PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday stepped up his onslaught against under-fire Information, Media and Broadcasting Services minister Jonathan Moyo telling him not to make anyone “in the party a political enemy”. STAFF REPORTER
Mugabe first made a scathing attack on Moyo on Friday at former Information minister Nathan Shamuyarira’s funeral wake labelling the political scientist a “devil incarnate”.
At Shamuyarira’s burial at the Heroes’ Acre in Harare, the visibly angry 90-year-old leader hinted at a Zanu PF purge saying the party had been infiltrated.
Mugabe accused Moyo of using the State media to sow divisions in Zanu PF, which is in the throes of bitter war to succeed him at the helm of the party.
“I talked yesterday (Friday) about his own (Shamuyarira) direction which was people-oriented,” he said, “It is not your own little ideas about how you can beat so and so . . .
kunzvengesa musangano sebhora, izvo ndezvebhora why don’t you go either to Dynamos or Highlanders?
“We are telling the people we must be one, we must be united in agriculture in mining, we must organise our people to take advantage of these resources.
“Your publicity must go in that direction. Let them know what they must do for themselves . . . encourage the people to be organised, don’t plant seeds to divide the people.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
“Don’t make anyone in the party a political enemy, you may differ with the person and you attack him through the paper, that’s no ideology, a destructive ideology – progress has to be made, we are fighting the British outsiders.”
Mugabe appeared to be particularly peeved by the appointment of journalists believed to have links with the opposition to key positions in the State media.
He also accused Moyo of using his intellect to divide Zanu PF through devious means. Mugabe seemed to say Moyo should be down to earth like Shamuyarira.
“Education did not make Nathan an egoist. An egoist is one who says what I think and only what I think is right,” he said.
“So you must always think as I think. If you are educated that way I say damn you. You are not educated, you are ignorant.
“Education must make you humble. Education must make you feel uneducated always and always it is a damned fool who says I know all that needs to be known, what I don’t know is ignorance ah . . . all you know is knowledge what I don’t know is not knowledge.”
Mugabe said Zanu PF had been infiltrated and suggested infiltrators should be flushed out.
“We now have weevils in our midst. Zanu PF has weevils within its ranks,” he said.
Moyo was first appointed Information minister in 2002 before he was fired in 2005. He went on to defeat Zanu PF twice in parliamentary elections after he stood as an independent candidate.
He rejoined Zanu PF in 2009 and was reappointed to the same portfolio after last year’s elections when he lost the Tsholotsho North parliamentary seat to MDC-T’s Roselyn Nkomo. Moyo was a harsh critic of Mugabe and Zanu PF before joining the party.
