SOUTH African opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema\u2019s visit to Zimbabwe could have influenced former First Lady Grace to change her mind about former President Robert Mugabe\u2019s burial place, Deputy information minister Energy Mutodi has said.<\/p>\n
Malema was in the country two weeks ago to pay his condolences following Mugabe\u2019s death early last month.<\/p>\n
He met Grace for almost three hours before declaring President Mnangagwa needed to respect Mugabe\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n
Reports had been circulating that Mugabe told close family members before he died that he did not want to be laid to rest at the National Heroes\u2019 Acre.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also realised that after the Malema visit, that\u2019s when we heard the change of mind. So it could be other people then coming up with inputs to influence the president\u2019s place of burial.\u201d Mutodi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, to us, burial is burial. We are not very much concerned about that. What we are happy with is that as a country, we had time to share with the former president.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mutodi added: \u201cAfter initially agreeing to burial at the national shrine, the family then changed tact and claimed the former President himself had requested that he be buried in Zvimba.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mugabe was subsequently buried at his Kutama rural home, leaving the ruling Zanu PF party angry.<\/p>\n
Malema paid tribute to Grace describing her as a strong woman and urged her to protect her late husband\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe serves as an inspiration to a lot of us and that she must protect President Mugabe\u2019s legacy with everything against any form of opportunism which want to ride behind his legacy even when they tormented him to the last day,\u201d Malema told journalists after meeting Grace.<\/p>\n
Government has since stopped the construction of a mausoleum in which Mugabe was set to be buried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SOUTH African opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema\u2019s visit to Zimbabwe could have influenced former First Lady Grace to change her mind about former President Robert Mugabe\u2019s burial place, Deputy information minister Energy Mutodi has said. Malema was in the country two weeks ago to pay his condolences following Mugabe\u2019s death early last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":14383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[860,28,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-14381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-policy","9":"tag-eff","10":"tag-mugabe","11":"tag-mutodi"},"yoast_head":"\n