Moyo on Dr Joshua Nkomo

05 Jul, 2014 - 23:07 0 Views
Moyo on Dr Joshua Nkomo The late Dr Joshua Nkomo

The Sunday News

The late Vice President Dr Joshua Nkomo

The late Vice President Dr Joshua Nkomo

HE was reported by the Rhodesian Press as being the first “native millionaire” and was the first transport operator to bring a diesel-powered bus to the Matabeleland region.
Prior to that, Mr Tafi Moyo was an up-and-coming black businessman in a country that was under a ruthless white minority government and had problems transporting his chickens to the city for resale as there was limited space on buses that were already crowded with passengers and their luggage.

To solve this problem, he came up with the idea to load his goods on top of the bus. One bus operator agreed to let him try out this idea which led him to Perks and Crailer, a metalwork company that was based in Bulawayo. There, he invented the bus carrier that is synonymous with all “chicken” buses in the country.

Now 108 years old, the pioneering nationalist remembers his friend, Vice President Joshua Nkomo, who died in this winter month 15 years ago.

“I met Nkomo at his father’s homestead in Semokwe Reserve. He was a grown man then, although his siblings were very young and I would give them a lift to school.

“When he left the rural areas we remained as close friends as his house in Barbourfields was near my home in Mzilikazi suburb’s O Square.
“Whenever he wanted to travel in order to attend various meetings, I gave him my vehicle and a driver who drove him. I remember one time I drove him myself to Khezi, Mbembeswana and Malaba,” Mr Moyo said during an interview at his Bulawayo home on Thursday.

Mr Moyo had the opportunity to work with Dr Nkomo right at the start of the fight for independence and saw the formation, banning and disbanding of all the political parties the late Vice President formed.

In fact, Mr Moyo and Dr Nkomo started their fight for equal rights before the formation of the country’s first political party, the African National Congress in 1949.

When Sir Raphael “Roy” Welensky who later became the second prime minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland held a meeting to drum up support for the federation, Dr Nkomo, Mr Moyo and the late Mr Charlton Cezani Ngcebetsha represented the blacks in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) as delegates to the meeting.

The three were among the first nationalists who protested against the federation of Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Southern Rhodesia.
Sir Welensky organised the conference in the 1950s to investigate the idea of a federation. It was agreed that continued pushes for amalgamation would fail, with both the British and Africans opposed to the idea.

“During the meeting at Lake Nyasa, all the delegates were asked what they thought about federation except for us. I then raised my hand and said: ‘What you are telling us is what you will do for us and not what we want. So why did you call us here. You want us (Southern Rhodesia) to be a path for Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Botswana?’ I immediately resigned from the meeting. I did not even eat their food. I bought some food and shared with the workers at the hotel.

“After the meeting, Ngcebetsha and Nkomo told me that they were in agreement with me,” a humble Mr Moyo, who does not count himself among the country’s liberators, said.

Perhaps one of his major contributions to the struggle for independence was the 330 pounds he gave Dr Nkomo as air fare to the Federation Conference in London, a meeting that eventually led to the disbandment of the federation.

He strongly believes that Dr Nkomo was an astute leader whose magnanimous character cannot be easily found. Dr Nkomo, he said, fought for basic rights which black Zimbabweans did not enjoy before taking up arms of war.

“We had no rights and we were not allowed to buy land even if we had the money. I once bought a farm in Khami and after making all the payments, the farm owner was so happy he even gave me some calves. But when I was about to move into the farm, the white regime said I was not allowed to own such fertile land. I went to Harare where I was given someone who would show me the right land for blacks. The man took me to Sedemanyemba, a place full of riversand. I was not even allowed to have a lot of cattle on the piece of land as there was a shortage of grazing space. I refused to settle there as I could keep more cattle in my rural home,” he said.

“It was events like these that would get Nkomo working. He started to mobilise the people using issues like that of land, which he was very passionate about.”

Dr Nkomo’s political works came at a price. He together with other nationalists like President Mugabe would be confined to their rural homes and eventually, prison walls.

The support services Mr Moyo gave nationalist leaders like Dr Nkomo landed him in Wha Wha, Gonakudzingwa and Marondera prisons.
“When Nkomo got detained at his brother’s homestead in Simukwe and Mugabe got detained in Zvimba, we had to come up with a plan as to how the two would continue to communicate. I then volunteered to transport letters between the two. I knew Semokwe very well and I had been to Zvimba once as a maselengwana (slave) for three years.

“Nkomo warned me about not taking this duty seriously as the Rhodesians would kill me if they caught me with the letters. The enemy eventually got wind of the fact that I was transporting letters between the two and I had to dump my typewriter, which they were using in a river to conceal the evidence,” Mr Moyo explained.

When the Rhodesian forces upped their war against freedom fighters and their leaders, Mr Moyo cheated death after having visited Dr Nkomo’s house in Zambia just before it was bombed.

Rhodesian commandos disguised as Zambian troops attacked the home of Dr Nkomo in a pre-dawn raid on 13 April 1979.
On various occasions when Dr Nkomo was imprisoned, Mr Moyo assisted his wife Johanna Nkomo (MaFuyana) and her children with groceries and moral support.

“Sometimes when I was driving from the rural areas and happened to hit some hares along the way, I would take one to my family and one to Nkomo’s family,” he said.

After independence, Dr Nkomo and Mr Moyo would take separate paths – politics and business respectively. However, they would remain close friends, brothers even, united by the marriage of their children, Dr Nkomo’s son Sibangilizwe and Moyo’s daughter, Sipiwo.
Dr Nkomo would also jokingly refer to his youngest daughter Sehlule, as Mr Moyo’s wife.

Mr Moyo, whose Try Again stores and buses have been a part of the rural Matabeleland region for a number of decades, started with chickens before selling goats. He later graduated to cattle which he drove all the way from Khezi to Bulawayo. He first bought a scotchcart before buying his first van, a Vanette.

His first bus was an Albion diesel engine.
He had four wives, MaMnkandla, MaNdlovu, MaNcube and MaDube, who are all late and 20 children with five having died over the years.

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