Online Reporter
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ZVISHAVANE-BASED academic, researcher and educator Gay Mufambi might be a humble man from the Midlands, but his passion for sharing information speaks louder than words.
Mufambi, whose work spans constitutional law, governance and youth empowerment, has more than 17 years experience in public service.
He has endeared himself with researchers eager to understand Zimbabwe’s constitutional mechanisms and matters in the national interest. The affable author has published two books — Reclaiming the Sovereign Constitution and The Land Belonged to Zimbabwe — which cement his passion for enlightening Zimbabweans on important national issues.
According to Mufambi, his first book, Reclaiming the Sovereign Constitution, is relevant because the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Act was passed into law after wide consultations. “Reclaiming the Sovereign Constitution answers the amendment’s critics with evidence, rather than slogans.
“Gay Mufambi traces Zimbabwe’s constitutional story — from precolonial governance of Great Zimbabwe and the Mali Empire’s Kurukan Fuga, through ruptures brought about by the slave trade and colonial rule, to the franchise system of Southern Rhodesia and the transition of 2017,” according to the book’s foreword. In his second book, The Land Belonged to Zimbabwe, part of the foreword clearly states:
“This book takes seriously a single sentence spoken by President Mnangagwa on stage in Dubai at the World Governments Summit, when he was pressed on whether Zimbabwe’s land reform programme amounted to racial persecution of white citizens.
“The argument in this book is not that Zimbabwe’s land reform programme was executed without fault or without economic costs.
“Those costs were real, and later the chapters examine them in detail.”
When asked what it took to work on the two books and their demanding subjects, Mufambi said:
“Each book took me several months of concentrated work, running largely in parallel. Reclaiming the Sovereign Constitution moved quickly because I was tracking the Amendment No. 3 Bill as it progressed to enactment, starting from 18 February 2026, while The Land Belonged to Zimbabwe took longer, about 12 months, given the depth of historical and archival research it demanded.
“Then, after the World Governments Summit in Dubai in 2026, I connected my land history with the statement of the President.”
He conceded that writing the two books took a lot of sacrifice.
“It was demanding but deeply fulfilling. Constitutional law and land history are heavy subjects that require both scholarly discipline and conviction, so the work stretched me. But there is a real satisfaction in putting on record, in a clear and accessible way, matters that shape the destiny of our nation.”
Sharing his inspiration for writing the two books on national issues, he added:
“As a civic education trainer and development practitioner, I meet many Zimbabweans who care about the Constitution and the land but lack accessible, well-reasoned material to understand them. I wanted to fill that gap, to give our people a patriotic yet rigorous account of why our sovereignty, our Constitution and our land matter.” He also revealed that time management was key to the production of the two books.
“It came down to discipline and sacrifice, mostly early mornings and late nights carved out around my duties and my family.
“I am blessed with an understanding family that supported the vision, and I treated the writing as national service rather than a personal indulgence, which kept me focused.”
