The ouster of late Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe which subsequently paved the way for the dramatic ascendency of his long-time understudy and incumbent president Emmerson Mnangagwa four years ago, started way back in 2008 and eased sometime in the year 2013, a serving cabinet minister has sensationally revealed.

the good old days… Mugabe and longtime understudy Mnangagwa

Addressing Zanu PF delegates Friday afternoon during the ruling party’s Kwekwe district coordinating committee (DCC) induction workshop in the Midlands mining town, Local Government  July Moyo revealed that, for five years since 2008, meetings were held in Harare to strategize on the ascendancy of Mnangagwa.

A traditional ally of the current Zimbabwe leader,  Minister Moyo said he, and his state security counterpart Owen ‘Mudha’ Ncube had to travel to Harare from Kwekwe every Tuesday to meet the septuagenarian who was perennially tipped to replace Mugabe whose iron fisted reign lasted for 37 years.

The then dreaded tyrant was humiliatingly toppled by the military which eventually sided with Mnangagwa who exiled to neighboring South Africa amid boiling political tensions, back home.

“These DCCs were there  before and if you would ask him (Minister Ncube); we used to travel to Harare every week, Tuesdays. We could have perhaps missed one or maybe two of those Tuesdays, I hardly remember,” said Moyo.

Minister July Moyo

Added the local government minister:

“At that  time,  we were fighting for His Excellency (Mnangagwa) and as Zanu PF, our Esigodini conference made a resolution that he is our presidential candidate in the next elections”.

Otherwise known as the Midlands Godfather in local politics, Mnangagwa, who also hails from Kwekwe was long tipped to replace his liberation war master.

But, in dramatic fashion,  roundabout the year 2015, a rival faction led by Mugabe’s motor-mouth wife  Grace launched a vicious fightback against Mnangagwa’s succession aspirations.

Apart from Grace, exiled former Science and Technology Development minister Jonathan Moyo, then local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere and Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao were some of the leading ruling party figures who coalesced to form the anti-Mnangagwa Generation 40 cabal.

Zwnews