Chronicle Editor
Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE upcoming Highlanders FC elections for the posts of vice-chairman and treasurer present the club with an opportunity to mend divisions emanating from the last polls.
Last year’s elections for the chairman, committee member and secretary-general left deep divisions that the club is still struggling to mend.
The extent of the divisions was so immense that an irked Bulawayo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Judith Ncube challenged the Highlanders’ family to unite and work for the good of the club and save the institution from collapsing.
In an exclusive interview with Chronicle Sport, former Bosso chief executive officer Nhlanhla Dube, whose contract ended on December 31, said he desires to see a Highlanders that works consistently and persistently for oneness.
“I long for a Highlanders that understands that when there’s a contest for office it’s competition, we should contest fairly and honestly with credibility.
After all, elections come and go because elections have been at Highlanders for a very long time.
I think what we should focus on is the institution and to find unity and understand that at any given point, there can only be one person that wins a competition in an election.
When that is said and done, we should focus on making the institution successful through that person we’ve elected.
“I think that remaining encamped in different groupings that existed for the purposes of the election contest is unhelpful. We should understand that when we say at Highlanders we are one, it’s exactly that.
When all is said and done, we want the club to win.
No one celebrates and jumps up and down when it doesn’t win.
You can’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” said Dube.
He said there is a need for a robust and deliberate activity to unite the club and understand that elections come and go.
“Yes, elections are divisive by nurture, but we should find a way of overcoming that.
A clever institution is the one that finds a way of dealing with finding togetherness past elections.
What remains supreme is the club, that the club must survive, the club must succeed.
“But also, it’s incumbent on all of us who are leaders of the club at one point or another to understand the burden of leadership.
The burden of leadership is such that we don’t belong to anybody, we belong to the club.
Once we get into leadership, we belong to everybody, those that elected us, those that didn’t elect us at the time of contest.
We cease to have any opinions that are ascribed to ourselves, we only speak an opinion that represents the club,” Dube said.
Zifa Southern Region board member for competitions Fiso Siziba and socialite Babongile Skhonjwa have expressed interest in filling the Bosso vice-chairman’s post that is being vacated by Modern Ngwenya, who has served his mandated term.
Busani Mthombeni, the Highlanders South Africa Supporters’ Chapter treasurer with business interests in South Africa and Zimbabwe, is vying for the treasurer’s position presently held by Donald Ndebele, who has served two terms.
– @ZililoR
Online Reporter