Tag Archives: former first lady Grace Mugabe

corruption, Malawi, Regional, Top News

How Zim ex-first lady Grace Mugabe got her ‘fake’ PhD – report reveals

Maravi Post Reporter

HARARE-(MaraviPost)-The head of the University of Zimbabwe, Levi Nyagura, reportedly took lecturers from the institution of higher learning to former first lady Grace Mugabe’s Mazowe orphanage in order for her to take oral examinations for her disputed Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree.

According to Africa News24, this was revealed after Nyagura was arrested on Friday over the controversial awarding of the PhD to Grace .

Investigators at the Zimbabwe anti-Corruption Commission said they had arrested Nyagura over the suspected fraudulent awarding of a doctorate to the former first lady.

Grace, whose husband resigned in November under pressure from the military, received the doctorate in 2014 amid allegations she did not study for it. She was awarded the degree after just months of study .

Former president Robert Mugabe was university chancellor at the time. Doctorates typically required several years of full-time research and writing.

According to the privately-owned Standard newspaper, during Nyagura’s appearance in court over the weekend, it emerged that he “single-handedly accepted Grace’s application to study for the PhD without the knowledge of the UZ’s sociology department”.

Prosecutor Oscar Madhume said that Nyagura accepted Ntombizodwa G Marufu (Grace’s maiden name) application “without the knowledge and recommendations of the departmental board and faculty of higher degrees committee in violation of UZ quality assurance guidelines and benchmark”.

The court heard that Nyagura appointed Professor Claude Mararike and Professor Chaneta to supervise Grace.

Nyagura pleaded not guilty to the charges and was remanded to March 5 on $200 bail.

As part of his bail conditions, Nyagura was ordered not to interfere with State witnesses who included lecturers, the report said.

corruption, Law and order, Malawi, Regional, Top News

Grace Mugabe’s ‘fake’ PhD: Zim university vice chancellor arrested for ‘abuse of office’

Special Absalom

Harare – Zimbabwean anti-corruption investigators said on Friday they had arrested a university professor over the suspected fraudulent awarding of a doctorate to former first lady Grace Mugabe.

According to Africa news24 report, Levi Nyagura, the vice chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, was arrested by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission following an investigation into the PhD.

It emerged that Grace was awarded the degree by the university in 2014 after just months of study.
Doctorates typically require several years of full-time research and writing.

“Nyagura has been arrested. We cannot have people who award fake degrees,” Goodson Nguni, a ZACC commissioner told AFP over the telephone.

The professor will be charged with abuse of office, he said, refusing to say whether Grace also faces arrest.

Grace Mugabe’s apparent desire to succeed her 93-year-old husband prompted the army takeover that saw Robert Mugabe ousted from power in November last year.

A copy of the 226-page doctoral thesis, titled “The Changing Social Structure and Functions of the Family” was only published last month following public calls for Grace to be stripped of her PhD.
Critics had argued that Grace, 52, had not actually studied or undertaken research to earn the doctorate.

She was personally capped by then-president Mugabe, who was also the chancellor of the university.

Law and order, Malawi, Regional

Zimbabwe: Fresh moves to arrest Grace Mugabe

Special Absalom

HARARE-(MaraviPost)-The declaration by President Emmerson Mnangagwa last week that former first lady Grace Mugabe is no longer immune to prosecution appears to have left Mugabe’s garrulous wife vulnerable to arrest as vultures circle above her, bracing for a kill.

Grace made a lot of enemies during her time as first lady and Mnangagwa’s pronouncement has opened floodgates of legal trouble for the once most feared woman in Zimbabwe.

In an interview with BBC’s Mishal Husain during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Mnangagwa said Grace enjoyed no immunity and could be arrested and taken to court on any charges.

South African model Gabriella Engels, who was walloped with an electric cord by Grace and was left nursing a deep cut on the head and other injuries, has rekindled her fight for justice and is planning to have Mugabe’s wife dragged to South Africa to face the music.

“If I had the opportunity to meet the new Zimbabwean president, I would ask him to do the right thing and handover Grace for prosecution,” Engels told The Standard yesterday.

Engels’ lawyers were working hard to bring Grace to justice in South Africa so that she can answer to the case of assault.

“We are aware that she is no longer a person of power, that her husband was ousted from office and that the government of Zimbabwe said she does not enjoy any immunity anymore,” Engels’ mother said.

“In light of the latest developments, our lawyers are working on that case to secure justice for my child.”

Engels said her family was grateful and happy that Zimbabweans ousted the Mugabes because they were now abusing power to put fear into her family.

“Most definitely, I am happy, we are free and we will continue to fight until we get justice,” she said.

Engels’ lawyers from AfriForum led by former South African prosecutor Gerhard Nel were not available for comment.

Mnangagwa has already withdrawn close security officials who were assigned to Grace, although Mugabe remains protected by the state.

Lawyer Obert Gutu said in terms of the tenets of Public International Law, Grace should be arrested as soon as she enters South Africa.

“She lost all the immunity that she purported to have after her husband left office, never mind the circumstances,” he said.

“Even though the immunity granted to her in the first place was dubious because she did not qualify, now the veil has been pulled and she is exposed. South Africa can arrest her the moment she enters that country.”

Back home, villagers from Manzou Farm who had their property razed down and crops destroyed at Grace’s instigation are also plotting legal action against the former first lady.

The villagers held meetings last week to discuss their case and are in the process of engaging their lawyers with a view to sue Grace.

Aspinas Mafuka, one of the affected villagers, said in an interview yesterday that the villagers had met to consider the way forward following the ouster of the Mugabes.

“We are considering action against Grace. She no longer has state power behind her and is now just an ordinary person. The families who suffered at her hands strongly feel she committed crimes against humanity and are hurt by the loss of property and we are now considering court action,” he said.

Police presence at the boomgate to the farm continues to worry the villagers who said they had hoped that the new administration would have withdrawn them by now.

“Currently, everything is quiet, but we are now looking at how to ensure that police guarding the area are withdrawn. We appeal to the president to intervene and stop this suffering at the hands of one person,” Mafuka said.

Politics, Regional, SADC

Thousands of soldiers deployed throughout rural Zimbabwe

Maravi Post Reporter

HARARE-(MaraviPost)-Zimbabwean opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party led by Morgan Tsvangirai, has reportedly claimed that President Emmerson Mnangagwa has deployed thousands of soldiers throughout the country’s rural areas “in a sinister move to scare villagers into voting the ruling Zanu-PF”.

According to New Zimbabwe.com, the MDC said this as it demanded the demilitarisation of the villages.

“The MDC is… deeply concerned by the continued militarisation of villages around the country. We have solid and incontrovertible evidence pointing to the fact that thousands of army officers in civilian attire have been deployed into the countryside for the purposes of carrying out clandestine political campaigns on behalf of Zanu-PF,” read part of the statement.

Meanwhile, a Maravi Post report quoted former first lady Grace Mugabe’s ally – exiled former minister of higher education, Jonathan Moyo – as confirming the MDC’s allegation on Twitter.

Moyo, the report said, claimed that Zanu-PF had deployed over 2 000 soldiers across the country to lead its election campaign.

This came as Mnangagwa indicated during his visit to Maputo, Mozambique on Wednesday that Zimbabweans should brace for harmonised elections in the next five months.

A Herald newspaper report quoted Mnangagwa as saying: “Zimbabwe is going for elections in four to five months’ time and we have to preach peace, peace and peace because we know it is good for us and we have no doubt that we will have peaceful elections.

“I assure the regional leadership that the forthcoming harmonised polls will embrace the tenets of democracy, fair play and standards set by us in the Sadc.”

Malawi, Politics, Regional, Top News

Zimbabwe University students demand vice chancellor Nyagura resignation over Grace Mugabe’s ‘fake’ degree

Maravi Post Reporter

HARARE-(MaraviPosT)-Students have reportedly given the vice chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), Levi Nyagura, 48 hours to step down from the institution over former first lady Grace Mugabe’s alleged “fake” degree.

In a letter delivered to UZ on Wednesday, the Zimbabwe National students’ Union (Zinasu), threatened “intensified protests” to force Nyagura to step down if their call was not heeded.

“It is our considered view that your continued stay at the helm of the institution further degrades its already tainted image in the academic field. This is because you presided over the awarding of a bogus doctorate to Grace Mugabe,” read part of the letter.

This came a few weeks after academics at the UZ petitioned the country’s anti-corruption commission to investigate the “suspicious” way in which Grace was awarded a PhD in orphanages four years ago.

The academics from the university’s sociology department said they were “shocked” when Grace emerged among the doctoral candidates in 2014.

“This was a shock to many members of the department as most members never (saw) or heard about the proposal, progress reports, thesis examiners and outcome of such a study by the candidate,” reads part of the petition, quoted by the private Zimbabwe Independent.

Grace was capped by her husband, then president Robert Mugabe , in August 2014 when he was still chancellor of the university.

She appeared in the red academic gown and black cap for the doctorate of philosophy degree beside the then vice president, Joice Mujuru, who also received a doctorate.

Mujuru’s doctoral thesis has subsequently been released into the public domain, but Grace’s thesis has never been made available.

At the time Grace was reported to have enrolled for the doctorate just three months before it was awarded .
Prominent graduates of the university, which has a distinguished track record, were outraged.

The late Zimbabwean author, Chenjerai Hove at the time wrote to the university’s vice chancellor, Levi Nyagura saying the university’s decision to give a doctorate to Grace had reduced its degrees to “a laughing stock”.

Human Rights, Law and order, Politics, Regional

Zim army ‘on high alert’ amid Grace Mugabe ally bloodshed threats – report

Special Absalom

HARARE-(MaraviPost)-Zimbabwe’s home affairs minister Obert Mpofu has reportedly said that the military and security sector is on high alert amid fears that supporters of former first lady Grace Mugabe could regroup outside the country in efforts to destabilise Zimbabwe.

According to NewsDay , Mpofu said this after former minister of higher education Jonathan Moyo, who was also Grace’s ally, warned of bloodshed.

Mpofu said that some elements of the defeated Zanu-PF faction known as Generation 40 (G40) were plotting to counter the military intervention which saw ex-president Robert Mugabe lose power to his former deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Moyo told Reuters last week that Zimbabwe would be plunged into a bloodshed if the international community failed to remove Mnangagwa’s government.

Moyo also described the Mnangagwa administration as “illegitimate”.

He, however, did not mention where the bloodbath threat was going to come from.

‘Wishful thinking’

“If you [UN and AU] don’t intervene when there has been such an outrageous, brazen attack on a constitutional order, you are simply opening the floodgates to conflict. If they don’t act, just as the sun will rise tomorrow, Zimbabwe will be another Somalia. There will be bloodshed,” Moyo was quoted as saying.

Responding to Moyo’s threats, Mpofu said: “If we could deal with a vicious enemy like the Rhodesian regime, what can stop us from dealing with the renegades who may want to destabilise our peace and stability? We are not a banana republic.

“We are a democratic country with a formidable security services sector and we cannot allow people to destabilise our peace. We may have our differences, but if people start contemplating causing chaos through destabilising our peace, then they will face the wrath of our security sector, but not only of our security sector, but of the patriotic Zimbabweans.”

A report by the privately-owned Standard newspaper said that Moyo’s utterances had been widely dismissed as “wishful thinking and dreams”.

“This matter has nothing to do with us. Ask him, he is the one alleging that,” The Zimbabwe Defence Forces spokesperson Colonel Overson Mugwisi was quoted as saying. “Is he being prophetic or it’s his prediction [about bloodshed]. Please ask him about his predictions and not me. I don’t see where we can fit here. People can dream. Ask him about his dreams.”

War veterans spokesperson Douglas Mahiya also dismissed the claims as wishful thinking.

Mahiya said unless the G40 group had stolen funds, there was no way they could carry out such attacks in the southern African country.

corruption, Malawi, SADC, Top News

Grace Mugabe’s doctorate under probe

Special Absalom

HARARE-(MaraviPost)-Zimbabwe’s anti-corruption commission says it is probing the circumstances surrounding the controversial awarding of a doctorate to former first lady Grace Mugabe.

Mugabe, whose husband resigned in November under pressure from the military and ruling party, received a doctorate from the University of Zimbabwe in 2014 amid allegations she did not study for it. Former president Robert Mugabe was chancellor of the university.

The southern African country’s anti-corruption commissioner in charge of investigations, Goodson Nguni, says lecturers in the sociology department asked for the probe after failing to find any record of Grace Mugabe as a student.

Grace Mugabe’s political profile had been on the rise in recent years, and fears that the unpopular first lady was positioning herself to succeed her 93-year-old husband led the military to step in.