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Dr Joice Mujuru

Fidelis Munyoro, Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE People First faction leader Joice Mujuru has dismissed as frivolous the threat by her former allies, Didymus Mutasa and Rugare Gumbo, to sue her for allegedly making sexual remarks against them.

Mutasa and Gumbo have threatened to file a $5 million claim against Mujuru if she does not publicly apologise to them for utterances claiming that they wanted to mate with her.

“For the record, our client is more than ready to defend herself in a competent court of law should your clients proceed with their malicious legal process,” said Mujuru’s spokesperson and lawyer Mr Gift Nyandoro in a letter dated 24 February 2017.

Through their lawyer, Mr Gerald Mlotshwa, Mutasa and Gumbo this week also threatened to sue the Newsday for publishing an article titled “Bigwigs wanted to sleep with me”, unless the paper makes a retraction.

The paper reported that Mujuru accused a group of party elders she expelled of seeking to turn her into a sex slave, after they proposed that she be the opposition party’s “queen bee”.

She notably accused Mutasa and Gumbo of wanting her to sleep with male colleagues in the party, taking advantage of the fact that she is a widow.

“I want you to Google then advise each other,” Mujuru was quoted by Newsday as saying. “They said Mai Mujuru, we want you to be our queen bee. I was supposed to mate with all the men in the party. I was supposed to be their wife.

“I was supposed to work for them because they had seen that while I was still in Egypt (Zanu-PF) I used to work hard. So they wanted to borrow that hard-working spirit to work for them and I told them that I can’t be your queen bee.”

In the article, Mujuru described herself as a woman of substance, with an image to protect and that since the death of her husband (Solomon Mujuru), she had lost appetite for men.

In the letter to Mujuru written on February 20, 2017, Mr Mlotshwa said his clients took grave exception to her statements. He said when Mujuru uttered the statements, she was fully aware that his clients had no desire whatsoever for such an activity from her.

“Your words were malicious and deliberately intended to tarnish our clients’ respective reputation and standing,” he said.