Habakkuk Trust chief executive officer Dumisani Nkomo said the first time he had a close engagement with Dabengwa was when he was Home Affairs minister in the mid-1990s.

“Our strategy was to block the passage of the Bill and this entailed inviting the Minister of Home Affairs to come and present on the Bill and there was to be a counter-presentation from a civic society activist David Coltart, who was one of the leading lawyers of the time.

To our shock and pleasant surprise, Dabengwa agreed to come to the meeting,” Nkomo said.

I grew to know him better after he pulled out of Zanu PF, choosing to revive Zapu and to also focus on what he said was Umdala Nkomo’s unfinished agenda of completing the Zambezi project and the tomato canning factories as well as other development projects.

Dabengwa summoned Nkomo to his office and narrated how the Zambezi Water Project had been stalled by the late former President Robert Mugabe and some ministers from Matabeleland.