THE government will move to erect two statues of the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo in Harare and Bulawayo after his family lifted their objections, Zanu PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo announced.
The Bulawayo statue was erected at the intersection of Main Street and 8th Avenue on August 13 last year, and remained covered in a black cloth until unveiling on September 15, but it was taken down almost immediately after his family said it was “small and pitiful”.
The family also objected to the citing of the Harare statue at Karigamombe Centre. Karigamobe is a Shona word for “he who fells the bull by its horns” – a metaphor which the family said was a “mockery and insult” to Nkomo’s ZAPU party which used a charging bull as its symbol.
In the face of unexpected opposition, Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi, who led the project, ordered that the statues be withdrawn and handed over to the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.
But now the statues are set to be dusted off and re-erected – the Harare statue possibly going to a new site, not least because the Mining Industry Pension Fund which owns the Karigamombe Centre has obtained a court order preventing the statue from being put up on its property.
Gumbo told a meeting of Zanu PF’s politburo on Wednesday that Nkomo’s family has had a change of heart over the US$600,000 bronze statues designed by a North Korean company which also crafted the National Heroes Acre murals.
Gumbo said: “We were briefed about the position taken by the Nkomo family to withdraw their objections on the erection of the Nkomo statues in Bulawayo and Harare.”
A source who attended the politburo meeting said Nkomo’s family, through the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Foundation, had written to Mohadi as early as last year saying there had been a “misunderstanding”.
“The Foundation’s chairman Francis Nhema co-signed the letter together with Nkomo’s daughter Thandiwe,” the source said.
Mohadi, New Zimbabwe.com understands, insisted that the family apologise over the fuss they had caused, which they did.
“Essentially, the family have lifted all their objections on one condition: that the platform on which the statue rests must be raised,” the source added.
The Bulawayo staue had been mounted on a 1,2 metre high pedestal.
Mohadi informed the Zanu PF politburo that the Bulawayo statue would go up first, certainly before July 1 when the family marks the 12th anniversary of the nationalist’s death.
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Going up again ... Joshua Nkomo's statue