BULAWAYO – The Zimbabwe government financed the late ZAPU leader Dumiso Dabengwa’s medical flight to India, Vice President Kembo Mohadi said on Thursday.
Dabengwa died aged 79 in Nairobi, Kenya, while returning from New Delhi where he was being treated for liver disease.
Mohadi said they had contemplated sending a private jet to bring him home after medical staff and commercial airlines expressed concern that he was too weak to travel.
The Vice President did not say why the plan was abandoned and Dabengwa was put on a commercial airline, before his health deteriorated while transiting through the Kenyan capital.
“Well, there’s a lot to say (about Dabengwa), but I won’t say it today because he was actually my commander, and by the way I spoke to him two days ago, whilst he was still in India,” Mohadi told reporters after a meeting with chiefs from Matabeleland North.
“We’ve been communicating with him and when he was not feeling well, we as government actually called him to State House and decided to take him to India. We took him to India and we’re still going to bring him back (from Kenya).
“The last time I spoke to him it was Tuesday. I spoke to MaKhumalo (his wife) yesterday again and she said he was weak, he could not talk so I would have spoken to him. We’ve been communicating, whatever happened it’s government that did it.
“I will tell you more about him in the days ahead.”
Mohadi added: “We were in the process of trying to send a private plane to go pick him up because the commercial planes were saying he was too weak to be flown in a commercial flight. We look after our friends and comrades, that he was ZAPU president doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean that we never worked together. We worked together, he’s a comrade, so we recognise each other.”
