MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa dismissed reports in State owned media concerning his visit to the late Joshua Nkomo’s Matsheumhlope home which has been turned into a museum.
State media reports that Chamisa claims Nkomo’s family offered him the late Vice President’s traditional sceptre (intonga) when he visited the liberation war leader’s Matsheumhlophe house. However Chamisa dismisses the reports as lies. Said Chamisa:
I also noted that there have been outright distortions, lies and spin around my visit to the Joshua Nkomo museum and my meeting with Jabulani. Yet lies have temporary legs and the truth shall be revealed in the fullness of time.
Chamisa said he was told he was the first national leader to pay homage at the Joshua Nkomo Museum. He also ordered the MDC-T led Bulawayo City Council to ensure the museum is upgraded. Said Chamisa:
…while the trip to the Dr Joshua Nkomo Museum enabled me the opportunity to shake hands with a glorious and revolutionary past.
I felt tears welling in my eyes when I was told that I was the first national leader to pay homage at the iconic Father Zimbabwe’s memorial monument in Matsheumhlope.
For me, the late Dr Joshua Nkomo will always be a source of inspiration, notwithstanding the regime’s perennial attempt to belittle and undermine his national contribution.
He will always be an undisputed national hero and I immediately ordered the Bulawayo City Council to ensure that the museum is upgraded to a level of a strategic national institution that does not have to pay rates to the local authority. The Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo museum is a strategic national heritage state that honours the life of one of Zimbabwe’s undisputed national heroes.
The Nkomo brand is a towering brand that must be accorded veneration by all of us, especially the local authority that we control. Sparing such an institution the obligation to pay rates will be the city’s own humble way of paying tribute to the mammoth and indefatigable national brand that was Joshua Nkomo.