THE war of words between higher education minister Professor Jonathan Moyo and defence forces chiefs continued at the weekend with the Zanu-PF politburo member training his guns on General Constantine Chiwenga and telling Air Marshall Perence Shiri to shut up.
The minister admitted, in his statement at the weekend, that “between 2010 and 2014 leading up to the ouster of (former vice president) Joice Mujuru, Chiwenga and I worked together very closely”.
But now they are lobbing verbal bombshells at each other on a weekly basis with Moyo sensationally suggesting that Chiwenga, who is Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander, fraudulently acquired his doctorate from South Africa-based University of KwaZulu Natal (KZN) in 2015.
In his statement, Moyo told Shiri that he was best advised to keep quite after the air force boss claimed the minister lied about his involvement in the liberation struggle.
“Air Marshall Shiri cannot be, and is not, under any circumstance or capacity, my biographer,” said the minister.
In the same vein, it is common cause that Air Marshall not an archivist or historian of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. What he says about me is hearsay with no evidential value whatsoever.
“If I were Air Marshall Shiri, I would keep quite.”
The minister then warned General Chiwenga that he was inviting disclosure of who did the work on his PhD.
“I’m happy that Chiwenga wants pre and post-Independence disclosures about who was who, who did what and so forth. That’s good,” said Moyo.
“Meanwhile, I take that to mean he wants the disclosure of who contributed what to his doctorate and who really wrote his KZN PhD. Again, the Shona wisdom kunyarara kurinani pane kutaura, applies. #Handeitione.”