By Tendai Mugabe
The Zanu-PF Mashonaland West Youth League has been turned into a theatre of confusion after ousted chairperson Vengai Musengi and his deputy Joseph Nyariri, yesterday turned the tables and passed a counter vote of no confidence on the new provincial executive led by Tawanda Rupiya.
Musengi was ousted on Monday after a vote of no confidence was passed on him.
He was sent packing together with his deputy Nyariri and secretary for administration Silas Chimbiro. Allegations against Musengi and his colleagues range from extortion and doctoring of resolutions of the conference the wing held over the weekend.
In the petition used to oust them, Rupiya said the trio was using the recent restructuring exercise in the province to create parallel structures. However, in a dramatic turn of events, Musengi yesterday claimed to be still the provincial youth chairman.
Addressing journalists in Harare, Musengi accused Rupiya of forging signatures of the Youth League members to engineer his ouster.
As such, Musengi said together with the other 26 members of the provincial Youth League, they had resolved to pass a vote of no confidence on Nelson Tinapi, Tafadzwa Muteketa, Tawanda Rupiya and Richman Mudivari.
“I am still the chairman, Cde Nyariri is the deputy chairman and Cde Chimbiro is still the secretary for administration,” he said.
“We have party protocol that we use, and we want the public to know that you cannot use money to destroy the party.”
Musengi claimed that the vote of no confidence against him was triggered by the party’s national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere, who is the former Minister of Youth, Indigenisation and Empowerment.
He claimed he was also aware of a clandestine agenda to boo Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the forthcoming Zanu-PF National People’s Conference in Victoria Falls.
He said members of the Youth League could not be dismissed from the party by the main wing, let alone the Women’s League.
Chimbiro, who read the speech on behalf of the trio, said: “Cde Rupiya and three others have set parallel structures in the province in defiance of the party constitution. We the undersigned, constituting the Mashonaland West Youth League executive members passed a vote of no confidence in Cdes Nelson Tinapi, Tafadzwa Muteketa, Tawanda Rupiya and Richman Mudivari on 17th November 2015,” he said.
“This is being done in terms of Article 28, Subsection 265 of the party constitution.
“Cde Rupiya and three others have disregarded Youth League resolutions and gone about feeding and dishing wrong information to the province whose motive is clearly divisive and destructive.”
He said the quartet was bent on fanning factionalism in the party by purporting to have passed a vote of no confidence on the top three leaders of the Youth League.
Chimbiro said they had since reported the forgery of signatures to the police.
He said at their last youth conference, they endorsed President Mugabe as the party’s candidate for 2018 and that he would be the party’s First Secretary for life. Contrary to that resolution, Rupiya released a Press statement with different resolutions. The Herald
