Webster Shamu has also been known as Charles Ndlovu, having changed his name during the civil war, as did many others who used pseudonyms to mask their identities. Shamu, previously a freelance broadcaster under the Smith regime and a well-known presenter to thousands on Radio Harare as the voice behind "The Lyons Maid Hit Parade", escaped from British South Africa Police attention for suspected or alleged crimes, crossed the border into Mozambique where he became again a well known voice to African listeners, broadcasting back from Maputo as the "Voice of Zimbabwe". He was appointed as Minister of State for Policy Implementation on 9 February 2004. Shamu, as Minister of State for Policy Implementation, presented President Robert Mugabe with a present of a nile crocodile, to be part of the museum being built for the president. Shamu is among a host of individuals not allowed to travel to the United States because the US government feels he has worked to undermine democracy in Zimbabwe. He has business interests in common with Charles Davy, the father of Chelsy Davy, the former girlfriend of Prince Harry, through Davy's HHK Safaris, which incorporates Shamu's Famba Safaris. HHK Safaris and Shamu were investigated for illegal ivory trading in 2007.
Political career
He was the editor of the ZANU-PF weekly news publication, the People's Voice, until he stepped down in 2004 to take up his post as the Minister of Policy Implementation in the President's office.
Shamu controversially won the Chegutu constituency in 2000 parliamentary election. His adversary in the election, Philemon Matibe, who ran on an MDC ticket, was one of the few black commercial farmers to lose a farm after the elections, to a mob purportedly hired by Shamu.
Shamu has appeared at the forefront praising the work of Gideon Gono to revive the economy of the country, although all these efforts appear to have been in vain.
2008 parliamentary election
Shamu was nominated by ZANU-PF as its candidate for the House of Assembly seat from Chegutu East constituency in the March 2008 parliamentary election. According to official results, he easily won the seat, receiving 9,222 votes against 2,724 for the candidate of the MDC faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai and 1,218 votes for the candidate of the MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara.
He was removed from his party position as ZANU-PF national political commissar and lost his central committee membership after being accused of being sympathetic to the then suspended Joice Mujuru and her presumed loyalists. He was also suspended from the party and removed from his ministerial position.
Shamu was re-appointed as a central committee member at the December 2016 ZANU-PF annual conference. He was then restored to the cabinet in a reshuffle on 9 October 2017, appointed as the Mashonaland West Provincial Affairs minister. Shamu was fired by President Emmerson Mnagangwa on 21 May 2018. No reasons were given for his sudden expulsion which was with immediate effect. Prior to him being sacked, he had been in the eye of a storm after he was found with ballots marked in his name, which was used in the Zanu PFprimary elections which held in April 2018.
