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Tekere was bound to happen despite the fact that he was once expelled from the party, Vice President John Nkomo said yesterday.
He said the Zanu-PF Politburo, the party’s supreme decision-making body, could not decide otherwise as Cde Tekere deserved to be accorded national hero status owing to his contribution to the liberation struggle.
The Vice President said this while addressing mourners at the National Heroes Acre during the burial of Cde Tekere who died last Tuesday at Murambi Gardens Clinic in Mutare.
He said there was a lot of anxiety from many people on what hero status was going to be accorded to the firebrand leader when news of his demise filtered through.
“The question uppermost in the minds of many people was how Zanu-PF was going to react to his death since at one stage he had been expelled from the party. Between Tuesday and Thursday the nation waited with bated breath to hear what the party was going to say,” said the Vice President Nkomo.
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“The nation sighed with deep relief when he was declared a national hero and there was jubilation and celebration on everyone’s lips as many recalled and recounted the story of Edgar Tekere’s illustrious life throughout the liberation struggle and post independence. He deserved to be a national hero, he was the people’s hero, an icon of the liberation struggle.”
Cde Nkomo said those among them who worked closely with him would bear testimony of the great heroic deeds he accomplished for Zimbabwe during his youthful days.
“How could Zanu-PF have been expected to decide or think otherwise? The history of the struggle for the independence of Zimbabwe cannot be written without recognising the sacrifice, dedication and lifelong commitment that characterised the life of Cde Edgar Tekere and his fellow freedom fighters,” he said.
Zanu-PF, said Cde Nkomo, knew who Cde Tekere was in spite of everything else that might have gone wrong in the later part of his life.
“He did not at any stage turn his back on the revolution of this country like some among us who have treacherously betrayed the nation by going to bed with the enemy and endeavouring to reverse the gains of our liberation,” he said.
“Not so with the late Cde Edgar Tekere. He was an honest and straightforward politician who was not greedy, not corrupt but one who valued and respected the fruits of his work.” The Vice President narrated Cde Tekere’s political history from his school days at St Augustines Mission where he cut short his teacher training programme after getting fed up with the untenable political situation around him. He also narrated his post-independence contribution right up to the time of his expulsion from Zanu-PF, formed the Zimbabwe Unity Movement to contest the 1990 Presidential election which he lost to President Mugabe. The national hero, said Cde Nkomo, then disappeared from active politics for a while and re-emerged in 2005 when he expressed his strong desire to contest Senate elections on a Zanu-PF ticket before he was readmitted in Zanu-PF in 2006.
“While Cde Tekere went through a bad patch of his political career, he remained most modest, an unsung hero. There are others like him, men and women who moved our struggle and made tremendous sacrifices for our independence, but who remain in the background, unnoticed,” said the Acting President.
Cde Tekere was born on April 1 1937 in Nyang’ombe village South West of Rusape.
He started participating in politics at an early age while at St Augustine Mission School. The national hero was subsequently arrested and detained at several prisons such as Wha Wha, Salisbury maximum security prison, Connemara prison among others together with other luminaries such as President Mugabe, Cdes Simon Muzenda, Crispen Mandizvidza among others.
In 1975, Cde Tekere accompanied President Mugabe to Mozambique on a party assignment to prosecute the armed struggle from the country. On the diplomatic front, Cde Tekere undertook several errands on behalf of the party to foreign countries mobilising both material and moral support for the liberation struggle.
At independence, he was appointed Manpower Planning and Development Minister whose task was to look at the levels of skills in the country, particularly the civil service which was predominantly white.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter