Staff Writer
Harare–Self-exiled former cabinet minister under the late Robert Mugabe, Jonathan Moyo, has declared that he is returning to Zimbabwe, after almost six years in the wilderness.
He is considered to be closer to Vice President Constantino Chiwenga than President Emmerson Mnangagwa and speculated to have struck a deal ensuring his passage back home.
Moyo, the Higher Education minister when he fled the country as the military held Mugabe under a virtual house arrest at his Blue Roof house in uptown Borrowdale, skipped the country through Mozambique around 19 November, 2017.
He fled in the company of Saviour Kasukuwere, who was recently barred from contesting in the presidential election that retained Emmerson Mnangagwa as president.
Mnangagwa, then a vice president under Mugabe, was one of the architects of the military takeover and, when Moyo and Kasukuwere ran away, he had also been forced to trek out of Zimbabwe by the Mugabe establishment following a fierce war with Zanu PF and the government over the late former president’s succession.
Moyo, also a former Information minister, and his family had survived a military siege at his home and managed to sneak out with the assistance of Grace Mugabe, the former first lady.
He has been living in self-imposed exile in Kenya, the home country of his in-laws, since his escape as the military sought him for alleged corruption.
He belonged to a Zanu PF faction commonly referred to as G40, which was opposed to Mnangagwa’s takeover from Mugabe and the role the military was playing in the current president’s support.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday, Moyo—almost boastfully—promised to be back in Zimbabwe “soon and very soon”.
He accompanied the tweet with the video of a 1985 hit song by a Zimbabwean musician, Themba Ndlovu.
The song lauds the beauty of Zimbabwe–a land of sunshine and honey–and the singer urges his audience to meet him in the country.
Moyo described the song as “invitingly prophetic”.
“Meet me in Zimbabwe” was a chart buster after its release in Hamburg, Germany, in 1985 by Children of Nandi, a band comprising Themba Ndlovu and his South African colleagues.
MEET ME IN ZIMBABWE
THEMBA NDLOVU’s thumping vibe, ‘Meet Me in Zimbabwe’, is truly beautiful, deeply nationalistic, unmistakably iconic and invitingly prophetic – all rolled into one hell of a dope gem to jam to any day, not just on a Sunday like this.… pic.twitter.com/pDPu9vXKpf
— Prof Jonathan Moyo (@ProfJNMoyo) September 17, 2023
Moyo, considered a shrewd schemer, has for more than a year been posting tweets highly critical of the head of the main opposition, Nelson Chamisa and the respective parties he led, MDC-A and Citizens Coalition for Change.
The former minister, though, had supported Chamisa’s candidature against Mnangagwa at the 2018 polls.
He has also made a famous apology to the ruling Zanu PF party for attacking it after moving into self-exile.
Moyo did not support Kasukuwere in his presidential bid and was seen as having broken ranks with the other G40 masterminds.
Besides Kasukuwere and Moyo, the G40 faction also comprised Walter Mzembi and Patrick Zhuwawo, both cabinet ministers under Mugabe as well.
They all remain in self-imposed exile.