Farirayi Kahwemba
A Kenyan academic has uncovered a link between the late academic professor Micere Mugo, who died recently, with Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe.
Mugo, who was celebrated in Zimbabwe and globally for her contribution to literature and politics, died on 30 June aged 81.
In an iconoclastic piece published in The Nation, academic Henry Indangasi, who worked with Mugo,
reveals sordid details about the latter from her academic accomplishments t0 personal life, which
saw her live in Zimbabwe, impliedly because of an illicit relationship with Mugabe.
Mugo was a professor at the University of Zimbabwe from 1984 to 1992.
“Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, with Mugabe as prime minister and later as president. I have every reason to believe Micere and the Zimbabwe leader kept in touch, because years later, we were told the Kenyan academic had moved to the southern African country,” writes Indangasi, Emeritus Professor of Literature at the University of Nairobi and contemporary of Mugo.
Indangasi says he and Mugo first met Mugabe and his other Zanu PF colleagues in 1978 when they visited
Nairobi to seek support for the liberation struggle that was raging in the then Rhodesia.
“On the sidelines, Mugabe asked to meet the so-called progressive academics,” Indangasi says, explaining how they
go to meet with the late Zimbabwean leader.
Indangasi reveals how the late Zimbabwean leader eventually offered a ministerial job to Mugo
by urging her to first renounce her Kenyan citizenship.
“The next thing we heard was that the president had offered her a top job in the ministry of education as the one in charge of curriculum development. But this offer was conditional: she had to renounce her Kenyan citizenship
and become a Zimbabwean,” Indangasi continues.
“In those days, our constitution did not allow for dual citizenship… “Those who have claimed that the Moi administration robbed Micere of her citizenship clearly do not know what they were talking about and are too lazy to research.