Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye: Mnangagwa lines up cousin Valerio Sibanda for succession

Phillip Valerio Sibanda is being lined up for succession. The news was broken by this column, first on 2 April 2021 when it was still remotely unthinkable and again on 3 November 2023 when ED appointed a then serving Valerio Sibanda into the Politburo in violation of the supreme law of the land.

I knew this because ED’s emissaries—including his cousin who sought to entice me to stop writing this column and join Zanu PF for trinkets—told me the whole game plan.

Of course, I refused to join the bloody party and went public about it because I am not buyable.I am not purchasable.

But avid readers of this column will recall that on 2 April 2021, some five years ago when the prospect seemed so remote, I broke the story in this column and told you that that Valerio Sibanda was being lined up for succession (https://www.facebook.com/lighthousenewszim/posts/luke-ing-the-beast-in-the-eye-friday-2-april-2021-it-is-finished-as-mnangagwa-li/317992306326799/).

Yet again on 3 November 2023, soon after ED brazenly violated section 208 of the Constitution by appointing him into the Politburo when he was still a serving army general, I again reminded you of the whole dynastic game plan. (https://nehandaradio.com/2023/11/03/luke-ing-the-beast-in-the-eye-valerio-sibanda-to-succeed-emmerson-mnangagwa/).

Lest you have forgotten. Let me walk you again through the game plan, as intimated to by Mnangagwa’s people, including his relative, who confided in me under the mistaken belief that I was going to be bribable.

But then, I am a journalist. And a multiple-award winning journalist for that matter!

First, let me remind you that Mnangagwa and Valerio Sibanda are family. They are cousins. Their fathers were blood brothers who had the same father by the name of Mapanzure.

The family uses several surnames and these include Mnangagwa, Sibanda, Shumba (their totem), Chibga, Murambwi (also their totem), Siphambi or Ziyambi.

Never mind their adopted Midlands credentials; the family is originally from Mangwana village in the Vuranda area of Chivi in Masvingo province.And this detail may tell help explain the many Mangwanas that litter the entire tapestry of both the party and the government!

First, the acolytes told me that Valerio Sibanda was a clean man with no record of corruption and because of his spotless track-record; ED believed he was the best man to succeed him. Of course, the irony for me was that a man of bloody and murky and credentials would tout a clean record as a prerequisite for one to be President.

The other reason for Valerio to be the successor, so I was told, was that with him being a relative, ED’s ill-gotten wealth and family would be safe in the political life yonder.

And of course, a Valerio Presidency would mean that upon leaving office, ED would not fear any recriminations.

When the plan was told to me all those years ago, the idea was that before the big presidential succession move, ED was first going to appoint Valerio to replace Kembo Dugishi Campbell Mohadi, who had his own issues at the time.

Valerio is a former ZAPU cadre.

After Valerio serves as a VP from the ZAPU side, the idea was that ED would project himself as a statesman by later recommending Valerio to succeed him as President on the grounds that it was time to bust ZAPU’s Vice Presidency ceiling by allowing, for the first time in history, the highest political office in the land to be occupied by the ZAPU side.

I was told that ED fancies that being a soldier who has wielded control over the country’s military, his cousin is the perfect chess piece to checkmate the ambitions of fellow soldier and fellow former ZDF commander, Rtd General Constantino Nyikadzino Guvheya Chiwenga, who now cuts a pitiful, forlorn, vulnerable, and dangerously exposed figure in the wake of CAB3 and after his military allies died in controversial circumstances in the past nine years.

So a Valerio Sibanda Vice presidency would also help checkmate Chiwenga, whose military credentials mortify the ED faction in ZANU PF.

Anyway, Valerio Sibanda has just been appointed into the Politburo and my take is that this is the initial step in poising him for the highest office in the land as first intimated to me on Saturday, 20 March 2021.

But now time has passed, a lot of dynamics have changed and the factions are even more fractious since I was first told of an imminent Valerio Vice Presidency as a precursor to rising to the highest office in the land.

But his recent appointment into the Politburo points to the likelihood that the game plan remains the same.

Forget about Kuda Tagwirei as a sucessor, those are just enablers whose filthy lucre will be used in 2026, 2028 or whenever to bribe Parliament to elect his chosen successor, who I still maintain remains Phillip Valerio Sibanda, as told to me by ED’s purchasers of cheap political souls some 61 months ago.

Of course, the Presidency for sale game plan can only happen if, in our collective timidity as Zimbabweans, we allow the treasonous CAB3 to be passed into law.

So today, Valerio Sibanda finds himself in the Politburo , definitely not by accident but by strategic design.

And the question is whether ED will fire Mohadi (or will it be Chiwenga?) to create political space in the presidium for Valerio Sibanda.

Or perhaps he will bide his time while lining his political ducks and perfecting the political roadmap for his relative to eventually succeed him in the party and in government.

It will likely be a rat race in ZANU PF, a bloody battle to the wire!

.If need be, ED seems to want the two soldiers, Valerio and Constantino, to shoot it out for the top post, either literally or metaphorically.

Zimbabweans will be watching from the sidelines, hopefully far and safe from what may turn out to be a nasty and bloody duel.

ED appears wont to torch the furnace in both Zanu PF and in the country. He doesn’t care what chaos he brews for Zimbabwe in his unstintingly selfish pursuit of personal convenience

Much like Louis XV, a French autocrat whose reign preceded the French Revolution who famously said “After me, the deluge (Apres moi le deluge’).

Ladies and gentleman, it is now clear we are dealing with a primitive clansman who wants to create a dynasty in our beloved country.

In our collective patriotism, we must stop him!

Luke Tambornyoka is a journalist and a political scientist from Domboshava. He is currently based in England.