VP Mujuru, Mutasa face arrest

By Richard Chidza

Vice-President Joice Mujuru and her acolytes accused of an elaborate and sinister plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe also faces arrest for corruption.

In his key-note address to the Zanu PF 6th national people’s congress currently underway in the capital, President Mugabe revealed that neither Mujuru nor her sidekicks, party secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa and transport secretary Nicholas Goche, had indicated why they were not in attendance at the indaba.

“We did not bar anyone from coming to congress, they just did not turn up. (They) just disappeared and now you see there are gaps at the top table. That is the behaviour of thieves, we would have wanted them to come and face you so that they get a chance to explain themselves,” President Mugabe said, to rapturous applause.

“We do not choose you to be thieves, but to end it (theft) in your areas. You should never send a thief to catch a thief. If we are sent to catch thieves and we become thieves, who will catch the thieves?”

Mugabe also tore into Mujuru, saying: “What boggles the mind is why anyone claiming to be a cadre of struggle, cooked in the crucible struggle, would hobnob with such politics. Why? Why? Why? We raise you in the struggle, grant you leadership, build your stature, and impart consequence to your person, often against your intrinsic worth.

“Instead of recognising all these efforts, you turn against the party and the president! Today, the people reject you, spit you out, and push you into the arms of the very opposition you sided with. I never thought a true cadre of the revolution would decay to that level. When you desert your own comrades, desert the ideals of your own revolution, abandon principles that mobilised you for the struggle, commit infamy of joining quislings, you suffer the fate of quislings. The people will reject you.”

He paid tribute to his wife, Amai Mugabe, for removing the lid on Mujuru’s corrupt shenanigans, including “underhand gold deals”, and the party’s membership for showing resilience and discipline, adding there would be arrests.

“I thank you for your unity regarding this issue and removing the dirty amongst you. You did that on your own, cleansing the party of these malcontents. We did not get you into action, but we are happy that you conducted yourself in an orderly manner and within the confines of the party constitution,” said President Mugabe.

“Amai (First Lady) Mugabe removed the lid on all these secrets. If proven (guilty) they will be prosecuted…it does not matter that you were a minister, deputy minister or civil servant, basa rinobva rapera (you will be fired)….People will lose their jobs, ministers, civil servants will lose their jobs and even face the wrath (of the law), but we need evidence”.

He said Mujuru and her “cabal, which included ministers and provincial chairmen”, held secret meetings and had taken advantage of the party’s 2008 “election humiliation” and the subsequent consummation of the coalition government to engage in “unholy alliances with the party (MDC) and country’s enemies”.

“It became clear to us that the inclusive government had given an opportunity for dirty politics, dirty alliances founded on government projects and dirtiest conspiracies which sort to distabilise the party as well as the government. In this cauldron of unholy alliances and activities, the ideals of Zanu PF were wantonly cast aside and sacrificed,” the president said.

“Some of us were selling out and working with elements in the MDC-T. Leaders are custodians of the values of our party and if they fail these same values they are entrusted to keep they disqualify themselves thereby going one way down, down and down. If you lose your sense of values what is it that you are following? You go down until the people destroy you.”

Mujuru, Mutasa, Goche and expelled spokesperson Rugare Gumbo stand accused of being behind a plot to remove President Mugabe at the ongoing congress. The president said he was happy that the plot had been unearthed before it was realised.

“Is this what power does to people, to go to the extent of seeking to kill people to attain it. To remove the President… mubati wemusha…aaaah?” queried the president.

President Mugabe said Mujuru had been elevated to be second in command of the party at the behest of the women’s league in 2004.

“I would not want to blame the women’s league because you gave us this woman Joice Mujuru in the firm belief that she was the best amongst you and would push for your emancipation. But she began to engage in corrupt activities, we have a lot of detail that was brought to us when we began to look closely and watch their activities. I am not sure how many books the information could fill, but it is lots of information, some of it shocking indeed,” said the president.

Mujuru, Zimbabwe’s vice president for the past decade, has reportedly been plotting to take over power from President Mugabe, in the process setting up parallel party and government structures.

In the run-up to the party’s congress, the First Lady was nominated to take charge of the former guerrilla movement’s women’s league.

In thanking party structures for the nomination, the president’s wife opened a can of worms when she verbally attacked Mujuru for abuse of office, extortion, corruption and the more serious crime of treason, a crime that attracts capital punishment if convicted. The Zimbabwe Mail