Self-exiled former Manicaland Minister of State for Provincial Affairs Mandiitawepi Chimene on Thursday said that she is ready to come back home, claiming she is “on holiday” in Mozambique.
Chimene reportedly met President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was the guest of honour at the commissioning of the newly rehabilitated Beira-Machipanda railway line.
She pushed for the meeting with Mnangagwa through some senior Mozambican government officials.
Speaking to The Herald, Chimene, who was in China during the November 2017 military coup, said:
I am on holiday; I am coming… Give me another two years; I would have rested enough.
I will be honest to Zimbabweans because people have got a misconception about my being away from home.
Firstly, I wasn’t chased away; secondly, I never committed any crime and thirdly, I am not fighting anyone.
I was not at home when the changes took place — I was in China. So, when I was to come back home I was at the airport, there were alarmists who were saying the airport back home was overrun by soldiers and I was going to be apprehended upon arrival.
I had a reason to panic, so I just changed my destination. It was not my plan.
Chimene said on her way back from China, she opted to drop off in Zambia, before proceeding to Mozambique, where she is currently living. She added:
I am here not because I am a refugee; I am not a refugee.
She also described Mnangagwa as “my father” and a hard worker.
Chimene, Jonathan Moyo, Walter Mzembi, Saviour Kasukuwere, and Patrick Zhuwao are some of the former G40 kingpins who have been in self-imposed exile since the coup.
Commenting on a video clip of Chimene speaking to The Herald posted on X, political commentator Brighton Mutebuka said:
Life is pregnant with such lessons! This is the aftermath of power shifting decisively. Here is Chimene, the former Manicaland Min of State for Provincial Affairs under the late Pres Robert Mugabe.
She fled soon after the coup because she was terrified of being physically harmed. Here she is just being diplomatic.
She laughs nervously & politely & bats away uncomfortable questions. You can tell that she knows the danger is still there.
She says she is still helping with farming! 6 years later? She is obviously longing for home. She has sent a signal to ED via Mozambican President, Nyusi.
The waters have been tested via this meeting. Her answer shows she is not sure as ED perhaps showed her a poker face & was inscrutable.
They would have spoken about the weather & exchanged a few meaningless pleasantries. It’s obviously a lie that she was neutral at the height of the succession battles.
She was decisively anti-Lacoste & made some very unwise public utterances that are very difficult to recoil from, the same as some triumphant Lacoste characters are currently lording over others in Vene’s Kingdom!
Mankind never learns. It always ends this way. In her world which is now a lifetime away, it was inconceivable that her life would end up upended this way!
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