The tragic and untimely death of Makoni South MP John Nyamande took a lot of people by surprise. It was one of those nasty surprises of life whereby something terrible just happens without any notice leaving people to in total disbelief. The late Nyamande may have died prematurely but very few people who had a chance to know him would have been left in doubt that he achieved what he passionately sought to accomplish in his life.

Nyamande had been involved with ZANU PF at district level in Harare’s Warren Park middle density surbub. Like most Zimbabwean he left Zimbabwe at the height of the economic downturn and relocate to the UK in 2000 where he continued to work as a teacher. His MDC career was launched in earnest in 2001 when he helped to set up the MDC South-end –on-Sea Branch that he chaired until 2004.

Nyamande was a very dedicated member through and through and did everything from membership subscription to fundraising very whole heartedly and in an inspiring way. He was one of those people whom it was very easy to note that they were in politics not necessarily to get anything from it, but to contribute something to it.

 However, politics always rears its ugly head at times, and there would be friction in the South-end Branch that almost saw the founding chairman being toppled from his position. Nyamande was smart enough to move before he was pushed and in that same year (2004) broke away from the South-end-on-Sea Branch to start another branch in Grays, a small but vibrant town in the Borough of Thurrock in the east of London.

 Nyamande cited disquiet with the manner in which some of the members of the South-end-on Sea Branch were conducting themselves and he saw some of the behaviour as merely designed to undermine his position and belittle the work he was doing. The move by Nyamande to set up a new branch was fiercely resisted by people like Washing Ali, the then MDC UK Chairman in the executive in which I was Treasurer.

 Ali was also a member of the South-end branch having joined it when he came to the UK and he said that he felt that the setting up of another branch not so far away from the original one would fragment and compromise its stability.

But some of us had already known Nyamande for some time and we had met him at several meetings held throughout the UK and it was very clear to understand why he wanted to make that move. I was one of the first people that he spoke to together with the then Deputy Organising Secretary Givemore Chindawi and I personally gave him my support and encouraged him to go ahead and set up another branch as long as he was confident that there could be enough people to make up the branch in that area and to stir it to effective operation.

Our entire executive later on supported the move and the Grays branch was launched. The only MDC executive member to go and witness the launch was Chindawi who went in the company of the then MP for Mutasa East Evelyn Masaiti to be part of the ceremony. Masaiti was on a working visit to the UK that had taken as far as Scotland where she held some very fruitful meetings Scottish women MSP’s at the Scottish Parliament.

Nyamande was proven right because the MDC Grays branch went on to become one of the most vibrant UK branches in terms of membership and subscription. Nyamande also proved to be a tireless work-horse who organised a series of fundraising activities in Grays and he would invite people from all over the UK to attend and most people greatly appreciated the way he religiously organised the events.

 Chindawi and I developed a very close working relationship with Nyamande and a lot of people could see that the sky was the only limit for someone like him. He kept very regular contact with myself and Chindawi even after we had stood down from our positions in the executive. He would speak to us and update us about how things were going with the branch as well as the Tapa executive. He always prophesied his gratefulness for the support we lent to him and he said we had helped him save his political career because had he not succeeded in launching the new branch, he was most likely going to quit MDC politics for good.

Most importantly, Nyamande also grew a very close relationship with MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai and he went on to become one of Tsvangirai’s very trusted UK confidantes. When Brighton Chireka was unceremoniously removed from his post as MDC UK Representative was replaced by Tsvangirai’s relative Hebson Makuvise, a lot of people were unhappy with that. And through his diplomatic charm, Nyamande was one of the people who ensured that Makuvise was accepted by the UK membership without much fuss because he had a lot of influence among branch chairmen.

We spoke about Makuvise’s appointment and there was some common consensus that if Makuvise went on to do the job well, maybe that could go a long way towards appeasing the people’s disapproval of his questionable appointment. When the MDC UK executive led by Ephraim Tapa was later dissolved in 2007 Nyamande was one of the leading Branch Chairmen of that era.

And when Tsvangirai visited the UK together with Lovemore Madhuku and Arthur Mutambara in late 2007, he (Tsvangirai) refused to meet the members of Tapa’s executive but he met with Nyamande at a location in London. After that meeting Nyamande confided in us that he would be soon chairing a steering committee to take the UK province to the next elections and that did actually happen.

Nyamande wanted us to remain involved with politics but we offered our distant backing and support and pledged to him that we would assist in any way possible. True to his character Nyamande steered the UK province back to stability after the splitting effects of the dissolution of the Tapa executive. The Tapa executive had been dissolved in a manner that left the UK following of the MDC very fragmented. There were a number of branches that sided with Tapa notably the Central London, Derby and Newcastle branches among a few others.

Nyamande called for a meeting in Birmingham where he announced that there will be elections as well as a setting out a new regime for the holding of the elections. The UK elections were then later on held in February 2008 under the supervision of Lovemoyo Moyo when a new executive led by former assistant commissioner of police Jonathan Chawora was elected.

It was at the Birmingham meeting that I last saw Nyamande and we had a long chat about his decision to go to contest in the then forthcoming parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe. He told me that it was good that I had travelled to Birmingham for that meeting and he was pleased to see me. One thing Nyamande kept telling me most of the times we met was that I had to apologise to Tsvangirai for publicly criticising him. But I always told him (Nyamande) that we should never apologise for criticising our leaders, and we would then just laugh about it.

One thing that struck me with Nyamande was his acceptance that political views of people will always be different and there was never any need to go to extremes in order to impress on others to agree with your own. Neither did he find any wisdom in vilifying those who held different views from you own and failed to agree with you! That is one of his characteristics I will always remember. If he was not like that I think him and I would never have been on talking terms at all, but he is one person I can say with my hand on my heart he was a political gentlemen. A rare breed and unfortunately, the good always go first. But he achieved his main goal, to serve his country. May his soul rest in eternal peace
Silence Chihuri writes from Scotland and he can be contacted on email: silencechihuri@googlemail.com