President Emmerson Mnangagwa has all the reasons to walk tall.
President Mnangagwa turned 81 on Friday, barely 11 days after being inaugurated
the President of Zimbabwe. He won the highly-contested August 23 and 24
harmonized elections when he secured 52.6 percent vote against his main rival
Nelson Chamisa of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). who managed 44 percent.
President Mnangagwa’s victory saw him being mandated to lead the country for the
next five-years into an upper middle economy status by 2030.
His vision and policies can only be achieved through planned socio-economic
development focused on modernization and industrialization.
‘’To achieve this, servant leadership, continuous learning and the responsive
implementation of policies and projects remain integral. Further, we must work with a
great sense of urgency, unity of purpose and seamless synergies. Unity among
Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and senior officials is critical.
You have to complement each other," he said when he addressed newly appointed
ministers and their deputies, permanent secretaries and other top government
officials in Harare at his birth day eve.
Mnangagwa was born in 1942 in Shabani, now Zvishavane, in the then Southern
Rhodesia(Zimbabwe), to a large Shona family. His parents Mafidhi and Mhurai
Mnangagwa were farmers, and in the 1950s he and his family were forced to move
to Northern Rhodesia(Zambia) because of his father's political activism. There. he
became active in anti-colonial politics, and in 1963 he joined the newly
formed Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the militant wing of
the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). He returned to Rhodesia in 1964 as
leader of the "Crocodile Gang", a group that attacked white-owned farms in
the Eastern Highlands. Mnangagwa is nicknamed "Garwe" or "Ngwena", which
means "the crocodile" in the Shona language, initially because that was the name of
the guerrilla group he founded, but later because of his political shrewdness“as he
moved slowly and quietly before attacking.”
In 1965, he bombed a train near Fort Victoria (now Masvingo) and was imprisoned
for 10 years, after which he was released and deported to the recently independent
Zambia. He later studied law at the University of Zambia and practised as an
attorney for two years before going to Mozambique to rejoin ZANU. In Mozambique,
he was assigned to be Robert Mugabe's assistant and bodyguard, and accompanied
him to the Lancaster House Agreement which resulted in Zimbabwe's recognised
independence in 1980.
After independence, Mnangagwa held a series of senior cabinet positions under
Mugabe. From 1980 to 1988, he was the country's first Minister of State Security,
and oversaw the Central Intelligence Organisation. Mnangagwa was Minister of
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs from 1989 to 2000 and then Speaker of the
Parliament from 2000 until 2005, when he was appointed Minister of Rural Housing
and Social Amenities. Mnangagwa served as Minister of Defence from 2009 until
2013, when he became justice minister again. He was also appointed First Vice-
President in 2014 and was widely considered a leading candidate to succeed
Mugabe.
Mnangagwa's ascendancy was opposed by Mugabe's wife, Grace Mugabe.
He is known in his home province of Midlands as "the Godfather".
On November 24 in 2017, Mnangagwa was inaugurated as president and
commander-in-chief of the Zimbabwean military.
Mnangagwa successfully ran for President in 2018 and was inaugurated on July 30,
2018. Mnangagwa was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of
2018.
Happy birthday Shumba Murambwi.
