Media mogul Trevor Ncube is regretting supporting President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s coup that ousted the late former President Robert Mugabe in November 2017.
Speaking on the final day of the BizNews Conference in the Drakensberg, South Africa, Ncube further insinuated that he did not have confidence in either the ruling Zanu-PF party and opposition leader Nelson Chamisa’s Citizens Coalition for Change.
“I have no confidence in the MDC now called something else (CCC)”. He added that no one in the CCC seemed to have the capacity to turn around the country’s fortunes.
On supporting Mnangagwa’s coup Ncube said: “I was one of those people who stood up and said give Emmerson Mnangagwa a chance and how wrong I was! But why did I say that?
“I said that because this man has sat in the same room with Robert Mugabe, he has seen what Robert Mugabe did in the country.
“Maybe, he is really interested in turning things around… This man played a role as far as Gukurahundi is concerned, the massacre of over 20 000 people in Matabeleland.
“Maybe, it’s time for him to make amends for that. So I was generous in my spirit as a God-fearing man that this man was about to do a turnaround. Again was I disappointed!”
Ncube said he retired from the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) created by Mnangagwa in 2019 to proffer ideas that could move the country forward.
“I was actually approached and I agreed to serve in the presidential advisory council, so I sat at close range with the President advising him on a number of issues but I have since retired, stepped down because I can see this thing is not going to end well.
“The lesson that we have gotten, all of us, is that anyone who embarks on a coup does not usually do so because they want to promote democracy, widen economic prosperity and so forth.
“The people that launched the coup in Zimbabwe were interested in protecting their small personal interests, ethnic interests, business interests and economic interests,” he said.
The NewsHawks on Sunday reported that Ncube sang praises for Mnangagwa and his coup and overzealously pushed stories supporting him in his newspapers, while “spouting hostile and toxic propaganda against those who differed with him”. He worked closely with his pro-coup managers, editors and reporters in his media house.
