An icon of liberation, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s first post-independence leader dies at the age of 95, nearly two years after he was forced to step down from office by the military in November 2017 following nationwide mass protests.
Robert Mugabe, born on 21st February 1924, was born under British colonial rule In southern Rhodesia. He served as the President of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2017, and he has gone to rest at the age of 95 after battling with ill health and receiving treatment in a hospital in Singapore since April. Reports are that he was receiving treatment for cataract as against prostate cancer that was reported by the media earlier this year. News of where and how he died are yet to be disclosed.
tlivemedia.com reports that the news of his death was announced on Friday by the current president of Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa in a tweet, “It’s with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe’s founding father and former president, Cde Robert Mugabe.
The former president, who ruled Zimbabwe for nearly 40 years was a controversial figure, according to the tributes coming in, some see him as a hero who freed Zimbabwe from British colonialism while some see him as a violent repression of his political opponents and Zimbabwe’s economic ruin.
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta said Mr Mugabe had “played a major role in shaping the interests of the African continent”. According to him in an interview section with the press association, he said that Mugabe’s “legacy will be very two-sided” because in the positive memory he was a brave liberation hero who suffered imprisonment and torture and he was an anti- apartheid activist. “But the negative overwhelming memory that everybody will have, I think, is of the liberation hero who betrayed all d values of the freedom, struggle and became corrupt, repressive, dictatorial, self serving and ruthless”.
tlivemedia.com reports that Mugabe will be remembered for his early achievement.