HARARE – Prominent opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists Job Sikhala and Jacob Ngarivhume have vowed to lead citizen protests against high level corruption and bad leadership under Zanu PF.
They both made the comments at a joint media conference in Harare on Friday amid simmering anger among ordinary Zimbabweans over government’s tacit support for graft.
The press briefing was called to allow the media to witness the unveiling of bilateral relations between the National Democratic Working Group (NDWG), a pressure group, and Transform Zimbabwe (TZ), a political party being led by Ngarivhume.
The two politicians accused the ruling Zanu PF party of presiding over state corruption and bad governance to the detriment of the nation.
A defiant Sikhala said the mandate to confront state-sponsored corruption and judicial capture would come from the masses adding that he was ready to step in and lead the protests should there be such occurrence in the country in the not so distant future.
“All our decisions are going to be people-driven. We’re going to be just carriers and messengers of the will of the people.
“If the masses clamour for protests, we will only be the conveyors of the message that comes from the people,” Sikhala said.
Sikhala and Ngarivhume were both incarcerated over a lengthy period under controversial circumstances in the past two years.
While jailed, right groups and the opposition described the two as political prisoners.
Their long detention became a rallying call by civil society and the opposition for a stop in the persecution of government critics.
Sikhala, then Zengeza West lawmaker, spent 595 continuous days under a widely condemned pre-trial detention.
Ngarivhume, on his part, was also sentenced to four years in prison in April 2023 for inciting public violence in a 2020 video he posted on X (formerly Twitter), calling for protests over the state of the economy and rampant corruption.
However, in December 2023, Zimbabwe’s High Court set aside the conviction and sentence, freeing him from prison.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration has been ruthless in crashing citizen protests with some of the incidents leading to the killing of civilians by the country’s armed forces.
Sikhala and Ngarivhume vowed they were ready to face any consequences of their action but maintained that “peaceful” protests they were keen to lead was a right enshrined in “section 59 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.”
“There are guidelines within the framework of the Constitution that allow for protests. It is not illegal for the people of Zimbabwe to protest,” said Ngarivhume.
“The fact that the regime does not allow protests shows that there is something wrong with it.
“If the people of Zimbabwe say, ‘we want to protest’, we are very much ready to lead from the front. We don’t want to send the people of Zimbabwe to places that we can’t be.”
