Jokonya was born in the Charter District, since renamed Chikomba and attended Lourdes Mission and Kutama College before training as a primary schoolteacher.
Jokonya was a good student and was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship for a postgraduate degree at the University of Sussex School of African Studies in 1968, at which he wrote a dissertation on military intervention in politics in Africa.
With the advent of majority rule, Dr Jokonya returned and was employed as a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, specialising in modern British and European history.
However, he was swiftly recruited to be part of the new ZANU PF government as deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Recreation in 1980.
However, the latter part of his term saw him defending Zimbabwe against attempts by some European countries to impose sanctions arising out of their opposition to Zimbabwean land reform policies.
In contrast to the previous Minister Jonathan Moyo, Dr Jokonya tried to reach out to media sources which were less friendly to the Zimbabwe government.
He told them "I would want to make presentations to them on various subjects and one area I would want to deliver a paper on is on human rights because this term has been viewed from an Anglo-Saxon perspective."