Cde Nkiwane burial date yet to be set

Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
THE family of the late national hero Cde Abraham Nkiwane has said it is yet to come up with the exact burial date of the veteran nationalist.

They agreed that the late liberation stalwart will be buried at his farm in Umguza district on the outskirts of Bulawayo.

Zanu-PF Secretary of Administration Dr Obert Mpofu said Government and the party will respect Cde Nkiwane’s wish to be buried at his farm. Traditionally national heroes are interred at the national shrine in Harare.

Cde Nkiwane (93) succumbed to prostate cancer at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) on Tuesday where he was admitted.

He was in the elite Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zpra) High Command.

Family spokesperson Pastor Fairchild Mhlophe said they are yet to finalise on the burial date although indications were that he could be buried on Sunday.

“We are yet to come up with the burial date, but the burial site is his farm and as a family we agreed to honour his wish,” he said.

Cde Nkiwane was born on January 6, 1928 in Ntabazinduna in Matabeleland North and attended the Presbyterian Church’s David Livingstone Primary School before proceeding to Thekwane Mission after which he taught at Tjehanga School from which he was expelled along with others for their demand for justice in the manner the Methodist Church was running schools.

In 1949 he was employed by the Bulawayo Municipality working in the African Department under the directorship of Dr Hugh Ashton.

In 1954 when Cde Nkiwane was reading towards a Bachelor of Commerce degree, he left for Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) at the time of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland which had been inaugurated in 1953.

Initially, he lived in Livingstone where he worked as stock controller in a company known as Rhodesia Mercantile Holdings. He worked for that company until 1960.

In 1961 Cde Nkiwane joined United National Independence Party. Soon he began to work full time for Zapu and subsequently moved to Lusaka. Not so long after that Zapu leader Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo visited Zambia specifically to solicit political support from Dr Kenneth Kaunda.

Cde Nkiwane is survived by wife, Ntombizodwa and three children — two sons and a daughter. — @mashnets