Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) leader Mqondisi Moyo has castigated a ZANU PF-affiliated group, Masvikiro4ED, for making a banner that portrayed Ndebele kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula as spirit mediums.
Masvikiro4ED placed images of the two pre-colonial Ndebele kings beside Shona religious figures Sekuru Kaguvi and Mbuya Nehanda in a banner with inscriptions “Amadlozi Elizwe, Spirit Mediums For ED”.
Speaking to ZimLive, Moyo criticised President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Masvikiro4ED for allegedly misrepresenting historical facts. Said Moyo:
Kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula are revered among the Mthwakazi people.
Reducing them to being associated with Mnangagwa is an insult of the highest order. Mnangagwa’s Amadlozi (ancestors) are Kaguvi and Nehanda, the spirit mediums.
Mnangagwa cannot, and no one can claim for him, a spiritual relationship with Mzilikazi and Lobengula.
I urge the people who made the banner and Mnangagwa himself to shun reducing our departed heroes to nonentities.
Kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula were not spirit mediums. They were real, true fighters.
They were physical military men, commanders who physically trained armies that challenged colonialism in an unprecedented manner.
Hands off our ancestors. They are sacred.
Founded in 2014, MRP has been described as both secessionist and restorationist, seeking to restore the Mthwakazi kingdom.
The party advocates for the creation of a separate Ndebele state which it claims initially lost its independence in 1893 to the British South African Company.
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