Siphakeme .Mnindwa
Raymond Jaravaza, raymondjaravaza@gmail.com
FORMER freedom fighter, Mr Elias Njani Moyo, who was imprisoned by the Rhodesian regime in 1976, is set to celebrate his 100th birthday on January 15.
As the then Zapu branch treasurer, Mr Moyo, who was 50, was accused of aiding “terrorists” after a white storekeeper, Leonard Ashly, was allegedly shot in Mbalabala on July 7, 1976.
The Rhodesian media reported that Mr Moyo had provided food and shelter to three freedom fighters for four nights, and on the fourth day, the fighters allegedly murdered Ashly near Moyo’s village.
The media portrayed Moyo as a man who had lost everything by helping the freedom fighters.
The story titled “This man lost all — through helping the terrorists,” painted him as a betrayer who had risked his family’s well-being, lost his $50-a-week job, and sold cattle to pay $700 legal fees.
The story’s first line read: “Elias Njani Moyo, who is 50 years old, has recently lost everything he has striven for in life because he gave help to some terrorists.”
Such stories were meant to deter the black majority from helping or supporting freedom fighters.
Despite harsh propaganda in the Rhodesian media portraying Mr Moyo as a betrayer, he remained resilient.
However, Moyo’s life was upended when he was falsely accused of the murder and was arrested.
He escaped the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mr Moyo spent four years at Khami Maximum Prison under inhumane conditions, including being stripped naked in cold weather and confined to a cell for 23 hours a day.
Despite the harsh conditions, Mr Moyo’s spirit remained unbroken.
He was released after independence in 1980 and faced the challenge of rebuilding his life, which he did through determination and hard work.
Mr Moyo, now residing in Esigodini, Matabeleland South, shared his life story with the Chronicle ahead of his centenary celebrations.
For an elderly man who is eight days away from turning 100 years old, Mr Moyo is a picture of good health and is still of sound body and mind.
He reflected on his early years, starting his education at Mawabeni Primary School at the age of 13 and later working menial jobs while attending night school in Bulawayo.
After his early experiences in carpentry and building, he worked as an assistant to a builder and eventually became a general manager at Wilfred Mart, a furniture shop employing 200 workers.
Mr Moyo’s hard work and dedication earned him the respect of his employers and colleagues, and he was earning a significant wage by the late 1960s.
He now owns multiple buildings and shops at Mawabeni Shopping Centre.
Born on January 15, 1925, in Sibaba Village in Esigodini, Mr Moyo is the last born in his family, and all his older siblings are deceased.
His father, Mr Njani “Sphokotsha” Nkolokazime had four wives, and his mother is Ms Malimbitha Sibanda. His parents passed away when he was still a teenager, and that shaped his spirit of resilience to work hard and turn his life around from a young age.
“I started school at Mawabeni Primary School at 13 years old. At that time the school system had Sub A, Sub B then Standard One. I later went to Mzinyathini but had no one to help me with tuition so I left for Bulawayo where I did menial jobs and enrolled at a night school around 1941,” he said.
“The advantage at that time was that there were plenty of jobs, but I always wanted to be either a carpenter or a builder. I met an old man named Mr Gasela, who was a builder and he employed me as his assistant mixing mortar and he built several houses and that’s when I learnt plastering work and a bit of thatching.”
It was by chance that he met a white man who hired him briefly to offload wood into his shop and that’s when his love for carpentry was re-ignited.
“Around 1944, while still working for that white man, another white man who owned Wilfred Mart was impressed by my work ethic and hired me at his shop where second-hand furniture was refurbished and sold.
“As an orphan, I worked very hard and that’s what impressed the white man who owned Wilfred Mart,” said Mr Moyo.
While at Wilfred Mart, he met a Malawian named Fraction, who advised him to enrol for a carpentry course to improve his skills. He described how while working for Wilfred Mart, he would look at furniture designs from other shops and replicate those designs at his place of employment thereby pushing sales through the roof, something that impressed his boss.
At that time, he was earning about £50 a week, a huge amount of money then. The least-paid worker at Wilfred Mart earned around £12.
“I was boss to the late Vice-President Simon Muzenda when I was the general manager at Wilfred Mart. He was a carpenter and lived in Mzilikazi,” said Mr Moyo.
At the peak of his career, the black general manager lived in Barbourfields and later moved to Mzilikazi in the early 1970s before his life was turned upside down after allegations that he was involved in the killing of the white storekeeper.
“A white man who was a storekeeper a couple of kilometres from here was shot dead and I was accused of killing him and arrested. As the Zapu branch treasurer, I was accused of the crime for two reasons. The first was that as the treasurer I supplied the guerrillas with food, second was that I commanded them to kill the white man.
“I was sentenced to life in prison. In fact, I escaped the death sentence so I did my time at Khami Maximum Prison,” he said.
Mr Moyo narrated the inhumane conditions that black prisoners were subjected to such as being stripped naked in chilly weather conditions and made to sit in the open area of the prison.
“I was one of the oldest prisoners at Khami Prison and you can imagine the humiliation of being made to strip naked in front of younger inmates. Early in the mornings we would be made to take out urine otherwise we were locked up in our cells for 23 hours a day,” said Mr Moyo.
“I was released from prison in June 1980 and was taken to an assembly point where we stayed for three months. We would wake up at 4am and start toyi-toying and despite my age, I would go toe to toe with younger men.”
Mr Moyo, who remarried after the death of his second wife, Ms Mary Ngwenya in 1988, now lives with his wife, Ms Constance Nkala, and has five surviving children, 12 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
The centenary celebrations will take place at his homestead in April, where family members will gather to celebrate the remarkable life of a man who has lived through the trials of colonial rule and the challenges of independent Zimbabwe.
Mr Moyo’s advice for longevity includes abstaining from smoking and drinking alcohol and embracing prayerful life.
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