The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE nation has been urged not to forget the lessons left by the late Vice President of Zimbabwe Dr Joshua Nkomo and continue to foster unity, peace, love and harmony.
Dr Nkomo died on 1 July 1999 and was buried at the National Heroes Acre in Harare. Speaking to journalists after the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) 148th Recruit Correctional Officers’ pass-out parade held at the Ntabazinduna Prisons and Correctional Service Training School in Matabeleland North, last Saturday, President Mnangagwa said as the country commemorates the 22nd year since the passing on of Father Zimbabwe there was a need to continually remember his legacy.
He said even at a time when the late Vice President was sick, he had continued to preach the gospel of unity to the nation.
“Yes, indeed, our Father Zimbabwe, one of our founding fathers of the independence of this country, the late Vice President Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo’s anniversary is on 1 July but most importantly the message which he left us, which we would also wish to leave the nation of Zimbabwe is unity, unity, love, love and harmony.
“Further, above all these is our land, he said thousands and thousands of our young sons and daughters perished because we wanted our land to unite with its people and people to unite with their land, that was the message,” said the President.
President Mnangagwa said there was a need for all generations in the country to take a leaf from the country’s founding fathers like Dr Nkomo to further the goals and attributions of the nation.
“I remember when he was feeling very ill making this statement to the late President Mugabe that if I go Comrade, I want unity, keep our land, give it to our people, that was the message. It was valid then, it is valid today, it is valid in the future. That is how we must remember our founding father Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo,” he said.
Speaking after assessing progress at the rehabilitation of the Old Bulawayo National Monument, Dr Jorum Gumbo said his memory of Dr Nkomo was of a humble gentleman who sacrifice all just for the love of Zimbabwe.
“My early memory of Dr Nkomo was that in the 1970s in Mkoba (Gweru) he would come and have meetings, where we had the late Cde Lot Dhewa, Cde Neville Magazagwa, who were later taken to Gonakudzingwa restriction camp together. We will be the boys guarding the house, to say whether there will be whites coming.
“I know pretty well the history of Dr Nkomo and what he believed in. He believed in unity, freedom of our people, he was such a person who was so clear minded about what he visualized about our country and the unity of our people,” said Dr Gumbo.
He said it was Dr Nkomo’s vision for the country that had inspired most of them to actively participate in the armed struggle, which led to the country’s independence in 1980.
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