Sikhanyiso Ndlovu | |
---|---|
Minister of Information and Publicity of Zimbabwe | |
In office 6 February 2007 – December 2008 |
|
President | Robert Mugabe |
Personal details | |
Born |
Southern Rhodesia |
4 May 1937
Died | 15 September 2015 Bulawayo |
(aged 78)
Political party | Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front |
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu was a Zimbabwean politician who was Minister of Information and Publicity from 2007 to 2008. He was also a member of the ZANU-PF Politburo.
After serving as Deputy Minister of Education, Ndlovu was appointed as Minister of Information by President Robert Mugabe on February 6, 2007.
President Mugabe achieved a diplomatic coup in December 2007 when he attended a European Union-Africa summit despite a visa ban on Zimbabwean government officials, effective since 2001. At the summit, Ndlovu called Chancellor Angela Merkel a "Nazi remnant". Responding to Merkel's criticism of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, Ndlovu told her to "shut up or ship out," saying Germany needed a head of state like Otto von Bismarck.
Ndlovu was nominated as ZANU-PF's candidate for the House of Assembly seat from Pelandaba-Mpopoma constituency in Bulawayo in the March 2008 parliamentary election. He launched his campaign by slaughtering a beast and giving away bicycles to some of the people who attended his rally at Nkulumane Primary School, an act that his critics described as a gimmick to buy votes.Milford Gwetu, an MP for the Movement for Democratic Change who was running for re-election in the same constituency as Ndlovu, died during the campaign, and as a result the election there was delayed. In the postponed election held on 27 June 2008 he was defeated by MDC candidate Samuel Sandla Khumalo.