Abel Muzorewa
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Bishop Abel Muzorewa |
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|---|---|
Muzorewa in 1977
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| Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia | |
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In office 1 June – 11 December 1979 |
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| President | Josiah Zion Gumede |
| Preceded by |
Ian Smith As Prime Minister of Rhodesia |
| Succeeded by |
Robert Mugabe As Prime Minister of Zimbabwe |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
14 April 1925 Umtali, Manicaland, Southern Rhodesia |
| Died | 8 April 2010 (aged 84) Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe |
| Nationality | Zimbabwean |
| Political party | United African National Council |
| Profession | Clergyman |
| Religion | Methodist |
Bishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa (14 April 1925 – 8 April 2010) served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia from the Internal Settlement to the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979. A United Methodist Church bishop and nationalist leader, he held office for only a few months.
Muzorewa was the eldest of a lay preacher's eight children and was educated at the United Methodist School, Old Umtali, near Mutare. He was a school teacher at Mrewa between 1943 and 1947 before becoming a full-time lay preacher at Mtoko between 1947 and 1949. He then studied theology at Old Umtali Biblical College (1949–1952) and was ordained as a Minister at Umtali in August 1953. He was a pastor at Chiduku, near Rusape, from 1955 to 1958.
Muzorewa attended Central College in Fayette, Missouri, later Central Methodist University. By then he had a wife and three sons, who lived with him in prefabricated student housing, while his sons attended a segregated school. His youngest son Wesley and playmate Mark Elrod (son of the college Librarian J. McRee Elrod) attempted to integrate the ice cream counter of the local drug store, but were turned away.
When Elrod took Muzorewa to visit Scarritt College in Nashville Tennessee, they were turned away from an eating facility, an incident he mentions in his autobiography. However, he later graduated as a Master of Arts from Scarritt (now a conference center).
In July 1963, Muzorewa became pastor of Old Umtali. A year later he was appointed National Director of the Christian Youth Movement and was seconded to the Christian Council. In 1966, he became Secretary of the Student Christian Movement. In 1968, at Masera in Botswana, he was consecrated as the United Methodist Church's Bishop of Rhodesia.
In 1971 the British government struck a deal with Ian Smith that provided for a transition to "majority rule" in exchange for an end to sanctions against the government. Muzorewa joined an inexperienced cleric, the Reverend Canaan Banana, to form the United African National Council (UANC) to oppose the settlement, under the acronym NIBMAR (no independence before majority rule).
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