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Veteran nationalist Jane Ngwenya (in wheelchair) arrives for war veterans’ meeting with President Mugabe in Harare on Wednesday.—Picture by Justin Mutenda)

Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
VETERAN freedom fighter Cde Jane Lungile Ngwenya has revealed that there are some fraudsters who went around swindling people of their money claiming that she had died in a car crash.

Cde Ngwenya (82) revealed this on Wednesday during a funeral service for national heroine ugogo Maria Msika who was buried yesterday at the National Heroes’ Acre.

She said although she has not been in good health, it was worrying that some people wish her dead and were peddling lies that she had died in car accident.

“Although my body is now disabled I still have my mouth. I can still speak to people. I’m still alive yet others say Jane has died. Some people even went about collecting monies after being lied to by some young men that I had died. They were saying I died in a car crash saying my body was reduced to ashes.

They collected monies, stealing money using my name. I am alive,” she said.

Cde Ngwenya who now lives at an old people’s home in Bulawayo said that young people no longer respected their elders.

She said these days’ children respect their parents only instead of all the elderly persons like in the olden days.

Cde Ngwenya is one of the country’s liberation stalwarts who sacrificed her marriage for the freedom of the country.

“I divorced after we started having problems with my husband over my political involvement.

“My husband said he wanted a wife who was going to be available every day as I was constantly being arrested. He would complain that his home was always in trouble with the law because of a woman,” said Cde Ngwenya.

Before independence in 1980, she served in several detention camps and prisons for her political activism before joining other freedom fighters in Zambia. — @nqotshili