In what smacks of an attempt to curry favour with the opposition ahead of the planned 31 March 2025 protest against President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government, expelled Zanu PF Central Committee member Blessed Geza has offered a grovelling apology to opposition members.

He seeks forgiveness for his participation in operations that saw hundreds of opposition supporters killed, tortured, maimed, and raped since the dawn of the new millennium, when the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by the late trade unionist Richard Morgan Tsvangirai, burst onto the scene in 1999.

Opposition supporters suffered terribly at the hands of Zanu PF militia post-2000, with 2008 being etched in history as a particularly horrific period. During this time, Zanu PF militant youths and war veterans inflicted torture, abductions, and all manner of human rights violations to then MDC supporters.

In a move that some will undoubtedly view with cynicism, Geza, as one of the war veterans who participated in these heinous crimes with impunity, has now appealed for forgiveness from the opposition community for his past sins, committed alongside his comrades.

Geza attributed his past actions to "the fog of war" and acknowledged that human rights violations, corruption, and economic mismanagement have led the younger generation to scorn those who fought in the liberation war.

"We are sorry as war veterans. We have let you down. We were being used to assault members of the opposition because we were blinded," he confessed.

Geza concluded: "We are now a laughing stock. Young people in this country are telling us as war veterans to return the country in the hands of former colonists. This is being caused by these criminals that we are not reprimanding."

It has become something of a well-worn trope for Zanu PF outcasts to apologise to the opposition the moment they fall out of favour within their own party.