By Lance Guma
President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party is being accused of deliberately engineering delays to have the burial of legendary striker Adam Ndlovu on Unity Day (December 22) this Saturday for political purposes.
According to family sources Adam Ndlovu should have been buried on Thursday but Zanu PF was keen to exploit his death and resurrect the Unity Day holiday which has meant nothing to a region plagued by under-development.
Zanu PF on Wednesday turned down a request to confer hero status on Adam Ndlovu with Secretary for Administration Didymus Mutasa launching an attack against the party’s Bulawayo province for asking for the recognition.
Mutasa claims that hero status was not for sportspersons, but people who participated in the liberation struggle. This after politburo member Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said the Matabeleland province had requested hero status.
But we now know the whole charade and pretence of deliberating on the matter was designed to make the Ndlovu family delay the burial and allow the party to capitalise on the burial of a legend from Matabeleland on Unity Day.
Nomqhele Tshili the woman who also died in the same accident that killed Adam Ndlovu was due to be laid to rest in Esiphezini her rural home about 20km from Bulawayo today in the morning at 9 am. The Highlanders community we are told assisted in her funeral.
The state media reported that the First Family had donated ‘food assistance and other amenities’ while super rich Mines Minister Obert Mpofu said he taken over the payment of medical expenses for Peter Ndlovu and funeral expenses for his brother Adam.
This is despite a funeral policy set up by Highlanders Legends being adequate to cover Adam’s burial. Chicken Inn whose team Adam coached to third place in the past season are also providing daily food deliveries to the mourners.
While there is nothing wrong in the offer of help, several Ndlovu family members who spoke to us said they felt betrayed by Zanu PF for toying with the family on the hero status and they feel their donations are not sincere.
“People in Bulawayo do not even care about all this pretence from Zanu PF that they care about us. We know they just want to get political mileage. We should have buried Adam on Thursday and they were stringing us along for no reason.”
“Adam died on Sunday and we are burying him 6 days later, why? Just because some people wanted to promote a holiday that people in this region have never taken to heart because it was all superficial from the start,” our source said.
According to state radio and TV President Mugabe has declared Monday a public holiday. It was not clear whether this was because Unity day this year is falling on a Saturday.
Unity Day celebrates the signing of a political accord that joined Zanu PF and PF Zapu in December 1987 thus ending the Gukurahundi era when an estimated 20 000 innocent civilians in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces were killed for their perceived support of dissidents loyal to Zapu.
Meanwhile the Secretary for Political Affairs in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Office Alex Magaisa has said: “Adam and Peter are icons of Zimbabwean football and popular culture, and their names have permanent places in the biography of this country.
“I have no doubt in my mind that if there were a fair and impartial system of selecting national icons and heroes, Adam Ndlovu’s place on that list, alongside Safirio Mukadota Madzikatire and other sporting and cultural legends, would be uncontested,” he said.
Deputy Justice minister Obert Gutu said “In a normal functioning country that respects patriotism, honour and integrity, patriots like Adam ought to be duly recognised,” he said on Facebook. Adam represented Zimbabwe with distinction as a footballer and oh yes, . . . he deserves national recognition.”
Zifa Bulawayo provincial treasurer Siphambaniso Dube said “Truly Adam Ndlovu is a national hero if politics is not the only sphere of influence for one to be declared a national hero, like was done for Jairos Jiri,” he said.
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