adminSaul Gwakuba Ndlovu
ON 4 August 2009, one of the founding fathers of the sovereign State of Zimbabwe, Cde Joseph Bruno Msika, passed away after a long illness. He was one of the country’s two vice-presidents at the time of his death, and was 86 years old.
Cde Msika had been activiely involved in the national liberation struggle from the mid-1950s when he joined Joshua Nkomo who had taken the presidency of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) from the Rev. T.D Samkange.
Cde Msika was born in a part of Manicaland Province known at that time as Gazaland. His father, a man of Shangaan origin, moved to the Chiweshe region of Mashonaland Central Province to work for the Salvation Army’s Howard Mission when his son, Joseph, was a little boy.
He grew up and attended school at Howard Mission where he qualified as a teacher. From Howard Mission, he went to teach at another Salvation Army School, Usher Institute, in what was then called the Bulilima-Magwe District in today’s Matabeleland South Province.
It was at Usher Institute that he taught the likes of Aaron G.D Ndlovu, a prominent trade unionist and unyielding freedom fighter. It was also at Usher Institute that he met Maria Dzinngilani Mathumo Nkomo (formerly Tjuma) whom he later married.
Mrs Msika is alive but bed-ridden and lives with her daughter-in-law, Mabel, and grandchildren in Harare.
After a few years at Usher, Msika quit teaching and joined the textile industry in Bulawayo.
He soon became a part of the leadership of the black trade union movement representing, first the Bulawayo textile factory workers but, later, those of the whole country, Southern Rhodesia.
At that time, Bulawayo’s black population was split more or less into about four socio-economic interest groups. One group comprised people whose social and cultural interests were largely in the rural areas where displacement of black communities and seizure of land by white people was the order of the day. Those people looked to Benjamin Burombo for guidance.
The second group was made up of people who looked at their employment in the city as the source of their livelihood and security. Trade union leaders such as Joseph Bruno Msika and Jason “Ziyapapa” Moyo were their leaders and source of hope. J.Z Moyo led black artisans.
The city’s black community was in the early 1940s and early 1950s not as culturally transformed as it is now. The Shona-speaking people belonged to what was called the Mashonaland Cultural Club and its leader was Joseph Bruno Msika.
J.Z Moyo formed and led the Bakalanga Mukani Kwayedza Association. The Nguni community had the Matebele Home Society, which was, to all intents and purposes, a third grouping,
Those from Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) and Mozambique formed their own cultural clubs, a forth grouping in effect.
That was the lie of Bulawayo’s socio-cultural landscape when Joseph Bruno Msika came onto the scene in the city. And that was the situation when Joshua Nkomo got politically involved in the early 1950s.
Cde Msika saw the advantages of national unity as advocated by Nkomo, and became his staunch supporter. We see him going to Salisbury with Nkomo, Edward Silonda Ndlovu, J.Z Moyo, Francis Newhati, Grey Mabhabane Bhango and one or two others in September for a conference that brought the Southern Rhodesia National Youth League (formerly called City Youth League) into the SRANC with Nkomo as the president on 12 September 1957.
Cde Msika became the secretary for the youth following a proposal by the Rev Ndabaningi Sithole who said that it was necessary to guide and control the youth at national executive level.
From that time onwards, Cde Msika never faltered. He upheld the traditional pan-Africanist war-cry: Forward ever! Backward never!
And behind him stood his wife, Amai Msika, who scratched here and there, high and low to keep the family afloat as Cde Msika went in and out of prison. She stood solidly behind her gallant husband as he was detained, first, when the SRANC was banned in February 1959, and second, when the National Democratic Party (NDP) was outlawed in 1961, and finally, when the People’s Caretaker Council (PCC) was also declared an unlawful organisation and Cde Msika was dumped at Gonakudzingwa where he spent almost 11 years.
Cde Msika was a very rare type of patriot in that he was loyal to his successive political parties as well as to their respective leadership. He was an asset to both the party prosecuting the revolution, and to Joshua Nkomo, the topmost leader of those successive organisation.
We can say quite confidently that Cde Msika was one of the architects of Zimbabwe, and that without his active contribution, the Bulawayo black community could have been split into Shona-Ndebele groupings, a possibility that could have seriously weakened the African cause in this country.
He ended up as the secretary-general of the Patriotic Front — Zapu just before Zimbabwe achieved independence on 18 April 1980.
Little wonder that he was appointed to the country’s first cabinet following Zimbabwe’s attainment of nationhood. It is also little wonder that he eventually became the country’s second most highest authority, a position he earned through his patriotic commitment principled perseverance and relentless courage.
n Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo- based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734328136 or through email [email protected]
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