wife Sheila gave the picture to their daughter in case her school was attacked by guerrillas.

Mrs Nolan wrote on the envelope: ‘If Africans are about to do you any harm show them this and tell them Mr Mugabe would be very angry if they hurt his friend’s daughter.’ After Mugabe assumed power in 1980, Mr Nolan – who by then had moved to Dublin – sent him a copy of the picture and his best wishes.

The new prime minister’s wife wrote back to thank him, and spoke of her husband’s desire for peace. Mr Nolan said: ‘Maybe she was the moderating influence. All I can say is he’s become a different man. It’s a tragedy.’ Sally died in 1992 aged 60 and Mugabe, 85, married his second wife Grace in a lavish ceremony in 1996. She suffered from a kidney disease.

Mrs. Mugabe, who was born in Ghana, met Mr. Mugabe when he was teaching there in the 1950’s. She was often arrested by colonial police in what was previously called Southern Rhodesia for campaigning with her husband against white rule and spent six weeks in prison in 1961.

The Mugabes’ only child, a boy named Nhanodzenyika, which means “our country has problems” in the their tribal Shona language, died of cerebral malaria at the age of 3. Sally established many charitable organisations in Zimbabwe which helped the poor. Well known to many Zimbabweans was the Child Survival and Development Foundation which was heavily backed by UNICEF.

An orphanage centre, she founded in Goromonzi is now lying  idle with infrastructure dilapidating as a result  of looting  by war veterans.

The matron of the Mbuya Nehanda orphanage centre, Auxillia Chonyera, said vandalism and neglect of   the orphanage’s infrastructure after the  death of its patron and founder, Sally Mugabe had  impacted  negatively  on the smooth running and safe keeping of orphans. At the moment they cook with firewood as the boiler, which was being used, packed up 10 years ago.

“We wish  if  Mai Sally  was still alive because she  used to  provide  for  the orphanage  centre that  used  to provide  for  the more than 500 orphaned children we used to keep before her  death. We have tried to find assistance from local political leaders but to no avail.

“We have a boiler which ceased to function 10 years ago, and we use firewood to cook for more than 200 children we are currently having. We used  to have a  truck  that used to transport children to the nearest  school, which is 13 kilometers away, and  it broke  down some  years ago  and we  are failing to repair it, and children  are walking   26 Kilometers to and from the school.

“We have more than 50 teen age girls  who need sanitary wear and we are finding it  difficult to provide  all  these basic  needs because  we do not have  any  source  of  income,” said  Chonyera. MDC-T’s Greenbate Dongo is the legislator for the area while Hebert Murerwa of ZANU-PF is the senator.

Chonyera said as a result of them failing to provide for the orphaned children most of the orphans were finding their way back in to the streets of Harare. “Its disappointing to tell you that most of the orphans are going back to the streets were we took them because we have no food to feed them,” she added.

Help Age Projects manager Adonis Five said his organization recently joined hands with other NGO and mobilized food items for the orphanage centre.

“We were touched by the plight of this orphanage centre and we  have mobilised some  food items which we think is  going to last for  few weeks, and we hope  that our superiors are  going to  extend our proposals through increasing the budget  they allocated  for this  project. We also challenge other NGOs to assist in this desperate situation,” he said.

If  given all the required attention the  orphanage centre, which  was a commercial  farm, has every  infrastructure that can be  used  for self sustenance. The orphanage centre was founded in1986 by the late first lady Sally Mugabe who had a strong passion for disadvantaged children. GNA