PROMINENT educationist and former cabinet minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, who recently claimed the West was causing droughts in Zimbabwe, has died.
Ndlovu, who was 78, died early this morning at Mater Dei Hospital.
He had been admitted in the intensive care unit (ICU) after suffering a stroke and had been unwell for some time.
The Zanu PF politician and founder of the ZIDECO commercial colleges served as deputy education minister before he was appointed Information minister between 2007 and 2008.
He was however, dropped from cabinet after failing to secure a parliamentary seat in Bulawayo during the 2008 polls losing to the opposition’s Samuel Sandla Khumalo.
In June this year, Ndlovu pulled a shocker by claiming that the President Robert’s land reforms had failed to improve Zimbabwe’s food self-sufficiency because America and Britain had tempered with the country’s weather patterns.
“The West say we have failed. We have not; we are saying to them, bring the weather patterns to order and we will produce and even export to those countries,” he told a public meeting in Bulawayo.
Ndlovu is also remembered for his rant at German leader Angela Merkel during an EU-Africa summit while responding to accusations of human rights abuses levelled against President Robert Mugabe’s government.
Ndlovu is reported to have told Merkel top “shut-up” adding German needed a leader like Otto von Bismarck.
As Information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu shocked the world when, on December 12, 2008 – a day after Mugabe claimed that the Zimbabwean government had the devastating cholera outbreak under control.
Ndlovu accused the United Kingdom of causing the outbreak in a “racist” attack meant to cause genocide against the Zimbabwean people.
