Thread by @NewsHawksLive

Zimbabwean publisher Trevor Ncube in a candid admission that he was gullible, wrong and naive to support President Emmerson Mnangagwa's coup ascendancy in November 2017. He says he has now quit as Mnangagwa's adviser because he realised that the coup project won't end well.

Ncube was one of the aggressive and vocal supporters of the coup in 2017, confronting and attacking everyone who did not agree with his agenda.
He attacked the opposition, civil society, media and general members of the public who opposed the coup that many Zimbabweans endorsed.

Ncube did not just attack those who resisted Mnangagwa's coup and political evangelism, he also went on to the extent of blocking anyone on Twitter who did not agree with him.
That was usually after his cajoling, blandishments, coercive tactics, insults and threats have failed.

On media, Ncube sang praises for Mnangagwa and overzealously pushed stories supporting him in his newspapers, while spouting hostile and toxic propaganda against those who differed with him.
He worked closely with his pro-coup managers, editors and reporters in his media house.

In so doing and in the process, Zimbabwe's main opposition (then MDC Alliance; now CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa became his key target before the 2018 general elections.
Ncube even claimed that he knew Mnangwgwa would give Chamisa a deal he wouldn't resist, which was blatant a lie.

Ncube also lied to his newspapers in 2017 that ex-Zanu PF ministers Jonathan Moyo and Saviour Kasukuwere's had been arrested. After fabricating the false story, he planted it in his daily paper against better advice from informed colleagues who told him that the story was a lie.

That was not all: Ncube started interfering in editorial matters planting pro-coup stories smuggled into the news agenda and his attacking editors in public in a bid to whip them into line and please his political masters. He abused internal editors review meetings to do that.

Ncube even had the temerity to aggressively attack his own reporters, editors and newspapers for writing true stories he didn't like.
That constituted brazen editorial interference and exposed his slogan and charade that: "I am not my newspapers and my newspapers are not me."

When some editors resisted his unprofessional and scandalous editorial interference, Ncube overhauled the editorial team, removing and reassigning the then editor-in-chief Dumisani Muleya (who was chief content officer and Zimbabwe Independent editor) to promote pro-coup editors.

Muleya and his team had insisted the editorial policy of Alpha Media Holdings should remain independent; free of political and commercial interests, and personal agendas and interference, a battle they fought with Ncube when he joined Mnangagwa’s advisory team to a bitter end.

In a principled protest and after rejecting laid up reassignment as Editor-at-Large Investigations, Muleya, whose positions were split between Ncube's favourite editors, resigned to form The NewsHawks with colleagues, making it the country’s leading investigative news platform.

All the while, Ncube persisted to attack the editorial integrity and credibility of his media group which the market began to view as captured by Mnangagwa's regime.
To their credit, the placed editors, who initially backed the coup, realised it and began to resist the capture.

With time Ncube also started seeing his naivety and folly, gradually distancing himself from the Mnangagwa regime until now when he quit in bitterness and exasperation, with his credibility in tatters.
To his credit, Ncube has admitted he was wrong and naive in the first place.

After his Damascene moment - a seminal turning point of finally seeing the light and insight - Ncube is expected to fix his damaged credibility and work with progressive forces to change Zimbabwe for the better, a role he played well before joining the Mnangagwa gravy train.