Joice Mujuru's 'letter' to Oppah Muchinguri on Josiah Tongogara's death

35 years after Guerrila Forces boss, Josiah Tongogara, was killed in an accident on his way to Mozambique with Ms Muchinguri who was in the same car, Zimbabweans have continued to query why she allegedly came out of the ordeal without a single scratch in the same tragedy which instantly killed the freedom fighter.

Dear Oppah,
Napoleon Bonaparte once said “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”, thats why I kept quiet when you and Grace were busy attacking me at your rallies. As fools I was giving you enough rope so that you can hang yourselves. Now that you are in a fix let me respond to some of the accusations you made against me. I say “you” because im reliably informed that most of the things Grace said about me came from you. I have already written to her giving her my piece of mind. You may have seen the letter after it was leaked and went viral on the social network.

Perhaps I should start by telling you that I was shocked that you were so naive to think that you could solve our party problems by hiring Grace to join politics. So you thought since Grace slept (past tense) with the President she somehow acquired some of his presidential powers and that you could use those powers against me? If power could be transmitted through sex, Im sure you would be one of the most powerful women in Zimbabwe yourself since you also used to sleep with Mugabe. You should by now know that there is nothing special about being First Lady or sharing the bed with the head of state. Furthermore when you were telling lies about me you conveniently chose to forget that all of us have skeletons in our closets. But unlike Grace I will not use beer-hall language to respond to your accusations. You should both have taken her advice when she said people who live in glass houses should never throw stones at others. How dare you give Grace wrong information about me when you could easily tell the truth? Is it because you are afraid of the truth? Or perhaps you are afraid that if the truth is said about you people will know that you were complicit in the death of Cde Tongogara on 26 December 1979? That you are the one who carried out Mugabe’s instruction to hide the letter sent to him by our military intelligence on 22 December, a letter that could have convinced him to travel by air and not by road where he was ambushed and murdered on his way from Mozambique. And were you not part of the convoy yet you survived the ambush and later lied about the circumstances of his death? Did you not later tell the commission enquiring about Cde Tongogara’s death that you hid the letter from him because he had raped you the night before? And then you want to talk about my corruption when you have such skeletons in your closet? Besides is Grace not the queen of corruption in Zimbabwe? But then birds of a feather always flock together. You have the blood of Cde Tongo on your head and she has that of Peter Pamire who had to die to hide her adultery with him.

Grace accuses me of harbouring presidential ambitions as if its a crime to aspire to be president. I would rather aspire and work to be the president of Zimbabwe than change men like sanitary pads or pretend to fall in love just so I can be First Lady. Better still, I would never use a default position like that of First Lady to settle personal scores with perceived enemies, never. More so when I have contributed nothing towards getting him into the presidential seat. So tell her to stop attacking me for dreaming bigger than being just a president’s wife. You must also tell her that her accusation of incompetence against me will not stick. I work under the instruction of her husband and that as vice president can never do anything that will overshadow my boss. This means by accusing me of being incompetent Grace is telling the world that her husband is incompetent. Furthermore if the President is not happy with my performance as vice president its not up to his wife to warn or fire me. But, as I said, you have been very naive to think Grace can talk about party business when she is just a card carrying grassroot member of the party. Thats why the Politburo asked you and not Grace for a report about your silly shenanigans. I thought you were smarter than that Oppah. Evidently I was wrong about you.

On the issue of diamonds and corruption which you made Grace parrot about, let me educate you a bit. When diamonds were discovered in Chiadzwa my husband, like everyone else in the party also told the President that he wanted a share. Dont pretend as if you dont know how things are done in the party, that one’s share of the cake depends on how much the President is willing to give. My husband got permission from the president to form a diamond mining company and to get a concession. So we formed ACR (Pvt) Ltd, the President had Mbada, Grace formed DMC, the army formed Anjin with the Chinese, Chihuri and the police formed Gayaye, Bonyongwe and the CIO formed Kusema and the government formed Marange Resources. All these companies were given permission to mine diamonds in Marange but at that time no one had neither the money nor the expertise to mine diamonds. Others formed partnerships with those who had the necessary resources. Solomon and I also failed to get money to start the operation but we got a lucky break when we discovered that the area that we had been given to mine was richer than the areas given to others. Our problems started when Grace got wind that the Mujuru area was easier to mine and that it was producing diamonds of better quality. As has become her MO, Grace got the President to ask Solomon to surrender our concession for another one. My husband refused and the rest is history. So Grace cannot tell me about corruption when my husband was fried alive for refusing to surrender our claim. She must not attempt to paint herself in white when everything about her is as black as the darkest night.
NOTE... this could be true or just one of those humourous pieces with a tinge of pain to it.