Guebuza 'will not be silenced'

The former president sounds like he's planning revenge for what has happened to his family since he left office

Good afternoon. Mozambique’s former President Armando Guebuza turned 80 last week, and held a … symposium in his own honour. Or at least, the Armando Guebuza Foundation did. It was entitled: “Armando Emilio Guebuza, A History of Self-Esteem”. I’ll say.

But the man once known as ‘Guebusiness’ has had a terrible year — a pretty terrible decade since leaving office. When it came his turn to address the symposium — which starts exactly three hours through this, the third of three videos of the symposium posted to Facebook — he started by listing his four children. Only one was present, Mussumbuluko; the eldest, Norah, lives in Zimbabwe, but of the other two, Ndambi is in prison, and Valentina is dead.

Valentina was shot dead at the end of 2016 by her husband. At the symposium last Friday, Guebuza said her murder was part of the “confusao” around the Privinvest procurement scandal, in which Mozambique, under Guebuza’s leadership, broke its own borrowing rules to raise $2 billion to spend on an offshore security project which was destined to fail, but enriching various politically connected people in the process. One of those was Ndambi Guebuza, who has been in prison since 2019 for his role in the deals. Last December he was finally convicted and sentenced to 12 years.

Guebuza didn’t explain how Valentina’s death was linked to those deals; it came in December 2016, around nine months after the scandal was exposed in detail, the deals having been done some three years before. He also alleged that the Mozambican state has not properly explained why Ndambi has been imprisoned.

The box-office line in his speech was that “if the colonisers didn’t manage to silence us, it won’t be our comrades that manage it.” Some have noted that Guebuza and his faction have voluntarily silenced themselves, having not taken the opportunities they have at formal party meetings to air their grievances. But Guebuza’s line sounds like a threat to the current leadership of the country — albeit a very vague one. Nevertheless, what’s certain is that Nyusi’s principal opposition over the final two years of his second term in office will be within Frelimo, not outside it.

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Agenda:

• Today: Nyusi swears in the new deputy health minister, and secretaries of state for five provinces

• 25-26 January: President Nyusi to visit Senegal, to meet President Macky Sall and attend the Dakar Summit on Agriculture and Agribusiness

• 25-26 January: US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield to Travel to Ghana, Mozambique, and Kenya

  • “In Mozambique, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield will highlight our strong partnership and welcome Mozambique to a historic first term on the UN Security Council. The Ambassador will also meet with UN officials, alumni of U.S. exchange programs, students, and members of civil society, including those engaged in climate change adaptation measures in Mozambique”

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Today’s headlines:

• Guebuza links Valentina's death to hidden debt mess

• Former president of the Constitutional Council in favour of district elections

• Former head of Mozambique's secret service questioned by police

• Roads and rail must expand to meet increasing port demand, transport minister

• Mozambique sets up committee to address FATF "grey list" measures

• EDM secures $343m for electrification projects in next two years

• 540 tonnes of lithium ore seized in Nacala en route to China

Today’s front pages in Maputo. Photo © Faizal Chauque / Zitamar News