Mnangagwa punished me for refusing to support coup plans: Gandawa

By Nyashadzashe Ndoro

Former Higher Education deputy minister Godfrey Gandawa has claimed that President Emmerson Mnangagwa removed him from government because he refused to be associated with military coup plans that saw Mnangagwa seize power from the late former President Robert Mugabe.

In a statement seen by Nehanda Radio, Gandawa a former Zanu PF MP for Magunje said when Mnangagwa was still VP, he tried to recruit him to join the team that conspired to remove Mugabe.

“My great undoing came about after a state media journalist attempted to recruit me in a plot to overthrow president Mugabe, claiming he had been sent by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

“I was compelled by the oath of office to report and recorded a second episode with the same journalist. That audio is now in the public through no actions of my own,” Gandawa said.

“The publication of that recording immediately identified me as being hostile to Mnangagwa’s ambitions and brought me into direct line of fictional political fire, resulting in my removal from government at 2017 coup when Mnangagwa eventually seized power,” Gandawa added.

In 2018, just before the elections, Gandawa was on the run and he claimed state security agents sent by Mnangagwa wanted to harm him.

A warrant of arrest was issued against Gandawa in November 2018 after he failed to appear before High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapi for trial in a case in which he was facing 14 counts of defrauding the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund of over $400 000. Nehanda Radio