HE Joseph Msika

Vice-President

Date of Birth: 06/12/1923
Place of Birth: Mazoe District, north of Harare
Died: 04/08/2009

Commentary: Born in Mazoe District, north of Harare, Msika lived briefly in South Africa before returning to Bulawayo where, in the mid-1950s, he became Treasurer of Joshua Nkomo’s newly formed African National Congress. He spent much of the next two decades in and out of detention with his leader. When Nkomo died in 1999, Msika stepped into his post of Vice-President.

Msika has been at the centre of nationalist politics for over half a century and his life story runs parallel to Zimbabwe’s liberation movement; he joined it a decade earlier than Robert Mugabe.     

For Nkomo, Msika represented the Mashonaland wing of the Patriotic Front while for Mugabe, he served as the Matebeleland presence in ZANU-PF. In fact, his family came from the Musikavanhu Ndau chieftainship in southern Manicaland. His role has always been that of a conciliator and he has never been linked to the party’s competing corrupt networks.

Joseph Msika died in August 2009. In the months prior to his death he was keen to retire from the vice-presidency on the grounds of age and infirmity but President Robert Mugabe was reluctant to let him go because of the potential problems his departure would create in the hierarchy of his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.