The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporter
FORMER Lobengula-Magwegwe Member of Parliament and chairperson of the Professor Welshman Ncube-led MDC’s council of elders Fletcher Dulini Ncube who died a week ago was laid to rest yesterday at Lady Stanley Cemetery in Bulawayo.Dulini Ncube (71), who was one of the MDC founders, died on 11 September at Mater Dei Hospital in Bulawayo after a long battle with diabetes.
Relatives, friends and fellow politicians from different opposition parties thronged the Lady Stanley Cemetery to pay their last respects to the late politician.
A funeral service was held for Dulini Ncube at the Brethren in Christ Church at the corner Fort Street and Masotsha Ndlovu Avenue where speaker after speaker delivered eulogies before the opposition politician was taken to his final resting place. MDC president Prof Ncube described the late MP as a principled politician whose instinct for politics was incomparable.
“We are here not to mourn Dulini, but to celebrate his life as a politician, a father and a friend. His life has been a ritual. He was a principled man. I have worked with so many people in and out of politics and I can say without fear of contradiction that he was the most principled and equally dependable person I have ever worked with.
“He is one of the finest political minds I have known. His instinct for politics was second to none,” said Prof Ncube.
MDC renewal team leader Senator Sekai Holland described Dulini Ncube’s death as a great loss to the opposition movement.
“I worked with him for a long time and I have grown to appreciate him as a brilliant politician. The void that he has left will not be filled easily and it is such a loss to the country’s politics. Dulini was disciplined and a strict disciplinarian himself but was also very humble.
“He has left us a responsibility and we should continue with the struggle that he believed in,” she said.
Other speakers were MDC’s treasurer-general Mr Paul Themba Nyathi and Zapu’s alternate secretary-general Mr Strike Mkandla who both spoke glowingly about Dulini Ncube. Dulini Ncube is survived by his wife May, three children and four grandchildren.
He was one of the founding members of the united MDC and during the formative years of the party he held the position of treasurer-general.
When the MDC split in 2005, Dulini Ncube went with Prof Ncube and Mr Gibson Sibanda.
