President Emmerson Mnangagwa has warned opposition activists pushing for the creation of a breakaway state in southwestern Zimbabwe that their lives will be shortened.
Mnangagwa reiterated that Zimbabwe would remain a unitary state as recognised by the United Nations Organisation.
Addressing ZANU PF supporters at a campaign rally in Chitungwiza on Wednesday, Mnangagwa singled out the Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP), a small secessionist political party based in Matabeleland.
MRP is campaigning for the creation of the Mthwakazi Republic covering parts of the Midlands and all of the Matabeleland provinces. Mnangagwa insisted that will not happen. He said:
There are some who, after eating beans, they overestimate their influence, groups like Mthwakazi.
They want Zimbabwe to be divided in the middle, and the other part becomes Mthwakazi Republic.
They will talk and talk until they’re old and dead and Zimbabwe will be here still as a unitary state. No one will divide this country.
They must be quiet and work with the government of the day and thrive because if they keep doing what they’re doing, there’s no country in this world that will support secession.
The United Nations recognises us as we are, no one will divide us into small states.
You’ll be looking to shorten your life. You must walk a path that prolongs your life.
MRP, led by Mqondisi Moyo, is a fringe political party operating largely in Bulawayo and the two Matabeleland provinces.
It participated in the 2018 elections but failed to win a single Ward, let alone a parliamentary seat.
MPR wants to establish a breakaway State whose boundaries correspond to those of the Ndebele kingdom of Mthwakazi founded in south-western Zimbabwe by King Mzilikazi in the 19th century.