Former Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader, Nelson Chamisa, has said he is not involved with any current political organization or movement.
Since he resigned from CCC on 25 January 2024, Chamisa has not publicly stated his plans despite some of his key allies such as Amos Chibaya, Gift Siziba, and Prince Dubeko Sibanda holding mini-rallies where he is eulogized.
Chamisa deposed an opposing affidavit at the Bulawayo High Court on 27 February 2024 in response to Sengezo Tshabangu, who, posing as the interim CCC Secretary General, filed an urgent chamber application in early February to recover the party’s provincial offices in Bulawayo.
Tshabangu argued that the CCC party offices had been seized by some youths who claimed to be Chamisa’s supporters after he resigned from the party on 25 January 2024.
Chamisa alleges that “many people” who have no connection to him misappropriated his name and image.
In the CCC’s urgent court application, Tshabangu stated that their office – the Gertrude Mthombeni House – situated at Number 41 Fort Street between Second and Third Avenue in Bulawayo is where all provincial party documents are kept, party activities and programmes are conducted.
Tshabangu stated that Chamisa’s supporters forcibly took “control, occupation, and possession” of the building and painted the whole office and precast wall in blue and black.
Blue is the colour associated with the so-called Democratic Alternative in Zimbabwe movement allegedly led by Chamisa.
However, in his opposing affidavit filed at the Bulawayo Division of the High Court, Chamisa said:
4.1. I deny all the allegations of fact and conclusions of law made in this application in their entirety. I did not despoil any person of any premises or offices anywhere in Zimbabwe and I have certainly not done so in Bulawayo. I have set of offices which are located in Harare. I am presently not with any movement, grouping political party. I did not direct, require, or encourage anyone to take over the premises which are referred to by the deponent to the founding affidavit as attributed to me. I resigned as the leader of the Applicant and since that resignation I have not physically been to Bulawayo. I completely have nothing to do with the Applicant.
4.2 If there is anyone in occupation the deponent to the founding affidavit knows who they are and that its not me. The Applicant must sue those people, if ever they exist, and instead of harassing me.
4.3 I submit that this application is a revolting abuse of Court process to grandstand and seek relevance by the deponent to the founding affidavit through dragging my name into this charade. The claims that I have despoiled the Applicant because some premises which I have no connection to have been painted blue and my face has been painted on the wall of the premises is completely bizarre. My image and name have been appropriated by many people who have no connection to me. In fact, the irony of the application is that since I resigned as the leader of the Citizens Coalition for Change, the Applicant and the deponent to the founding affidavit have continued to use my face on their preferred logo. I wish to reiterate that I have no special association with any colour, any political organisation or any movement.
4.4 The present application is a nuisance and a frivolity in the highest degree which seeks to drag the Court into the deponent’s tired and base political schemes. It is an egregious violation which has been concocted by the deponent to the founding affidavit and other similar minded persons. I believe that for this reason, the deponent to the founding affidavit must be made to pay my costs of suit de bonis propriis on the scale of legal practitioner and client.
WHEREFORE, I pray that the application be dismissed with my costs of suit being paid on the scale of legal practitioner and client by Sengezo Tshabangu.
