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Cde Msipa

Freedom Mupanedemo Syndication Writer

A DARK cloud hung over Zimbabwe this week following the passing on of veteran nationalist and former Midlands Province Governor Cde Cephas George Msipa who died at the age of 85.The veteran politician and national hero succumbed to pneumonia. May his soul rest in eternal peace!

My first contact with Cde Msipa was in 2007.

I had joined Chronicle as an intern from the Midlands State University and was posted to Gweru. On my first day in the newsroom, the then Midlands Bureau Chief, Kamangeni Phiri aka Kama, assigned me to cover Cde Msipa’s function where he was guest of honour in Zvishavane.

I found myself being picked up by the Governor in his Mercedes Benz.

For a boy who had grown up tethering goats, herding cattle and boarding donkey-drawn carts in Mberengwa, it was a rare experience to sit side-by-side with him in his elegant vehicle for over 100km.

Before embarking on this excursion, Kama briefed me about Cde Msipa, his humility, love for the media, how he read every sentence of a story in which he was quoted and how he loathed being misquoted by the same.

But I was even to unravel the character Msipa more.

When his driver stopped in front of our office, Cde Msipa disembarked from his Mercedes Benz and with a relaxed step, entered our newsroom.

“Ah ko, ndiri kuinda nani Phiri, ndanonoka zvisingaiti! (Who is accompanying me, we are very late?)” This was his first question to Kama. Knowing how punctual and conscious about time he was, Kama quickly introduced him to me before we set off for Zvishavane. My heart pumped fast and I could almost feel it try to escape through my throat.

The journey was quite an expedition, seated side-by-side with a Governor, a senior and respected politician. I stashed myself in the far right corner of the seat, trying to make myself invisible.

But as the Mercedes Benz hissed, puffed, negotiating bends burying one rustic settlement after the other, I began to relax with Cde Msipa turning out to be a very humble man and good storyteller.

I could see he sensed my discomfiture and started conversations on social issues, initiating involvement in all the interactions that he had with his favoured driver, Ben and aide, Dingane. The journey turned out to be very short.

After the function, at which he announced to the drought-stricken Zvishavane villagers that Government was to reintroduce the food-for-work programme, the first question that Cde Msipa asked me was, “Freedom, did I talk sense?”

Being a cub reporter, I had no clue as to what constituted sense to make a good story from what he had just said but confidently I replied, “Yes! Much sense Governor!”

And with valued assistance from Kama, the Chronicle issue of the following morning had a lead story of Cde Msipa, accompanied by his picture.

A very punctual man by nature, Cde Msipa was already in his office at the New Government Complex by 8am that following morning and having already read the newspaper, he called our newsroom direct line to speak to Kama.

After sometime, he asked to speak to me and it was that story, that call that made us become a rare breed of friends. Friends of a monumental age difference.

I got along very well with Cde Msipa to the extent that at some point, my colleagues became jealous of the closeness.

For years, we trudged and straddled the length and breadth of the Midlands together. I enjoyed it.

Mkhululi Sibanda, the then news editor of Chronicle, at one point called me and asked if I had become a “Cde Msipa reporter”?

Then one morning Cde Msipa called me to his office where he presented me with a Net-One mobile line, the line that changed my world when I first went mobile.

Then, a mobile line was going for between $1 000 and $1 500 ( Zimdollars).

Cde Msipa said the mobile line was to enhance my communication with him as a reporter as the country was about to enter the campaign season for the 2008 harmonised elections.

During weekends, Cde Msipa would invite me to accompany him to his rural home in Zvishavane or his farm on the outskirts of Gweru.

After completing my attachment our friendship did not end, but was even cemented further when I returned to Chronicle as a sit-in correspondent.

He was later to retire as Governor and from active politics but we continued interacting almost on a daily basis.

As a respected figure and a humble man, he continued to be invited to Government functions even while on retirement. I recall occasions when he would call and ask me to drive him to some function or another.

My friendship with Cde Msipa grew to a point where he overrated me. While writing his book “In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice”, which he largely dictated to his personal assistant Primrose, he wanted me to edit it first but I excused myself, advising him to give it to my boss Kama.

Kama edited a few chapters before we later advised him to look for a person in the academic field to assist him in writing the book.

When he later approached Midlands State University lecturer, Dr Hazel Ngoshi to edit his book, he asked me about her credentials and I told him that she was my former lecturer, intelligent and the best person for the job. She did not disappoint.

But like in any other friendship, at times fall-outs occur. I recall having a fallout with Cde Msipa after he accused me of misquoting him in one story I had written about him.

He fumed over the phone and thought he would not want to talk to me again. But a few days later, he called me from his mobile and was struck, thinking it was a follow up to further vent his anger.

Shockingly, the call was just the usual friendly call to just say “Wamuka sei? Ndine mukaka wandabva nawo kupurazi…” (Good morning. I have fresh milk for you from my farm!).

In 2014, I moved to Harare after Zimtravel Editor, Isdore Guvamombe, offered me a permanent job.

My communication with this veteran politician was not lost, though.

He invited me to his 85th birthday party by phone call. He put me in the media committee together with ZBC Midlands Bureau Chief, Jackie Gwemende to mobilise journalists for the event.

He was about six decades older than me but to him, age was just but a number.

Go well Cde, may your soul rest in eternal peace!