Zimbabwe’s vocal and militant opposition leader Job Sikhala returns home this morning after 126 days out of the country.
Sikhala left Harare on 15 March to seek medical attention out of the country after he had been released from prison where he had been incarcerated for 595 days for allegedly inciting public violence in protest against the murder of opposition activist Moreblessing Ali killed in May 2022.
Her murderer Pius Jamba Mukandi, a Zanu PF activist, has been jailed for 30 years.
Sikhala, who is also Ali’s family lawyer, was released on 30 January.
The event of his surprise release was exclusively reported by The NewsHawks on that evening at the dark gates of Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare.
While away from home, Sikhala addressed United Nations Geneva Summit on Human Rights and Democracy on 15 May.
In his address, the former MDC and CCC senior party leader and MP chronicled Zimbabwe’s long history of human rights abuses, how Ali was brutally killed and how he suffered in detention at the hands of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s regime.
#SikhalaPoursHeartOutAtUN Zimbabwean opposition political activist Job Sikhala, a former MP and political prisoner, this morning told the United Nations Human Rights and Democracy Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, about his country’s appalling and deplorable human rights situation… pic.twitter.com/HdcrwW6wKi
Rattled by his story and narrative before a global audience, Zanu PF officials took turns to denounce and vilify Sikhala who returns home this morning facing a serious risk of arrest for merely telling the truth.
Officials in Sikhala’s new pressure group National Democratic Working Group yesterday first confirmed his return this morning.
Later Sikhala himself told The NewsHawks: “It’s true, I’m coming back home tomorrow morning”.
His close allies say he is arriving at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport on board South Africa’s Safair around 9am.
He will be accompanied by diplomats and human rights campaigners from Amnesty International.
Zanu PF officials, particularly Midlands political warlord Owen “Mudha” Ncube, have been denouncing and vilifying Sikhala, raising a new threat to his personal security and life.
*In this video footage, Ncube denounces Sikhala again as he has been doing for weeks on end.
