President Robert Mugabe Is a Dictator, Direct Opposite of Hebert Chitepo
Saved under Business, Corruption, Human Rights, News, SOUTHERN AFRICA, Zimbabwe
Tags: Hebert Chitepo, President Robert Mugabe, Rugare Gumbo, Zanu-PF, ZANU-PF Youth, Zimbabwe
Please follow & like us :)
Veteran politician and now Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) elder, Rugare Gumbo, has launched a scathing attack on President Robert Mugabe whom he described as too obsessed with power and a total opposite to his predecessor Hebert Chitepo.
Gumbo was speaking during the launch of former Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara’s book at Dr Ibbo Mandaza’s Sapes Trust recently.
The former Zanu PF MP and war veteran said he now felt vindicated after he warned his liberation war colleagues at the time that President Mugabe would lead his party and country astray if he continued at the helm.
“During the liberation war we started seeing certain tendencies about him and, as early as the 1970s when we started working with Mugabe, it was apparent that those tendencies were going to be a problem to all of us.
“When we went to congress in 1977, we again stressed the same points that the direction the party was taking was not the one,” he said.
Gumbo is a former Mugabe adversary who was later drafted into government to serve as cabinet minister in different portfolios before his unceremonious expulsion from the party in 2015 alongside other party bigwigs over unproven allegations of attempting to topple the 93 year-old leader.
The expelled group of Zanu PF leaders still insists the accusations were just a ploy to get rid of them for reasons being known to their former boss.
During his address, Gumbo said President Mugabe’s dictatorial tendencies started as early as the liberation war when he failed to consult his colleagues during decision making processes.
“We started seeing decisions just being made without any consultations… There was a huge difference between Mugabe and Chitepo. Chitepo was a true democrat,” Gumbo said of the once Zanu leader who was assassinated in 1975.
“He would not make a decision without consulting his colleagues. Even if we differed during meetings, Chitepo would still take you aside and try to politely explain the decision that would have been taken.
“This business of one saying ‘we have decided’ is problematic.”
Gumbo said even in 1980, he refused to be blinded by the euphoria of gaining independence as was the case with his liberation war colleagues.
Even at independence, Gumbo said he still insisted Mugabe was not the right leader for the country.
“When we gained independence in 1980,” Gumbo said, “I said during an interview that we were too much overwhelmed by the euphoria of independence and during the time, it was taboo to criticise liberators.
“I remained bold and told Zimbabweans that while we were so excited, we will regret but I was dismissed as a dissenter,” said the former Mberengwa legislator.
Gumbo said President Mugabe emerged from a crop of die-hard nationalists who would cling to power at all costs.
He said the old guard that emerged from the liberation struggle have no idea how to advance the interests of younger post-independence generations.
