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Mugabe speaks on how he feels about his former deputy taking over from him
One-time oldest president in Africa, Robert Mugabe has revealed in an interview that he never thought that his former deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa would betray him by plotting his exit from power.
Mugabe who made the revelation in an interview broadcast on Thursday said Mnangagwa’s move to oust him last year in a coup with his allies in the army in November was a stab in the back.
“I never thought he whom I had nurtured and brought into government and whose life I worked so hard in prison to save as he was threatened with hanging, that one day he would be the man who would turn against me,” Mugabe said in the interview with South African state broadcaster SABC from Harare.
Read also: DRC: Authorities block internet access as protests continue
Mugabe said he was ousted in a “military takeover” and that Mnangagwa had assumed the presidency illegally.
“I don’t hate Emmerson, I brought him into government. But he must be proper, he is improper where he is. Illegal,” Mugabe said. “We must undo this disgrace, which we have imposed on ourselves. We don’t deserve it.”
The 94-year-old former leader has stayed at his Harare mansion with his wife Grace since his fall from power.
Mugabe’s ousting was the culmination of a power struggle between Mnangagwa and Grace Mugabe, who was being groomed by her husband as his potential successor.
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