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MARITAL BLISS . . . Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Oppah Muchinguri and her husband Bishop Anthony Kashiri

Manicaland Bureau— 
IT is now official. Zanu-PF Politburo member and Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Oppah Muchinguri is now customarily married to a Pentecostal clergyman, Bishop Anthony Kashiri, making her “Mai Mufundisi”. The two are believed to have dated for some time, but did all they could to keep the relationship under wraps to avoid unnecessary publicity.

Cde Muchinguri flaunted her new-found love around in public last Thursday at Mutare Polytechnic during the Provincial Co-ordinating Committee meeting at Headlands Hall where thousands of Zanu-PF supporters from Headlands Constituency had converged to petition the party leadership to expel their representative in the National Assembly, Cde Didymus Mutasa, from the party and august House.

Cde Muchinguri confirmed Bishop Kashiri as the apple of her eye.

“Where is he? My better half, where are you? Oh, there he is! This is my husband, and we are happily married,” said Cde Muchinguri, to wild ululation and whistling from the crowd.

“I am now Amai Kashiri,” she added. “You continue to refer to me as Amai Muchinguri because probably you did not know that I am now married.

“I am now Amai Kashiri,” she said with a broad smile.

The couple posed briefly for a photo-shoot from journalists.

“We have all along been keeping a low-profile as we tried to avoid paparazzi. You know what they do and are capable of,” she said, referring to journalists’ nose for news.

Sources told our Manicaland Bureau that a wedding was on the cards for the Cabinet minister following the conclusion of customary proceedings between the two families recently.

Bishop Kashiri was in the United States for years.

Cde Muchinguri was previously married to Botswana-based trader Mr Tapiwa Rushesha and their marriage ended in the late 1990s whereupon she reverted to her family name — Muchinguri.