LATE nationalist Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo’s son George Moyo has expressed disappointment with the government for failing to honour its promise to turn the late national hero’s house in Bulawayo’s Makokoba suburb into a museum.
Moyo was a veteran nationalist leader who served during the liberation struggle in Rhodesia.
He was born in 1927 and died on January 22, 1977 in a parcel bomb explosion in Zambia.
A year earlier, he had been elected the second vice president of Zapu.
Moyo, a trained builder and carpenter, joined the trade union movement in the 1950s before getting into mainstream politics.
He was reburied at the National Heroes Acre in August 1981.
His son, George (76) said he felt betrayed by the government for failing to honour its promise to build the museum in recognition of his contribution during the armed struggle.
“It is now over 10 years since they made the promise,” George said.
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“I only heard that some government officials went to the house to view it but I was not invited.
“Since then, there has been no movement or communication on the matter.”
In 2018, President Emmerson Mnangagwa renamed Flyde Air Force Base between Kadoma and Chegutu to Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo Air Force Base in the late Zapu senior official’s honour among other liberation war stalwarts.
"My concern is that nothing much more is being done to recognise my father and other fallen Zapu and Zpra cadres,” George, who said that he was wallowing in poverty, said.
“It has always been our wish that we honour him as a family by throwing a big function to commemorate the death of my father, but because of lack of resources, we have failed.
“He was passionate about education that is why he built a classroom block at Donkwedonkwe Primary School and the classroom block is named after him.”
The classroom block was swept away by flash floods accompanied by strong winds.
George is the only surviving son of Ziyaphapha-Moyo.
“There were four of us, three have died and I am now the only surviving child,” he said.
“I was given a farm in Matobo in 2018. It is a 300 hectare farm, but with no structures in place. I need to fence it around, but I have no capacity.
“The government promised to give me 10 head of cattle, but up to now I have not seen them.”
Moyo was one of the five Zapu national executive members who were sent out of the then Rhodesea to lead the armed struggle.
He was influential in the formation of Zpra, Zapu’s military wing.
Moyo was given a state funeral by the Zambian government after his death in a parcel bomb before he was reburied in Zimbabwe.
