Wilf Mbanga, a Zimbabwean journalist who lives in exile in South Africa, says the fall of Robert Mugabe as Zimbabwe’s president means it is time for his fellow countrymen to return home:
It’s time for every Zimbabwean now to plan to go back to rebuild our country, which has been destroyed by Mugabe through greed and avarice.
There are millions of Zimbabweans in South Africa, both legal and illegal, and they left because there were no jobs, there was repression – no human rights, [the] health [service] had completely collapsed and it really is the time to go back to rebuild. We have a big job on our hands.
It’s going to take us years just to get back where we were in 1980 at independence. But that’s our country, we’ve got to rebuild it. We can’t expect somebody else to do it for us.”
Mr Mbanga knew Mr Mugabe well in the 1970 and 1980s. He told BBC Newsday’s Julian Keane that it was pathetic to see what his former friend had become.
I’m convinced he was senile. He was obsessed by that former typist of his [Grace Mugabe].
He was a lovelorn old man it was sad to see him – this man who was very bright who believed in developing our country.