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Wallace Ruzvidzo-Herald Reporter

National Consultative Assembly member and former Mashonaland East Governor Cde Abraham Kabasa, who has been declared a National Hero, will be laid to rest on Monday.

He succumbed to cancer of the prostate which he had been battling for a long time. He was 91.

A funeral parade will be held today at Chikondoma Stadium where Mashonaland East will be given an opportunity to bid farewell to the national hero. 

Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe told The Herald last night that after consultations with the family, Cde Kabasa will now be buried on Monday. 

Minister Kazembe urged those who will attend to be in strict compliance with laid down Covid-19 regulations.

Members of the public are expected to come in their numbers to give a befitting send off to the gallant son” he said. 

The conferment of national hero status was announced by Zanu PF national chairman Cde Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri at his residence.

Cde Muchinguri-Kashiri, who is also Defence and War Veterans Affairs Minister, said there was unanimity among Zanu PF Politburo members led by President Mnangagwa that Cde Kabasa deserved to be declared a national hero.

Born on December 22, 1932, Cde Kabasa was a holder of Standard Six and a qualified State Certificate Nurse.

He trained nursing at the then Salisbury General Hospital (now a part of Sally Mugabe  Group of Hospitals) and was also a laboratory and dental technician.

Cde Kabasa worked as a nurse employed by the Ministry of Health and Child Care for 25 years and served at Marondera, Bindura, Binga and Mutoko district hospitals.

He started political activism after he was touched by the racial segregation of service conditions in the colonial Ministry of Health and the whole civil service, where he became an active member of the Nurses Association.

He was inspired by several political rallies addressed by nationalists that included Zimbabwe’s founding President, Cde Robert Mugabe, one of which was at Chipadze in Bindura in 1964, and that made him join the party.

At the height of the liberation struggle, Cde Kabasa was in charge of Makosa Rural Hospital in Mutoko where he became heavily involved in the struggle by supplying drugs to the comrades, clothes, shoes, wrist watches and money. He was also involved in mobilising people to join the liberation struggle.

The hospital was turned into a centre of communication for the sake of supplies, maize-meal and any other necessary requirements for their cooking.

Cde Kabasa was harassed by Smith’s security forces and at one time, his home was burnt down.

He was also detained for three years at Mutoko Prison, but that did not stop him from communicating with liberation fighters.

At independence, he became a Member of Parliament where he became Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees in Parliament, Chairman of the Union of Zimbabwe African Parliamentarians, and was a member of the African Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and attended several meetings abroad.

Cde Kabasa is survived by wife Miriam and 14 children.