They have threatened my family —- A statement by Luke Tamborinyoka

Some one-and-half weeks ago, under my column Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye, I penned a piece in which I named and shamed Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa and the elite corrupt, criminal network around him.

The piece, published here: Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye: NAMED AND SHAMED: Emmerson Mnangagwa and the criminals around him, also circulated via whatsapp chat groups, was a simple compilation of names and the respective alleged corrupt deeds and shenanigans that are already in the public domain, having been published elsewhere on other mainstream media platforms.

The piece ignited spirited and livid reactions by frothing Zanu PF ghost writers who penned their own angry tirades, one of which was published in the State-owned Herald newspaper.

Strangely, one of the seething responses accused me of the high crime of treason for what was a simple restatement in my column of the doyens of high criminality and corruption as publicly flagged out by the media.

These alleged high priests of unmitigated avarice and graft include the President himself, whose name prominently and arrogantly sticks out like a sore thumb in both the ZEC-gate scandal as well as in the Gold Mafia documentary by Al Jazeera, both of which are already in the public domain.

On Saturday, 8 March 2025, soon after 2pm, some two State Security officials in an unmarked car drove to my rural home in Domboshava and told my wife to relay to me that I was now playing with fire.

Initially, upon their arrival, the two guys, whom we suspect to be from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), had said they were from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and made a very strange, fictitious allegation.

They told my wife that they had come because during my time in government as the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, I had borrowed US$45 000 from the Central Bank through the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe (C.B.Z).

They alleged that to access that loan, I had used as collateral a Chitungwiza property that did not even belong to me. All just trumped-up stuff as I do not owe the CBZ, the RBZ or whoever!

It still vexes me whether it is even within the remit of a country’s Central Bank to be offering loans to private individuals.

Shocked that these strange people in an unmarked car and carrying such an outlandish accusation would pitch up almost 15 years after I had left government, my wife told them that to the best of her knowledge, there was no such debt.

As they spoke to her, they were recording the conversation and taking pictures and videos of my rural home.

Then they changed script, telling my wife that their true mission was political. They said my article published a few days before was not only damaging to the person and office of the President but was also fuelling some fires that were already raging in the political establishment.

They said their mission was to tell her to convey to me the message that I should stop forthwith writing my column. In other words, their mission was to censor me through ominous threats to me and my family, including the dangled but fabricated, so-called RBZ debt.

One of them gave his name as Ronald Chivasa, which might or might not be an alias. He even left his contact number. The other one was a Mr Zvandafira.

They told my wife that your husband’s stubbornness will lead him and his family into serious trouble because the State has capacity to inflict harm using all sorts of avenues, organs and instruments.

They told my wife that I had stubbornly refused previous overtures from the State to stop writing my column.

What these CIO officers were referring to were other previous trips that were made by an emissary who came to see me at the same rural homestead, beginning Saturday, 20 March 2021, at 1026hrs.

At those earlier visits, which had risen to four by end of May 2021, Mnangagwa’s nephew, one Pearson Mbalekwa, had visited me and tried in vain to coax me to stop writing my column which he said routinely attacked ED and the government.

The regime also wanted me to betray then party President Nelson Chamisa and to ditch the democratic struggle, all for trinkets and trappings, including a position in government if I so wished

It is pertinent to state that from the very day of the first visit on 20 March, 2021, and upon the three other subsequent trips by ED’s nephew, I kept President Chamisa and other close senior colleagues in the party leadership well informed.

What had triggered the first visit on 20 March 2021 was an article I had written the previous week on 12 March, in which I had named Mnangagwa’s relatives, friends, tribesmen and acolytes that he had stuffed into both the party and government.

Those visits in 2021 happened at a time when the regime was busy on the political market, buying all morally unclothed souls to join Zanu PF.

Indeed, this was the time when erstwhile colleagues in the democratic struggle were purchased to leave and directly join Zanu PF or to agree, in one form or the other, to be appendages of the “system”.

I spurned the overtures, declined all the offers from the regime and kept my leader informed.

But then that is a story for another day.

So eight days ago on Saturday, 8 May 2025, the visitors from the State told my wife that your husband is stubborn. They then told her your husband may be safe outside the country but you guys are not safe at all.

And probably for a proper chilling effect and to show that they knew the whereabouts of my children, one of the guys mentioned my son by name, where he lives and the appropriate church at which he worships. That left my wife terrified.

The CIO guys also asked for the contact numbers of my maternal aunts and other close relatives, who they said they also wanted to relay to me the warnings to stop my writings.

My wife refused to give them, saying she could not give out people’s contacts without their express permission.

However, the guys said they had other ways of getting those contacts. They warned that the time might come when my family could not even be afforded the opportunity of a conversation.

Personally, I know I have committed no crime at all. All I do is to write about the grave matters affecting my country, something which I have consistently done for almost a decade since I launched my column.

And mine is a simple family that ekes out an honest living and on my part, I owe no one a dime, let alone the so-called debt to the RBZ.

Now my family, especially my children who go about their own innocent business every other day, have all suddenly found themselves sucked into the dark, sinister vortex of espionage, vile threats, subterfuge, malicious fabrications, underworld lethal operations and blackmail by a murderous regime seeking to silence the citizens.

Having delivered their stern warnings and after telling my wife to convey to me the message that I should stop my “mischievous” writings, especially about Mnangagwa and his criminal network, the two State Security officials then drove off in their white, double cab vehicle, leaving my wife petrified.

Welcome to Zimbabwe’s Second Republic!

Luke Tamborinyoka
16 March 2025