The colonial administration for a long time chose to ignore political developments that were slowly heating up in the Shangani. Widespread discontent over land husbandry, memories of violent evictions and the prospect of a better life through nationalism all made the Shangani a hot bed for the breeding of nationalism in the Matabeleland area.

By 1961, chiefs in the Shangani were beginning to confront with the presence of nationalist violence. The colonial administration, only a decade early, had dismissed the prospects of such activity, believing that nationalism would die down like a small fire. They were proved wrong.

Now as violence and resistance was manifesting itself all over Nkayi and Lupane, they believed that nationalism had come into the districts as a poison. They believed things were happening not from within, but because of external elements in the districts. This they chose to believe despite the fact that there were some of the evictees who had settled in the Shangani who had been nationalist activists in the areas from which they were evicted. The authorities had made the mistake of comforting themselves into believing that these men and women would forget about nationalism and settle to a life of agriculture in their new land.

However, things heated up in the Shangani in 1959 when some nationalist restrictees arrived in Lupane. The administration had split up a group of African National Congress (ANC) restrictees held in detention. Some of the restrictees were sent to Lupane and one of the members of this group was the famous politician, James Chikerema

Soon the group was being blamed for sudden change from passivity to active nationalism in the Shangani district. Frequent political meetings were reported and greater violation of agricultural regulations, on a wide scale raised the fury of the administration. The rural folk were now described as arrogant and reckless and the National Democratic Party, the nationalists’ political party active at that time, was blamed for all the insurgence.

Nationalists from the district felt differently though. In their eyes, nationalism was not a new phenomenon in the Shangani. To them, it went back to a decade ago way before the coming of the restrictees. They viewed political parties like the National Democratic Party (NDP), ANC and ZAPU in latter years, as only part of a series of nationalists who had simply made their way to the Shangani, however they were not the ignitors of nationalism, it was already there.

One evictee from Bubi recalled how she was already a member of the African People’s Voice before bring evicted to Nkayi in 1950. She said that when she got to Nkayi, there were no members of the Voice and she started recruiting women into the party and it was in 1957 that she suffered her first arrest for her activities. She was described as danger to the public.

She pointed out that her struggle was never really about land husbandry but it was against white authority and soon, the need to harness the support of the originals was realized.

Critically considered, nationalist opposition to white minority rule did not suddenly appear in the Shangani in 1961. Developments following the coming in of restrictees in the area only added to what was already happening and what had already happened in the past decade.