Janet Banana (née Mbuyazwe; 1938 – 29 July 2021) was a Zimbabwean teacher who became First Lady of Zimbabwe.
[1] But government arrests of UANC members led to the Banana family fleeing the country and not returning to the newly formed Rhodesia until 1975 while the Rhodesian Bush War was still ongoing.
A conference for women hosted by the Methodist church in Bulawayo in 1987 had Banana speaking out on the segregated nature of the Methodist church in the country, including how that very women's organization had two branches largely divided on racial lines that she referred to as "mini-apartheids".
[3] After seven years, Canaan Banana was removed from the office of President following a constitutional amendment that instated Prime Minister Robert Mugabe.
[1] In the 1990s, her husband faced criminal charges for sodomy and Banana and her daughter sought political asylum in the United Kingdom in October 2000.