The death of former Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, has been announced, he was aged 95, Igbere TV reports.
Igbere TV had earlier reported that the former leader passed away in Singapore, where he was undergoing treatment.
President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, confirmed the death of the first post-independent president of the country.
“It is with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe’s founding father and former President, Cde Robert Mugabe”, Mnangagwa wrote on Twitter.
Here are some facts you didn’t know of late Robert Mugabe and his rule in Zimbabwe, as compiled by Igbere TV, on Friday.
- Late Mr Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on 21 February, 1924, to a poor Shona family in a small village known as Kutama, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
- Following an education at Kutama College (Zimbabwe), University of Fort Hare, South Africa; and University of London, he worked as a school teacher in Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Ghana.
- Mugabe served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017.
- He chaired the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) group from 1975 to 1980 and led its successor political party, the ZANU – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), from 1980 to 2017.
- Mugabe got married to Grace (second wife), after his first wife and then Zimbabwean first lady, Sally, died in 1992.
- Late Mugabe has four (4) children, including the famous Bona Mugabe (only daughter).
- He began his political career as a leader in the quest for the independence of Zimbabwe – then known as Rhodesia – and was regularly compared to South Africa’s freedom fighter Nelson Mandela.
- As a revolutionary leader, late Mugabe fought white-minority rule and spent years in jail as a political prisoner.
- After 10 years in prison, he earned university degrees in education, economics and law from the University of London, before assuming leadership of ZANU-PF, a militant liberation movement based in Mozambique, in mid-70s.
- From there, he helped orchestrate an armed resistance against white rule, emerging as a war hero both at home and abroad when the conflict ended in 1979.
- He became the first prime minister of the newly independent Zimbabwe after elections in February 1980.
- Articulate and smartly dressed, Mugabe came to power commanding the respect of a nation. He had a strong head start, inheriting a country with a stable economy, solid infrastructure and vast natural resources. But the descent into tyranny didn’t take long.
- His hard-line policies drove the country’s flourishing economy to disintegrate, after he seized and redistributed land from 6,000 white farmers to 245,000 black farmers, which led to sanctions that led to inflation and crashed Zimbabwe’s economy.
- By 1983, it became clear that Mugabe’s administration would be merciless to anyone opposing his rule. He presided over forces that carried out massacres in opposition strongholds, and the country’s Fifth Brigade is believed to have killed up to 20,000 people, mostly supporters of Mugabe’s main political rival.
- As the country was plunged into economic ruin, Mugabe and his wife (Grace) faced fierce criticism for leading lavish lifestyles.
- He celebrated his 85th birthday with a lavish party that cost a reported $250,000, even as the country remained in an economic and health crisis.
- He continued to hold such birthday events annually, last year spending a reported $800,000 and celebrating in a region suffering drought and food shortages.
- He repeatedly rebuffed repeated calls to step down, insisting he would only leave office when his “revolution” was complete.
- Mugabe – who infamously claimed that “only God” could ever remove him from office – was deposed in a coup in 2017, when members of his own party turned against him after he dismissed then vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa to make way for his wife, Grace.
- Robert Mugabe was the World’s Most Educated President with 7 degrees (2 Master’s), he died at 95 in Singapore, having served as Prime Minister and President for 37 years.
