A hero who could laugh at himself

Happy Ndanga
I was a headmaster in Kadoma when I spoke to Cde Simon Muzenda for the first time. He rang me as he wanted to speak to a relative of his who lived next to the school. This relative was having marital problems and the Vice-President wanted to help the couple. Afterwards, he would occasionally drop a message which I would then relay to the two.

Finally, I got to see him as he went about meeting Government officials in the area, though our interactions were not on a one-on-one basis.
My first impressions of him were that he was a gentle, simple and astute man; whose astuteness was not something you could detect easily.
You could think he didn’t know what he was doing, but, alas, he had a very sharp mind. One would think they were one step ahead of him, but, in fact, it was he who was several steps ahead!

Once, he planned to visit his old school; Zvavahera Primary School. It was an interesting meeting in that we were told he would arrive at 7 am, coming from Harare.

My understanding of politicians is that at best, they are an hour or two late. So, when I heard 7 o’clock, I decided to get to the school at around 7:30am.

However, I was embarrassed to the skin when I got there – he had long arrived. He got there well before 7!
He was sitting with a group of old people, chatting. This was the area where he grew up – the Zvavahera area.

I was the deputy regional education director in Masvingo then, and had been assigned by my director to meet the VP and provide whatever information he needed.

Going to meet people at your old school doesn’t seem like an important function for a big politician; he was Deputy Prime Minister at the time.
It’s not a big issue, but to him, everything was a big issue.

He toured the school, promised assistance and delivered that assistance; things like furniture and building material.
His coming early demonstrated that he was a man who took his work very seriously. After that incident, I met him many times at different places and what always struck me was his simplicity; how he cared about anything and everybody.

In 1995, I was told he wanted to see me as he sought to replace his secretary, Steven Chitaukire, who had been promoted. Cde Muzenda told me at our meeting that available information showed that I could do the job.

I agreed to try and so became Deputy Secretary in the President’s Office Responsible for the VP’s Office (1995-2003). This is a job where you really have no one to mentor you on what to do. They just throw you into the deep end.

However, what made it easier was I could always consult him. He was very encouraging, sometimes assisting by clearing things he knew could be a problem to a newcomer.

I was at great pains to know what my role was.
To be an assistant to a senior Government official like the Vice-President is very complicated as he operated at several levels. He was an MP and had a constituency.

He also had ministries directly under him, and would on many occasions act as President. He was one hell of a person in terms of the roles he was playing at one point.

One had to get them right, otherwise there would be problems. But as I have mentioned, no one sits you down, telling you how it’s done.
No. You find your way.

Nevertheless, the advantage was he provided assistance obligingly whenever you approached him.
Of course, there were other senior officials like the Chief Secretary whom you could go to. My function really was to make the Office of the Vice-President operative.

There were secretaries to be watched over; speeches to be written and appointments to be made.
There were people who came at various times. Cde Muzenda was a people person. I couldn’t just say, “No, sorry. He is busy or he is at some place.”

One had to help and then report to him afterwards. He would, for instance, call me at 11pm when I was already in bed. I would go to him.
We would be out of the office, say in Bulawayo, and people would have access to him, seeking assistance.
And at 11 o’clock, they were going to get that assistance.
I would be called and told what was to be done. I would then do my own follow-ups and do what was required.

One time Mrs Muzenda fell very sick and was hospitalised.
Usually, the VP would just walk into the office, sit and tell you what he wanted. But this time around, he was almost helpless. He came to my office and said, “Now, what do I do?”

He said she was being operated on, on that day and his mind could not somehow envelope the goings-on.
For a moment, we exchanged roles, the only time this would happen. I became the “elder”, giving him advice. I would encourage him to go and see how she was doing. On returning, we would chat and again I would tell him something else.

This humbled me a lot. It showed me that he was human and easy to work with. His demeanour didn’t change, even after his wife had recovered.
He was a friendly person, but very demanding at work. He had his own standards.
The Muzenda Jokes

Many people talk of him as if he didn’t know what he was doing, but that’s not true. He knew what he had done and how he had gotten to where he was, and could see the future very clearly.
Jokes about him always circulated and what people didn’t know was that he knew about them.
At the office, he would tell you: “You know what they think about me? They say I do (this and that). Do they think I’m mad?”

Some thought he didn’t have as sharp an intellect as President Mugabe, for instance.
But to the best of my knowledge, he was a very big influence on the President. They worked hand-in-glove on everything.
I think President Mugabe got a lot of advice from Old Muzenda.

The VP brushed jokes about him aside and laughed. This is a quality we Africans generally don’t have. We can’t laugh at ourselves. He would laugh at himself and say: “This is what they say, but can’t they see this and that?”
And true enough, he could do the things some people said he couldn’t.

He belonged not to one section of the population, but to the whole country.
He was one man who understood what was going on, and influenced what was going on to a greater extent than many people know.
There are things, certainly, where he would assist the President. However, I can’t mention these as doing so would be breaching the Confidentiality Clause.

I am sure, though, that everytime a serious decision was made, he was always consulted.
We would know he had given his input because before something was announced, nobody knew what it was until he had been there and they had discussed it and agreed on whatever it was they had to agree on.

His interaction with Cabinet ministers was also very good. He was their leader. He knew a lot of things that went on before Independence.
And after Independence, he continued to specialise in various things that were unknown to the common person and this made him very useful in trouble-shooting.
Soul of the Nation

(I think he came to be known as the Soul of the Nation) because the soul is what matters in a human being.
It is the person.
He had a feeling for everybody. He was everybody, in a way. For instance, poor women in the villages claimed him as their own and he was their own. I remember in the early days when he was still healthy, we would go to meetings where people would dance and he would join in.
Very few people would have those qualities – being high up there and then coming down to a village; singing and dancing with the villager at the same level. That was remarkable.

He also loved poetry. He was basically a wise man and poetry has a lot of wisdom.
The Shona language development that took place in the early days involved committees that comprised intellectuals like Solomon Mutsvairo, Gideon Mhlanga and others.
What most people don’t know is at the heart of these meetings was Old Muzenda.
He understood what was going on about the language and took part in its development.

He could recite Mutsvairo’s “Nehanda” better than anybody I have ever heard recite it.
He was not superficial, but deep, profound. I wish we could have more people like him; a good example of a real citizen, cadre and patriot.
He was a Zimbabwean first and any other thing was only secondarily.
That’s why the first thing I did when I began working in his Office was identify a biographer for him. I feared we would lose everything in him.

◆ Interview and transcription by Morris Mkwate in Harare on September 17, 2015.