Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was one of the principal Black Nationalist leaders of the Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle for independence, and the founder of the first substantive black political organization, ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union).

Nkomo was born in in June 1917 in the Southern Rhodesian Semokwe Native Reserve, as areas set aside for black occupation at that time were known, to parents who both worked for the London Missionary Society. He was one of 8 children, and a member of the Kalanga tribe, which, although Nkomo identified with the minority Ndebele of Zimbabwe, is part of the Mashona language grouping.

In common with most of the nationalist leaders of his generation Nkomo was educated largely through his own efforts, he first having trained as a social worker at the Jan Hofmeyer School of Social Work in Johannesburg, and later completing a BA in Economics and Sociology through private study of external course from the University of South Africa.

Nkomo rose to political prominence through the Rhodesian Railways Railway Workers Association, later the Railway and Allied Workers Union. In 1952 he succeeded to the presidency of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (ANC) . Black political organizations at that time tended to operate along accommodationist lines, working to curb the excesses of white rule rather than directly challenging it.

Nkomo suffered occasional obloquy for his apparent corruptibility and unwillingness to endure any of the more odious aspects of the nationalist struggle, such as the arrest and detention that tended to be part and parcel of the struggle. He however was again elected present of a reformed ANC in 1957, and in 1960 of the National Democratic Party after the banning of the ANC.

Nkomo’s career was blighted by a number of signature blunders, but perhaps the worst was his insistence that the executive of ZAPU, successor to the now banned NDP, form a government in exile in Dar es Salaam, apparently at the invitation of the doyen of the liberation movement, Julius Nyerere. Upon gathering at the Tanzanian capital it turned out that Nyerere had made no such invitation, casting a cloud over Nkomo who it was suspected had orchestrated the abandonment of the Liberation Struggle to protect himself against inevitable imprisonment as a consequence of his political activities.

This event set the stage for a power struggle that resulted in a split in the nationalist movement that then emerged under the two banners of ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) and ZAPU. The leader of ZANU was the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, a highly esteemed cleric and intellectual who led the party after it’s banning, and during a decade when most of the leadership of both parties, including Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, where imprisoned within Southern Rhodesia.

The release of the nationalists in the mid 1970s saw power divided between Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, each leading their respective parties of ZAPU and ZANU. Several years of power brokering followed as the bush war in Rhodesia reached a pitch of intensity, during which Robert Mugabe emerged as the more ruthless, feared and powerful of the two. A unity agreement was in due course reached under the guidance of the Frontline States (a grouping of newly independent countries bordering Rhodesia) under which the closing phases of the Liberation Struggle were ostensibly fought. However there was little genuine cooperation, and certainly no affection between the two men, and with the negotiated settlement of the war Mugabe emerged as the winner of all party elections, ousting 90 years of white rule, and assuming the leadership of an independent Zimbabwe.

Joshua Nkomo then entered government in various portfolios, but it was only a matter of time before Robert Mugabe sought to neutralize his power base, which set in motion the events of the mid 1980s, nowadays known as the Gukuruhundi, or the cleansing. This period saw the Mashona dominated ZANU brutally crush Ndebele resistance, and exact a crippling campaign of retribution against the Ndebele civilian population that was concluded only at the cost of thousands of lives.

A unity agreement was reached, Nkomo and his political allies were effective emasculated, and the erstwhile nationalist lived out the remainder of his days feted for his contribution to the struggle, but maintained on a very short leash and left in no doubt that his days as a substantive political leader were over. He died on 1 July 1999, was interned at Heroes Acre, after which he took his place in the liberation mythology, decorated by the praise and accolades of those who has spent nearly 20 years conspiring and plotting his political demise. Nkomo is still widely regarded as the father of independent Zimbabwe, and is widely revered.