Professor Ngwabi Mulunge Bhebhe
By Dickson Bandera
Zimbabwe’s top academic and founding Vice Chancellor of Midlands State University, Professor Ngwabi Mulunge Bhebhe has died. He was 81.
Professor Bhebhe died this Friday and has since been declared a national hero, owing to his distinguished contribution to the national academic industry.
With an academic career spanning over 50 years, Professor Bhebhe will be fondly remembered as an outstanding teacher, administrator and scholar who as a lecturer since 1974, produced thousands of renowned scholars, teachers and leaders of various institutions in the SADC region and the world at large.
After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Geography from the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS) in 1967, he went on to receive his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Imperial History from the University of London in 1972.
Right away, Professor Bhebhe entered into lecturing, starting as history Lecturer at Faurah Bay College in Sierra Leone in 1974, and later at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS) before coming home to lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) from 1982.
He would then serve as Professor of History at the University of Zimbabwe from 1988 to 1999, and also as external examiner at the universities of Botswana, Malawi and Zambia.
At the UZ, he also assumed various leadership positions, among them, Chairperson of the University of Zimbabwe’s History Department (1989 to 1992), Chairperson of Research Board (1984 to 1991), Senior Proctor and ultimately Pro Vice Chancellor (1992 to 1995).
In 1999, government appointed Professor Bhebe as founding Vice Chancellor of Midlands State University, where he provided astute and visionary leadership that transformed the university into one of the best universities in the country and region.
In his condolence message, President Emmerson Mnangagwa expressed deep shock to the passing on of the great academic, saying he worked closely with Professor Bhebhe in various projects including the development of Midlands State University.
“I worked very closely with Professor Bhebhe at every stage from the inception to the development of Midlands State University as a full-fledged, multi-departmental institution which grew steeped in the national ethos. Together, we transformed MSU from being a pre-eminently academic-orientated institution as was the tradition then, to being Research-led and solution-driven,” said president Mnangagwa.
The president further said because of the late Professor Bhebhe’s astute leadership, MSU is right in the forefront of transforming higher education into a catalyst for National Development, by generating durably-tested solutions in line with Vision 2030.
A nationalist through and through, Professor Bhebhe was associated with numerous research projects and publications which re-narrativized the Zimbabwean history, thus helping us re-define and re-build our collective personality through decoloniality.
He played a leading role in compiling the Zimbabwean Chapter on African Liberation Struggle history to give a tome which is a must-read for all nationally aware citizens of the African continent. This monumental work was interspersed by numerous other projects repeatedly assigned to him by the Government of Zimbabwe.
Said the president: “We remain indebted to him for a number of researched portraits of national icons, among them late Benjamin Burombo, and the first Vice President of Zimbabwe, late Dr Simon V Muzenda. His research into the Ndebele State before colonization, and on the role of the Presbyterian Mission in the Midlands Province under successive colonial governments, added a rich, authoritative chapter to our history as a people.
“He will be sorely missed by our country’s community of researchers, and by the numerous PhD students he supervised as a Professor Emeritus at MSU, and before then as a leading lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe,” added president Mnangagwa.
Beyond Midlands State University, Professor Bhebe’s academic credentials landed him top international posts that include being the Zimbabwe representative on the UNESCO Executive Board, Council Member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), Alternate Members of the Governing Board of the Association of African Universities (AAU) and Founding and Executive Member of the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA) among others.
Locally, he was also a Board Member of the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education (ZIMCHE), and Chairperson of the Council’s Funding and Finance Committee, Board Member of ZISCOSTEEL Pvt Ltd Zimbabwe, Chairperson of the Human Resource Management Committee and Member of the Finance Committee.
He was also the Country Researcher, and Member of the Management Board of the Hashim Mbita SADC Liberation Struggle Project, Non Executive Director of Ngwabi Enterprises and the Founding Member and second Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Universities Vice Chancellor Association (ZUVCA).
Burial Arrangements will be announced in due course.
