Top Bulawayo accolade for Nkomo

Vice-president John Landa Nkomo, is finally to be granted the freedom of Bulawayo by the city council.

He was scheduled to be granted the honour at roughly the same time last year.

However, there was major resistance by the MDC-T, from which most councillors are drawn.

"The Vice-President will be honoured on December 2. He was supposed to have been granted the freedom of the city last year in November," said Bulawayo mayor Thaba Moyo.

The city council backed down last year as a result of pressure from the MDC-T.

The argument that was brought forward was that Vice-President Nkomo had earlier on undermined the spirit of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) at a gathering in Esigodini, near Bulawayo.

He had called the GPA "a blunder."

The other sticking point, according to sources, was that the ceremony would degenerate into a Zanu-PF event, with the major political players from Zanu-PF attending and ultimately turning it into a political rally.

After that some members of the council suggested other names that could also be discussed to receive the freedom of the city.

The prime minister and leader of the MDC-T Morgan Tsvangirai was one of those put forward as a counter-nomination to receive the freedom of the city. However, this move did not see the light of day.

The honouring of Nkomo would be a forerunner to the Zanu-PF people's congress that is planned for Bulawayo in December.

After serving for years as a minister in the government John Nkomo became the Speaker of Parliament from 2005 to 2008.

He was then appointed to the Senate in 2008 and was minister of state in the President's Office in 2009.

He was national chairman of Zanu-PF until December 2009, when he was elected as vice-president of the party.

He became vice-president of Zimbabwe in December 2009, and is the highest-ranking government official from the Matabeleland region.