ONE beautiful Sunday morning, sometime between 1995 and 1996 I was asked to give the then Malawian Minister of Information, Hon Brown Mpinganjira, I think it was, a tour of the Great Zimbabwe Monuments.
That was my first VIP tour and I was naturally a ball of nerves.
This was not helped by the fact the Hon Minister was in the company of a hefty, self-assured official from our then Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, (PTC).
I later found out that the imposing figure was Daniel Madzimbamuto.
I should not have been afraid.
By the end of the tour I was a small boy in the lively company of two down to earth big men.
Later in my research I picked that Madzimbamuto’s previous occupations had included sales and circus, attributes that were generously displayed during the tour! When I later mentioned this encounter to friends at a local pub one of those present mentioned that Madzimbamuto was an ex-detainee.
This informant went on to entertain us with a hilarious account of how Madzimbamuto ended up with PTC at independence.
Later, during a PTC strike I was to see TV images of Madzimbamuto giving out forms to job seekers.
A few years later, on May 2, 1999, Daniel Nyamayaro Madzimbamuto passed on and was interred at the National Heroes Acre as the 44th National Hero.
From his obituary we got to learn more about his illustrious political career that made him one of Zimbabwe’s longest serving detainees under colonial government.
I can only imagine how much better our Great Zimbabwe meeting would have been if his life story had been public history then.
It is quite sad that such illustrious histories only get to be known through obituaries.
He led a true hero’s life which should have been celebrated in his lifetime.
He was born in Murehwa on October 8 1929.
He completed his Standard Six at Murehwa Mission in 1948.
He was awarded a scholarship to Munali Secondary School, Zambia, a school with a reputation of having produced some of Zambia’s finest nationalists.
After school he worked as a broadcaster, circus publicist and salesman in Zambia, South Africa and home respectively.
In South Africa he married Stella Nkolombe.
When he returned home he joined the City Youth League led by George Nyandoro and James Chikerema.
The Youth League later merged with Joshua Nkomo’s ANC to form the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress.
He became chairman of the Highfield branch.
In 1959 Madzimbamuto was detained under the first state of emergency regulations and was to stay a prisoner/detainee/restrictee at Khami, Marandellas, Selukwe, Gwelo, Salisbury, Wha-Wha and Gonakudzingwa for most of his life from 1959 until final freedom in 1975.
In 1964 he had become a member of the ZAPU Central Committee and after release he joined the armed struggle in Lusaka, Zambia.
Here he served ZAPU in various capacities including external affairs secretariat, logistics secretariat and legal advisor.
Madzimbamuto attained many qualifications through correspondence including a law degree from the University of London.
He also attended the Victoria Falls and Lancaster House conferences as a legal advisor to ZAPU.
At independence Madzimbamuto became Deputy Postmaster General at PTC, a post he held until his retirement in 1998.
The adage behind every successful man there is a woman is particularly true in Madzimbamuto’s case.
To say Stella Madzimbamuto was a formidable woman is an understatement.
I have come across cases where some nationalist spouses watched helplessly the regime persecute their husbands.
A good number confined themselves to welfare, bread and butter struggles.
Not Stella.
Almost single handedly she took the Smith regime in one of the fiercest legal challenges ever mounted in this country.
Between 1965 and 1968 the case that was heard in the Salisbury High Court, in the Appealate Division of the High Court and in the Privy Council, seized the imagination of the world.
It was a case in which Stella Madzimbamuto challenged the constitutionality of the Smith regime and its emergency regulations and detention orders.
Today I believe no constitutional lawyer would be fully baked without acquainting themselves with this case.
After the death of her husband Stella continued to serve the legacy of her husband faithfully.
She deposited her late husband’s papers with the National Archives; a feat I am reliably advised by my sources is without precedence among families of former nationalists.
I may not have known Madzimbamuto before our Great Zimbabwe encounter, but am sure history shall be kinder and generous with Daniel and Stella Madzimbamuto.
Through the Madzimbamuto papers one gets not just a clearer picture of Madzimbamuto the political animal.
You get to experience his softer side.
A hand written account of his life from the time he returned to Southern Rhodesia and subsequent arrest in 1959 leaves you almost in tears.
It’s a moving account of a couple dedicated to the struggle.
The papers are an archive of Madzimbamuto the lawyer politician.
From draft constitutions and MOUs for the Patriotic Front to outline of Byron Hove’s Mankind against Ian Douglas Smith and the Selous Scouts.
His stint in external affairs is reflected in various correspondences and reports on or to the World Peace Council, ZANU, Internal Settlement, UK, the Commonwealth, Frontline States and UNIP.
Equally useful material is available on ZAPU/ZIPRA welfare logistics.
These papers are a microcosm of the actual ZAPU/ZANU archives.
If all ex-ZAPU luminaries were to donate half what they kept ZAPU archives could surely be reconstructed.
The papers also contain useful post-independence material on land and local governance.
The above archival treasure was made possible through the foresight of Stella Madzimbamuto who desired no erasure of her husband from history.
In the 1960s Stella presented constitutional law students with food for thought. And in the last decade she has done the same to scholars of history.
She is a formidable woman indeed.