The explosive revelations do not end there: Mutami makes further allegations of sexual abuse by Mnangagwa and his trusted political ally Owen “Mudha” Ncube, whom she also says preyed on her each time the President had finished with her.
This creates a web of sleazy and sordid allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against a poor and vulnerable minor by powerful Zanu-PF leaders painted as sexual predators.
Mnangagwa is not the only one to be involved in a sex scandal in the Zanu-PF presidium. Zanu-PF co-deputy leader Kembo Mohadi was last year forced to resign as state vice-president over a sex escapade. Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga is currently mired in an abuse storm involving his former wife Marry Mubaiwa. Mohadi’s resignation set a precedent.
Mutami’s unprecedented accusations — which have shocked the nation and beyond — have far-reaching consequences on Mnangagwa’s reputation and his long political career, especially ahead of Zanu-PF’s crucial elective congress later in October.
Mnangagwa is going to congress trying to ward off an undeclared challenge by Chiwenga, who behind the scenes is fighting to be the Zanu-PF presidential candidate in 2023.
Mnangagwa and Chiwenga have been fighting for political power and supremacy ever since they removed the late former president Robert Mugabe in 2017. Their power struggle over an unresolved Zanu-PF leadership issue has been raging since the coup.
Only this week, political events showing infighting within Zanu-PF in Harare and Masvingo involving former youth league leaders and war veterans, respectively, point towards their deepening rivalry.
Mnangagwa and Chiwenga have been locked in a war of attrition since they removed Mugabe in 2017, hence some claim that Mutami is being sent by the former Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander as a stalking horse, a claim she denies.
Mugabe tried to end Mnangagwa’s career in a related way, amid various similar and yet more horrific allegations just before the 2017 coup.
Former police commissioner-general Augustine Chihuri had prepared files on Mnangagwa alleging criminal activities for which he was supposed to be arrested.
When Mnangagwa took over, his government seized Chihuri’s properties, but the courts returned them to him last month. Chihuri, currently in exile in South Africa, claimed during the fight over properties Mnangagwa had previously snatched his girlfriend from him.
Mugabe wanted to arrest Mnangagwa upon his dismissal in November 2017 on various allegations, including allegedly forcing the late journalist Godfrey Majonga to jump off a high-rise flat in the Harare Avenues after finding him with his girlfriend in the 1980s, before his escape into Mozambique and then South Africa.
Mutumi said Ncube, a staunch Mnangagwa political ally, also sexually abused her on numerous occasions behind his boss’ back. He took advantage of her whenever Mnangagwa was done with her.
Mutami also spoke about her consensual relationships with the late former foreign affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo, who was in the military at the time, independent legislator Temba Mliswa, deputy Mines minister Polite Kambamura, Judicial Service Commission secretary Walter Chikwana, and Zanu-PF politburo member Kenneth Musanhi, among other prominent people.
An emotional Mutami often broke down during the excruciating monologue, narrating claims of abuse by Mnangagwa, in a four-hour Twitter Spaces session, a feature on the social media platform that allows users to have live audio conversations.
It drew an audience of more than 13 000 listeners. An audience of 13 000 can fill an average small stadium in Zimbabwe, such as White City in Bulawayo, Sakubva in Mutare or Mucheke in Masvingo.
Given the multiplier effect of the huge social media audience, this means a far bigger number of Zimbabweans listened to Mutami’s startling carnal disclosures. Some Facebook accounts also livestreamed the audio, giving it a wider audience.
In her gripping horrific tale, which raised the alarm bells of abuse of power and exploitation of vulnerable young women for sexual pleasure by those in public positions of authority, Mutami said Moyo, who became famous after announcing the 2017 military coup, was poisoned by his political rivals. Publicly it was said Moyo died of Covid-19 complications.
The same fate, she says, befell former Air Force of Zimbabwe commander Perrance Shiri, who was agriculture minister at the time of his death.
Further, she said former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who purpotedly died of colon cancer in 2018, was also poisoned.
Mutami said she knew Mnangagwa through her father who was a Zanu-PF official in Kwekwe, although she did not have a personal relationship with him as an elder. She said things changed in 2003 when Mnangagwa attended a sports gala in Kwekwe when she was in Form Two.
“I met Mnangagwa during a sports gala, where he was a guest of honour. He was driving a green Jeep and greeted me as his niece. I did not want to humiliate him, so I played along.
He then said ‘when you close schools come to the party office and see me. Just say you want to see sekuru when you get there’,” Mutami said.
However, she did not visit him during those holidays, only to later meet him by chance.
“In 2004 when I was in Form Three, I bumped into him again at Wimpy in Kwekwe. He asked why I didn’t come to see him. He went further to ask if my fees had been paid in full view of all people who were there. He gave me two million dollars in bearers’ cheques, which at the time was what teachers were earning. He was in the company of his long-serving aide, Temias Shumba.
“…The next time that I me t him, he was in a car and he showed me his privates and asked me if I knew what it was. He said ‘chinonzi chinhu chadaddy’ (this is daddy’s stuff). We were in the car; he used to drive himself so he asked me to touch his penis. It was the third time I was meeting him,” she said.
“In 2004, during the second-term holidays, we bumped into each other again. Those who know President Emmerson Mnangagwa know that he used to hang out at Golden Mile Hotel with the likes of July Moyo. He took me to Golden Mile Hotel. I was so innocent at the time and did not think he would do anything to harm me. That is when he slept with me. I did not tell anyone. He actually raped me because I did not consent to it. He insisted that he would only do it once or twice. He did exactly that and the next thing I had blood all over. He said you are now a grown woman you can no longer play with boys because you will fall pregnant.”
Mutami said for years she kept the abuse to herself as she feared retribution and being judged.
She said Mnangagwa would send Ncube to pick her up whenever he wanted to sleep with her but, unbeknown to him, “Mudha” would then drive her to his Jesse Gardens Lodge, where he would also abuse her before taking her back home.
“All of Mnangagwa’s colleagues like July Moyo and security aides knew of the abuse,” she said.
Mutami said her father died in a car accident on 24 May 2005 when she was in Form Four. Her mother then enrolled at Morgenster to upgrade her nursing credentials, while her siblings enrolled at boarding schools. She was left home alone, not going to school.
Mnangagwa then offered to pay her fees and asked her to move to his Sherwood Farm in Kwekwe.
While at the farm, the President continued to sexually abuse her, although he was also in a sexual relationship with his accountant, who was also staying at the farm. He later had a child with the accountant, she says.
Mutami said her stay at the farm was not rosy because of the physical and emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa, who suspected her of having an affair with her husband or Shumba, his aide.
“Auxillia did not like the fact that ED was helping me with school fees and I didn’t tell her that there was something going on. So she was so mean and rude. One day she spilled water onto the bed where I slept with the maid at 2am, and she asked us to wake up and clean the house at that time and we woke up to do that with the maid,” she said.
“She once beat me up, asking who between ED and Shumba (his aide) I was sleeping with. I was in so much fear and I couldn’t say anything. She brought out a gun and told me that she was once a CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation) and could kill me. I was only 16,” she said, sobbing.
“She called me a prostitute. At the time her three sons were out of the country — Emmerson Jnr in Australlia and Sean and Collins in China.”
Mutami said she tried to leave the farm, but was held hostage by Auxillia, who also denied her food. Her plight got worse after she summoned enough courage to tell Auxillia that her husband had abused her. She dismissed her story and accused her of plotting to get her husband arrested. Mutami says she later told Moyo of her ordeal and he vowed to protect her. She met Moyo at Mnangagwa’s farm.
“I told SB about the abuse and he cried about it and then advised me to get an HIV test, which came out negative,” she said.
She says Moyo confessed to her he was HIV positive, but said he would give her pre-exposure pills to protect her from contracting the virus when they would engage in sexual activities.
Throughout the duration of her relationship with Moyo, Mnangagwa continued abusing her even when she had relocated to Australia. Moyo had advised her that abruptly cutting off the abusive relationship with Mnangagwa could cause trouble for her.
“Whenever I came back from Australia, ED would book me at Meikles. The first time (upon my return) he wanted to sleep with me, I asked for protection because of the grapevine of his HIV infection. He left the room unhappy after asking me where I got the audacity to ask him for protection,” she said.
Mutami’s disclosures have left the public shellshocked, even though people had already heard juicy rumours of the alleged statutory rape and abusive sexual escapades.
Before her Twitter Spaces tell-all disclosures, Mutami has dropped many hints.
During the monologue, she said she was not the only woman abused but there were many other young women defiled by leaders of the “mafia government”.
Contacted for comment on these serious allegations, Presidential spokesperson George Charamba said this was mere gossip.
He was combative about it.
Charamba, who is also deputy chief secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet, said: “We do not deal with rumours at the President’s office. I have nothing more to hide,” he said.
Asked if he was not concerned that the audience of Mutami’s Twitter Spaces session had ballooned to over 13 000 and the nation needed to know, in the public interest, if Mnangagwa was a sex predator, Charamba said:
“You see, I am done with you. I said we do not deal with rumours. No no no. That is it. What more do you want?” he asked in a fit of rage.
“I am a serious character, I do not deal with gossip.”
Before the coup, reports of Mutami’s abuse had reached Mugabe who then facilitated that a team of detectives from the Criminal Investigations Department meet her in China to discuss the allegations. Mugabe advised Mutami not to come to Zimbabwe for the meeting, fearing she would be killed, she says.
Former first lady Grace Mugabe also listened to Mutami’s testimony and said she was hurt by what had happened.
The team told Mutami that she had a choice of making a formal police report if she wished. Before the 2017 military coup, Grace publicly accused Mnangagwa of being a paedophile and a sex predator — “manyengavana”.
