Opinion Saul Gwakuba
Many Zimbabweans who were born in the period between about 1960 and the 2000s may find it difficult, if not impossible, to appreciate why much older people celebrate the life of Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo. Those who grew up in the 20 or so years between 1960 and the national attainment of independence in 1980 will remember what they saw, heard and felt during the war of liberation.

During some of those very unhappy years, Nkomo and thousands of other patriots were restricted to the hot, arid and remote Gonakudzingwa area in the Gonarezhou wildlife sanctuary.

The younger generation may wish to know what the socio-political atmosphere was like especially in the 1960s before Nkomo was, first, banned from the Salisbury magisterial area and then, second, when he was whisked away from Bulawayo to the hostile Gonakudzingwa restriction area in 1964.

Nkomo was demanding unconditional freedom for the country on the simple and obvious basis that it was a black and not white people’s land.
That was popularised by the Zapu slogan; “Ilizwe ngelethu! Nyika ndeyedu.”

His national executive team comprised highly committed men and women such as Joseph “Bruno” Msika, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Jason “Ziyaphapha” Moyo, Samuel Munodawafa, Tarcisius George Silundika, Willie Dzawanda Musarurwa, Daniel Madzimbamuto, James Robert Dambaza Chikerema, George Bonzo Nyandoro, Jane Lungile Ngwenya, Ruth Chinamano, Boniface Gumbo, Lazarus Nkala, Amon Ndabambi, Welshman Mabhena, William Khona and others such as Maurice Nyagumbo, Morton and his brother Washington Malianga and of course the Rev Ndabaningi Sithole.

Abroad as representatives he had such patriots as Leopold Takawira, popularly known as “The lion of Chirumanzu”, Amos Nzindawangu Ngwenya, Stephen Jeqe Nkomo, Mbulawa Noko, Eddison Zvobgo and Noel Mukono.

That was before some of those people broke away to form the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) in 1964.
Nkomo was nicknamed “Chibwechitedza” by his Shona-speaking supporters and they predominated in the Mutoko, Murehwa, Zvimba, Mhondoro, Karoi, Manicaland and other areas.

Whenever he went, he was greeted by shouts, “Chibwechitedza kwesekwese Nkomo!”
A song that was always sung when Nkomo appeared had the following words: ‘Tsuro tsuro wee ndapera basa! Tsuro tsuro wee naNkomo! Tamba naChikerema, tamba naNyandoro, tamba naChibwechitedza haaNkomo!

Singing that song, large groups of people would dance all over and the Rhodesian police would sooner than later throw teargas canisters among them and unleash their ferocious Alsatian dogs on the people most of whom were women and all hell would break loose.

That was by and large how riots always started. We should remember that during the Zapu heydays (from January to August-September 1962) Chikerema and Nyandoro were detained at Mapfungabutsi forest in the Gokwe region.

They had been held there by the white settler regime since February 1959. That actually increased their popularity throughout the world’s anti-colonial movements. They were six in number, the others being Daniel Madzimbamuto, Maurice Nyagumbo, Henry Hamadziripi and Eddison Sithole. They were released in December 1963.

Nkomo’s wish was the British government should convene a constitutional conference to transfer the country’s political power to the black majority. One such conference was held in December 1960 but the British government, in agreement with that of Rhodesia, conceded only 15 Parliamentary seats to the Africans who were almost five million.
The white settlers, who were almost 240,000 at that time, were given 50 seats. Nkomo and his colleagues at the conference rejected that constitution.

Nkomo’s fellow-delegates were Hebert Chitepo, Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, Enock Dumbutshena and TG Silundika.
What had prompted Nkomo to start a full time liberation political campaign was the cruelty with which the Southern Rhodesian government was displacing black people from their traditional residential areas and throwing them onto infertile and unhealthy regions.

The black people’s former areas were given to white settlers who were encouraged to come to Southern Rhodesia through government-financed immigration programmes.
Meanwhile, black people were told that each black family head could not own more than 15 head of cattle because there was little grazing area, and that the land was not elastic. White farmers could own hundreds.

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