By Agencies
Engelbert Rugeje — the retired Lieutenant General, former ZANU PF National Political Commissar, the man who once decided who gets to be a Minister, an MP, a DCC chairman — now sits in a classroom taking notes while Professor Amon Murwira marks the register.
This week, at the Harare International Conference Centre, President Emmerson Mnangagwa told ambassadors-designate: “Serving on a diplomatic mission is no child’s play, and it is certainly not a holiday.”
Among those listening was Rugeje.
The man who was once number four in the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, the man who was counted as Vice President Constantino Chiwenga’s closest ally in uniform, was in the crowd with 21 other diplomats-designate being drilled on protocol by Murwira’s Ministry.
According to reports, Rugeje had initially made it known he did not want a diplomatic job at all. When the vacancy in Maputo came up after the death of Victor Matemadanda in June, he reportedly said no.
Now he has swallowed it. He is back in induction, attending Foreign Affairs orientation sessions alongside former ministers Miriam Chikukwa and Mike Bimha and ZBC Chair Helliate Rushwaya — all part of Mnangagwa’s sweeping shake-up that will recall up to 26 ambassadors.
Rugeje himself has denied rejecting anything, calling reports “false, malicious and fabricated” and insisting he remains a “loyal, disciplined soldier… ready to serve his country anywhere and anytime as directed by His Excellency the President.”
But the optics are brutal.
Just five years ago, Murwira — the professor, the academic — would have been summoned to Rugeje’s office at Shake Shake Building to be vetted for political suitability. Murwira was a Higher Education Minister trying to survive the commissariat’s structures.
Today, the tables have turned.
Rugeje, whose name is being linked to the Maputo posting — a mission that insiders now quietly call a “graveyard shift” after two predecessors, Douglas Nyikayaramba and Matemadanda, died while serving there — will now have to write weekly reports to Murwira.
He will have to request fuel from Murwira.
He will have to request leave from Murwira.
He will have to explain his results to Murwira.
From Political Commissar to ambassador-designate awaiting approval from Mozambique.
From the man who deployed cadres, to the cadre being deployed
