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  • Robert Mugabe passed here

    Robert Mugabe passed here

    In his journey through the circle of birth on 21 February, 1924, to living for up to close to a century, and to dying on 6 September, 2019, former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe passed here. And his sojourn was quite eventful. On this sixth anniversary of his passing away, this column honours his memory today by bringing together a selection of his thoughts enunciated at public forums.

    Very many witty quotes have been attributed to the late President, especially on social media. It is not certain how authentic the attributions are. However, it is widely acknowledged that, in his days, Mugabe was the world’s most educated President who earned not less than seven university degrees, with two at the Masters level. He had a B.A. in History and English, B.Ed., BSc. in Economics, LLB, LLM, and B.A. in Administration, among other qualifications.

    It is therefore not surprising that he had an attention-grabbing style of speaking. And it is not certain whether a replacement has yet been found for him with respect to his witty, sometimes irreverent, rhetoric on the international scene. At the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, on 26 September, 2013, the then-89-year-old Mugabe said: “We cannot accept situations whereby the UN Security Council is increasingly encroaching on issues that traditionally fall within the General Assembly’s purview and competence, including in the area of norm setting.”

    Mugabe continued: “Indeed, recent events have revealed that its [Security Council] formal decisions have provided camouflage to neo-imperialist forces of aggression seeking to militarily intervene in smaller countries in order to effect regime change and acquire complete control of their wealth. This was so in Libya where in the name of protecting civilians, NATO forces were deployed with an undeclared mission to eliminate Muammar Gaddafi and his family. A similar campaign had been undertaken in Iraq by the Bush and Blair forces in the false name of eradicating weapons of mass destruction which Saddam Hussein never possessed.”

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    Mugabe also noted: “For Africa, the reform of the United Nations Security Council is especially long overdue. The anachronistic and unrepresentative character of the Security Council must be redressed. For how long should Africa continue to be denied the right to play a pivotal role in the United Nations Security Council as it decides measures on conflicts within its own borders?”

    Mugabe further declared: “Zimbabwe strongly condemns the use of unilateral economic sanctions as a foreign policy tool to effect regime change. Thus, the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States and the European Union violate fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter on state sovereignty and non-interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state. Moreover, these illegal sanctions continue to inflict economic deprivation and human suffering on all Zimbabweans. In the eyes of our people, the sanctions constitute a form of hostility and violence against them for the simple crime of undertaking the land reform programme by which land was put in the hands of the then majority landless Zimbabweans.”

    In addition, the Zimbabwean President asserted: “Our small and peaceful country is threatened daily by covetous and bigoted big powers whose hunger for domination and control of other nations and their resources knows no bounds. Shame, shame, shame to the United States of America. Shame, shame, shame to Britain and its allies. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans, so are its resources. Please remove your illegal and filthy sanctions from my peaceful country. If these sanctions were intended to effect regime change, well, the results of the recent national elections have clearly shown you what they can do.”

    He further declared: “We are preached to daily by the west on the virtues of democracy and freedom which they do not totally espouse. Zimbabwe took up arms precisely to achieve our freedom and democracy. Yet we have been punished by United States through the odious Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act enacted in 2001 to effect regime change in the country.”

    Concluding the speech, Mugabe said: “It appears that when the USA and its allies speak of democracy and freedom they are doing so only in relative terms. Zimbabwe however refuses to accept that these western detractors have the right to define democracy and freedom for us. We paid the ultimate price for it and we are determined never to relinquish our sovereignty and remain masters of our destiny. As we have repeatedly asserted, Zimbabwe will never be a colony again!!”

    Furthermore, on 21 September, 2017 at the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly, Mugabe targeted President Donald Trump as follows: “Some of us were embarrassed, if not frightened, by what appeared to be the return of the biblical Giant Gold Goliath. Are we having a return of Goliath to our midst, who threatens the extinction of other countries? And may I say to the United States President, Mr. Trump, please blow your trumpet — blow your trumpet in a musical way towards the values of unity, peace, cooperation, togetherness, dialogue, which we have always stood for and which are well-writ in our very sacred document, the Charter of the United Nations.”

    Mugabe also had tough words for non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In a 9 August, 2004 News24 item titled “Zim slams ‘imperialist’ NGOs,” Mugabe declared: “We know their tactics, these imperialists … as they deploy hordes of their compatriots under the cover of innumerable non-governmental organisations to destabilise our country and to try and effect the so-called regime ‘change.’”

    Relating this view with the detrimental activities of local NGOs in South Africa, such as the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI), the Acting Mayor of Cape Town, Kenny Kunene, was reported by TimesLIVE, on 25 May, 2023, to have angrily said: “I understand why Robert Mugabe banned all NGOs in Zimbabwe, and only allowed NGOs led by Zimbabweans that seek to help Zimbabweans to exist.” He also remarked cynically that NGOs should stop masquerading as political parties, and that rather, “If they want to govern, they must go and contest elections like we did. NGOs must not get involved in the work of government. It is none of their business.”

    Mugabe was most unsparing of homosexuals. In fact, he was reported by International Business Times UK, on 24 July, 2013, to have said: “[We] have this American president, [Barrack] Obama, born of an African father, who is saying we will not give you aid if you don’t embrace homosexuality … We ask, was he born out of homosexuality? We need continuity in our race, and that comes from the woman, and no to homosexuality. John and John, no; Maria and Maria, no. They are worse than dogs and pigs. I keep pigs and the male pig knows the female one.”

    He was also reported, by UPI.com, on 25 November, 2011, to have said: “It becomes worse and satanic when you get a Prime Minister like Cameron saying countries that want British aid should accept homosexuality.” To make it clear, Mugabe told the 70th UN General Assembly on 28 September, 2015 regarding Africans: “We are not gays!”

    It is amazing that in spite of his blatant opposition to Western hegemony and culture, and despite the spirited efforts of these hegemons to topple his government, they could not readily get enough capable renegade Zimbabweans to incite to do the dirty job. In fact, Aljazeera, on 6 September, 2019, reported Mugabe to have said: “Only God, who appointed me, will remove me – not the MDC [Zimbabwean opposition party Movement for Democratic Change], not the British. Only God will remove me!”

    Meanwhile, Mugabe had overstayed his welcome in power. He didn’t seem to be sufficiently guided by the admonitory Yoruba proverb which warns: “Tí a bá pé l’órí imí, esinkéesin níí bá’ni níbè. (‘If you stay too long on passing faeces, all sorts of weird flies would meet you there.’) Moreover, Mugabe did not seem to set much store by former United States President Barrack Obama’s admonition to African leaders to respect term limits.

    Specifically, in his 28 July, 2015 speech to African leaders at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, President Obama said: “I have to also say that Africa’s democratic progress is also at risk when leaders refuse to step aside when their terms end.  … I am in my second term.  …  I love my work.  But under our Constitution, I cannot run again. … So, there’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving, but the law is the law. And no one person is above the law.  Not even the President. When a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, it risks instability and strife … And this is often just a first step down a perilous path.” 

    Obama further said: “And sometimes you’ll hear leaders say, well, I’m the only person who can hold this nation together. If that’s true, then that leader has failed to truly build their nation.

    … And just as the African Union has condemned coups and illegitimate transfers of power, the AU’s authority and strong voice can also help the people of Africa ensure that their leaders abide by term limits and their constitutions. Nobody should be president for life.

    And your country is better off if you have new blood and new ideas.”

        In spite of these nuggets of wisdom, Mugabe clung to power in Zimbabwe, and some of his aides, to whom he had become a presidential pawn due to age-related infirmities, urged him on. In fact,

    the Zimbabwean newspaper NewsDay of 18 February, 2017 reported his wife, Grace Mugabe, to have said: “You hear people accusing me of still wanting to continue as the First Lady of this nation, saying that is why I don’t want to tell the President to retire. I am not the only one who voted for him. Only a fool will say that. We will field a candidate of a corpse on the ballot if God takes Mugabe and people will vote for him just to show how much the President is loved.”

    However, Mugabe’s faculties were declining, his steps were becoming increasingly unsteady and his capacity to continue to provide effective leadership waned dramatically. In the end, Mugabe was worsted by age, and on 21 November, 2017, at 93 and having ruled for 37 years, he was forced to resign as President to preempt impeachment.

    Robert Mugabe is an African hero. But our heroes are not saints, and nobody else’s are. So, let’s not throw the baby away with the bath water, but aggregate the noble visions and thoughts of our myriad of remarkable African leaders. From that aggregation, let’s build a workable template for a new African destiny.

  • Robert Mugabe remembered

    The death of Robert Mugabe at the age of 95 brings to an end the end of a tumultuous era in Zimbabwean history. What is now Zimbabwe was created by that English speaking South African imperialist Cecil Rhodes in the 19th century’s struggle between the Boers, the descendants of the Dutch-speaking adventurers who had emigrated to the Cape of Good Hope in the 16th century as part of a coaling station on the way to their colony in what is now Indonesia. Over the years, South Africa itself became a prized possession of the Dutch settlers who increasingly came into conflict with native South Africans particularly the Sothos and the much more formidable Zulus.

    Towards the end of the 19th century, the British had replaced the native South Africans in the contestation for power with the Boers leading to a bitter war with them and even drawing in Germany’s support for the Boers in what was a struggle for global power between the two Anglo-Saxon nations of Britain and Germany. Before the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902), the British had tried to outflank the two Boer republics of Orange Free State and Transvaal by planting a British colony north of them in a private enterprise by Cecil Rhodes, a millionaire who had made his fortune in mining gold in South Africa. This enterprise resulted in the territories of northern and southern Rhodesia named after him thus becoming the private property of Cecil Rhodes who provided the funds for establishing them.

    Africans were not totally docile in the politics of Southern Africa. The same territory claimed by Rhodes was ruled by an African potentate named Lobengula, the king of the Ndebele nation. The  Ndebele were an offshoot of the  Zulus who had precipitated an Mfecane (dispersal) northwards following pressure from European invasion of their territory and a revolution in their military tactics leading to their victory over the British in Isandlwana in 1879 but this was to be a Pyrrhic victory because they were eventually conquered.

    The point to note is that the history of Southern Africa is intricately interwoven. The modern states that have emerged in Southern Africa are the creations of European nation state ideology and map making. The people of Southern Africa are the same Bantu-speaking peoples albeit of different dialects of the same language.

    When the emissary of Cecil Rhodes met Lobengula and promised him protection of the queen of Britain, he laughed and said he was in a better position to protect the Britons who may come visiting. The visitors came first as missionaries and later as settlers. Lobengula later told the story of how the British came to his territory and asked him and his people to close their eyes to pray and that after praying they opened their eyes and lo and behold the British flag had been unfurled and was flying over their territory! The British soon found out that the Ndebele were a minority ruling over the vast majority of the Shona.

    This was soon exploited in the classical “divide et imperia” practice wherever the British ruled in their far flung empire. When the Africans woke up and began to fight for their rights, their movement was divided along tribal lines of ZAPU (Zimbabwe African people’s Union) led by the Ndebele leader, Joshua Nkomo while the ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) was led by the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole who was later edged out by the much more radical and ruthless Robert Mugabe, a Shona, who had previously trained as a catholic friar.

    The British tried unsuccessfully to bring their territories of northern and southern Rhodesia into a federation with Nyasaland (now Malawi) in what was called Central African federation under white settlers’ rule which was unacceptable to African nationalism. Nyasaland withdrew from the federation and became the independent country of Malawi under Dr. Kamuzu Banda in July 1964 and was followed by northern Rhodesia as Zambia under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda in October 1964. Rhodesia remained firmly under white settlers control with Ian Smith as prime minister boasting that black Africans will not in a thousand years rule Rhodesia and unilaterally declared the territory independent in 1965.

    The Africans became more and more desperate to free themselves. They took to the bush and launched guerrilla war to overthrow the white settler ruled Rhodesia. The struggle was very brutal and the settlers regimes in Southern African territories of South Africa, South West Africa (later Namibia), Portuguese-ruled Angola and Mozambique supported in their own interest Ian Smith in Rhodesia. African countries through the liberation committee of the OAU with Nigeria paying substantially the lion share of the budget for the effort of the liberation movements in Southern Africa confronted the regime.

    Nigeria stepped into the effort of liberation of Southern Africa in a big way in the middle of the 1970s especially after the collapse of the Portuguese empire in Africa in 1975. This period coincided with the coming into power of Generals Murtala Muhammad and Olusegun Obasanjo. Even after General Muhammed was assassinated in 1976, the Obasanjo government continued to provide material and financial support for the liberation of Southern Africa especially when South Africa tried to support reactionary movements of UNITA and RENAMO in Angola and Mozambique respectively against the MPLA and FRELIMO governments in the two countries. Nigeria was designated a frontline state along with Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania. The Commonwealth of Nations also put pressure on Rhodesia and South Africa to change their oppressive regimes and bend in the way African nationalism.

    In order to forge a unified front in Southern Rhodesia, General Obasanjo invited Mugabe and Nkomo to Dodan Barracks in Lagos and tried to appeal to the nationalist leaders for unity. When they refused, Obasanjo dramatically locked up the two of them and gave them revolvers to shoot it out. Both later came out laughing and dramatically later merged their forces in a new movement called ZANU/ ZAPU Patriotic Front. Obasanjo’ government nationalized British financial assets in Nigeria by taking over Barclays Bank and British Petroleum (BP) with threat that others will follow.

    This and the intensification of guerrilla war forced the British  in 1980 to concede independence and majority rule to southern Rhodesia renamed Zimbabwe after an African civilization that flourished in the place in medieval times. The country was under the leadership of Robert Mugabe from independence in 1980 to 2017 when in a military putsch, Robert  Mugabe’s authoritarian rule was terminated .The independence of Zimbabwe changed the strategic position of South Africa for the worst for the apartheid regime by strengthening the frontier of freedom confronting South Africa.

    I personally experienced this when in 1989, I stood on the Beit Bridge separating Zimbabwe from South Africa and looked into a future when South Africa would join the community of free African states; a hope which was realized in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa under a non-racial majoritarian democracy.

    With the death of Mugabe, the question is being asked about his legacy. There is no doubt that Mugabe gave his people confidence. The story is often told about a British economic mission visiting Zimbabwe after independence and their leader a British peer getting impatient with young, barely trained immigration officers and arrogantly loudly telling the immigration officers, “We have come to invest in your country”. Deflating the British peer, one immigration officer said “what is wrong in you investing in your own country?” That’s the kind of self-assuredness young Zimbabweans had.

    The unity in Zimbabwe did not last and soon after independence, Mugabe unleashed his North Korean trained special forces on the Ndebele in the south of the country killing thousands of them. He also soon took over by force, white farms and nationalized the diamond and other mineral mines. These acts led the British to mobilize their allies in Europe and North Africa to impose economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. These sanctions ruined the economy of the country and led to more extreme measures and authoritarianism on the part of the Mugabe regime.

    Many young educated Zimbabweans fled to South Africa and Europe to eke out some kind of miserable existence. The country was totally ruined financially and reduced to a laughing stock in the comity of nations while Mugabe remained ever witty in his criticism of the west and Britain in particular. The Mugabe story is a mixed bag of heroism and tragedy of an African ruler who fought valiantly for his country and also let down his own people in a fit of megalomania and inability to vacate the seat of power while the ovation was loudest.

  • Overrated Mugabe and lessons for Nigeria

    ZIMBABWE regards Robert Mugabe, their former prime minister and president who died at 95 in Singapore, a national icon. They are right. He helped extricate the country from white minority rule in 1980, made significant impact on education and healthcare, and authored great and colourful quotes. But his countervailing policies of repression and mismanagement, not to talk of his megalomania and repression, all combined to weaken his legacy and left the country bewildered, underdeveloped and struggling . He was enormously gifted, passably intelligent and doubtless passionate about Zimbabwe, but he was neither futuristic nor blessed with the kind of sound judgement needed to secure his legacy for all time.

    Mr Mugabe ruled for all of 37 years, seven of which he spent as prime minister until the constitution was amended to enable him assume the presidency. If Zimbabweans regard him as an icon, it is partly because they have no benchmark with which to compare him. This is understandable. He had led them to independence. Even though at bottom he was an African nationalist, he also became in the 1970s and 1980s a Marxist-Leninist, metamorphosed into a socialist in the 1990s, and ended up with an eclectic body of ideas and programmes improperly described as Mugabeism, a self-serving and incoherent tapestry into which was woven Eastern and African ideologies ranging from Maoism and Stalinism to Nkrumaism and Negritude among many others.

    His moulting over the years was, however, a mask for his impatience and  indiscipline. Starting out as a reflective leader intent on running an inclusive government, he gradually began hardening into a conceited ruler after he was repeatedly spurned by white Zimbabweans who resisted land redistribution, unhelpful former colonial masters who were suspicious of his intentions and socialist bent, and heckling local politicians some of whom opposed his power grab and dissonant policies. These problems may explain why he hardened himself, but they do not excuse him, for in the long run, his legacies would be determined by how strong he left the country rather than what motivated his repressive tendencies. Few would disagree that he left his country much poorer than he met it, more divided than necessary, and less promising looking into the future.

    An unsparing and scathing biographer, Martin Meredith, summed up Mr Mugabe’s leadership this way: “By the mid-1990s Mugabe had become an irascible and petulant dictator, brooking no opposition, contemptuous of the law and human rights, surrounded by sycophantic ministers and indifferent to the incompetence and corruption around him. His record of economic management was lamentable. He had failed to satisfy popular expectations in education, health, land reform, and employment. And he had alienated the entire white community. Yet all the while Mugabe continued to believe in his own greatness. Isolated and remote from ordinary reality, possessing no close friends and showing clear signs of paranoia, he listened only to an inner circle of conspiratorial aides and colleagues. Whatever difficulties occurred he attributed to old enemiesBritain, the West, the old Rhodesian networkall bent, he believed, on destroying his ‘revolution’.”

    Mr Meredith may be somewhat prejudiced, but he still managed to capture a part of the trajectory of Mr Mugabe’s leadership. Indeed, almost as if justifying naysayers’ view of his leadership, Mr Mugabe himself demeaned the subject of the rule of law by this explicatory statement on the issue of land seizures that buffeted his presidency: “The courts can do whatever they want, but no judicial decision will stand in our way … My own position is that we should not even be defending our position in the courts. This country is our country and this land is our land … They think because they are white they have a divine right to our resources. Not here. The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans, Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans.” Given the consequences of many of his policies and his serial subversion of institutions, not to say particularly his contempt for the rule of law, it is not surprising that his country has been left bewildered and unable to reach a consensus on what his leadership meant for Zimbabwe. He undoubtedly led his country to independence, but did it also confer on him the right to enslave it to himself and his family — to the point of scheming his wife as successor — and compromise its future?

    Even if Mr Mugabe had not overreached himself by attempting to foist his wife, Grace, as his successor, thus provoking his opponents to unite against him, and had managed to die in office, his controversial legacy would still not have been mitigated nor his leadership canonised. He was tremendously gifted, witty and courageous, and judging from some of his sayings, he was also a thoughtful leader; but it is remarkable just how little he learnt from the past and how arrogant he was about his hold on Zimbabwe and its future. If his 37 years in office had led to outstanding economic growth and technological development, his long reign would have been forgiven, his repression excused, and his massacre of opposition people and politicians become a footnote in a supposedly glorious reign. Unfortunately, the outcome was different.

    Nigeria and other African countries have a lot to learn from Mr Mugabe’s forced exit in 2017 and his questionable legacy. Many of them are now superficially democratic, and may therefore see themselves immune to the fate that befell the Zimbabwean leader; but they really must worry about what legacy they hope to bequeath their peoples, in terms of institutions, the economy, and democracy. Mr Mugabe tried in his early years in office to run an inclusive government, but because he lacked the depth, discipline and democratic perspective to anchor his efforts and guarantee stability for his country going into the future, he was unsuccessful. Many African countries still treat democracy with deep loathing and suspicion. Nigeria is not an exception. Its democratic credentials are deeply suspect and unreliable, and its leaders unconvinced about democracy’s many essential and complex elements. This is why since the advent of the Fourth Republic and four presidents later, democracy is yet to be entrenched, and institutions are still weak and subservient to the executive branch, thus enthroning a terrible and provocative culture of surrender and genuflection.

    Mr Mugabe, like Nigerian leaders, paid no attention to what the future held for his country. He was particularly remiss in this area. Yet, thousands of years before him, Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar wondered about what would happen after his reign, leading him to seek clarification and insight, an indication of his conviction, thoughtfulness and depth. The insight he got, though of no immediate value to him or his reign, at least gave him the reassurance of knowing and reconciling himself with what he found out. Mr Mugabe had no inkling what would happen to Zimbabwe after him, as he was unable to think beyond himself and foisting his wife on a country that had been pushed into distress and retrogression. Nelson Mandela at least thought long and hard about the future, wisely stepped aside after his first term, and tried to nurture and mentor future South African leaders. He met with qualified success, a success sadly unable to transcend even one generation before the country began its alarming descent into suicidal mediocrity and violence. Zimbabwe is not gifted with the right leadership, and will continue to grope in the dark.

    If Nigeria is to learn any lesson from Zimbabwe and from Mr Mugabe in particular, its presidents must eschew the indiscipline and superficiality that almost completely destroyed the Zimbabwean leader’s legacy. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, despite his exposure, learnt little from other great statesmen and leaders, and thus embarked on disastrous succession adventures. President Muhammadu Buhari does not show a complete comprehension of what leadership entails, preferring the sycophancy of parochial aides and the destruction or subjugation of institutions. Unable to summon the depth, discipline and coherence needed to enthrone the appropriate and inclusive policies and appointments, it is feared that his succession policy, not to say his second term, may also be fraught with adverse ideas and programmes. Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire and a host of other African countries have also by a combination of poor leadership and disastrous programmes exposed their countries to ridicule and poverty, and wrapped every succession period in violence and instability.

    Mr Mugabe may be the archetype of promising leadership gone hopeless berserk; but his example is not necessarily inevitable for all African countries. Nigeria and others can avoid that horrible example. But they will need the right leadership to escape the Zimbabwean pitfalls, the kind of leadership they sadly don’t have at the moment. Ghana has fared much better, and even Benin Republic has shown a lot of promise. The tragedy is that Nigeria, which by its size and endowments should lead the way, has become the continent’s perennial laggard, almost completely destitute of sound judgement and deep and disciplined leaders. Zimbabwe must contend with a dangerouslu unstable future, and that contention will be led by leaders like Emmerson Mnangagwa who are ill-equipped for the long and arduous task. Other countries like Nigeria must on their own contend with a precarious present, a task few of their leaders have shown the education and temperament to intelligently grapple with.

  • Buhari mourns Robert Mugabe

    President Muhammadu Buhari has sent condolences to the government and people of Zimbabwe over the passing of the founding father and former President, Robert Mugabe.

    The President, in a statement by the Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, commiserated with family members, friends and political associates of the political activist who fought for the independence of the country from colonial rule, and lived most of his life in public service

    Read Also: Robert Mugabe is dead

    President Buhari believed Mugabe’s sacrifices, especially in struggling for the political and economic emancipation of his people, will always be remembered by posterity.

    He prayed that the Almighty God will grant the soul of the former president rest and comfort his loved ones.

  • WHO launches vaccination drive in Zimbabwe to stem cholera outbreak

    The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday started a drive to vaccinate 1.4 million Zimbabweans amid a cholera outbreak that has killed 49 people in the capital Harare so far.

    Almost 140 people have been infected with the disease that is most often transmitted by contaminated water, according to the WHO.
    The vaccination campaign will be rolled out in two rounds, focusing on the most heavily affected suburbs of Harare and Chitungwiza, located 30 kilometres Southeast of the capital.

    To ensure longer-term immunity, a second dose will be provided in all areas at a later stage, according to the WHO.

    The organisation is also working with the Zimbabwean government to provide affected communities with access to clean water and providing antibiotics to clinics, among other measures.

    With almost 8,000 cholera cases suspected, the cash-strapped Zimbabwean government declared a health emergency in early September.

     

    Read also: 2019: Who flies Sokoto APC’s flag?

     

    Cholera can cause severe diarrhoea and vomiting and can be fatal for children, the elderly and the sick.

    A 2008 cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe lasted over a year and killed more than 4,000 people.

    Non-Governmental Organisations have placed the blame squarely on the government.

    Amnesty International said “the current cholera epidemic is a terrible consequence of Zimbabwe’s failure to invest in and manage both its basic water and sanitation infrastructure and its health care system.’’

    Zimbabwe’s once-vibrant economy is in tatters after almost four decades of rule by former President Robert Mugabe.
    Mugabe was ousted in a military coup in 2017 and his former right-hand man, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was voted in as president in July elections.

  • Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa re-appoints two vice presidents

    Zimbabwean President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, on Thursday re-appointed his two vice, Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi.

    Chiwenga was Zimbabwe’s defence forces chief who led the military intervention which toppled former President Robert Mugabe.

    The two vice presidents were sworn into office by Chief Justice Luke Malaba at the State House in the presence of Mnangagwa and other senior government officials.

    Read Also: President congratulates Keita, Mnangagwa on election victories

    Mnangagwa had earlier been sworn-in on Sunday after the constitutional court dismissed opposition leader Nelson Chamisa’s petition challenging his election victory in the July 30 polls.

    He first appointed the two vice presidents in November 2017 when he took over from former President Mugabe, who resigned after a military intervention that ended his 37 years rule.

    Mnangagwa is still to appoint his cabinet.

  • Mugabe-era Minister jailed for corruption in Zimbabwe

    A Former Energy Minister Samuel Undenge ,who served under Zimbabwe’s ex President Robert Mugabe was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to four years in jail on Friday.

    His lawyer said that this is the first conviction of a Mugabe-era official since he stepped down.

    Mugabe resigned in November after 37 years in power following a military coup.

    His former deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa took power, vowing to root out corruption in a bid to attract investors to an economy crippled by a decade of hyperinflation and a sharp shortage of foreign currency.

    Undenge, was accused of issuing a12, 650 dollars contract without due tender to a company that did not work.

    His lawyer Alex Muchadehama told Reuters that he would appeal the court’s decision, saying the sentence was “shocking’’.

    He will however only serve two and half years of the four year sentence after the court said 18 months would be conditionally suspended.

    Read Also: Mugabe returns to Zimbabwe after seeking health care abroad

    Former foreign minister Walter Mzembi faces charges of “criminal abuse of office’’ and former finance minister Ignatius Chombo has been charged with fraud when he tried to defraud the central bank over a decade ago.

    They both denied the wrongdoing.

    The Southern African nation is to choose a new president and members of parliament on July 30, in what is expected to be a close race between Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

    A poll published on Friday showed the vote would provide no clear winner, with 40 per cent of voters choosing Mnangagwa and 37 per cent his opponent, Nelson Chamisa.

     

    NAN

     

  • Zimbabwe parliament delays Mugabe’s questioning on diamond revenue

    Former President Robert Mugabe will not appear before Zimbabwe’s parliament as scheduled on Wednesday to answer questions on diamond mining operations, a legislator said.

    Temba Mliswa, who leads the parliamentary committee on mines, said the clerk of parliament hadn’t written to Mugabe to invite him to appear.

    “It has been delayed but that resolution still stands,” Mliswa said.

    “He will have to appear before the committee whether he likes it or not.”

    The committee had ordered the 94-year-old Mugabe to face legislators over his previous pronouncements that the state had been deprived of at least 15 billion dollars in diamond revenue by mining companies.

    Mugabe said in March 2016 the country was robbed of the revenue by diamond companies, including joint ventures between Chinese companies and the army, police and intelligence services, whose operations were shielded from public scrutiny.

    Read Also:  Zimbabwe to summon Mugabe over missing $15bn worth of diamonds

    Specifically, he said Zimbabwe lost 15 billion dollars from the Marange gem fields, more than 400 km east of the capital.

    He later expelled the companies and replaced them with a state-owned diamond company.

    Mliswa said a new date for Mugabe to testify would be set.

    The questioning on Wednesday would have been Mugabe’s first public appearance since the army deposed him last November in a de facto coup.

    NAN

     

  • Zimbabwe to summon Mugabe over missing $15bn worth of diamonds

    Zimbabwean Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy said it will summon former president Robert Mugabe to explain how about 15 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of diamonds was siphoned out of Marange diamond fields.

    Mugabe once said in an interview while he was still president that some companies had repatriated diamonds from the fields, although his former spokesperson George Charamba has said his statement had been a metaphoric one.

    The Herald on Wednesday quoted committee chairperson Temba Mliswa as saying that his committee had resolved to invite Mugabe to get clarity on what happened to the diamonds.

    Read Also: Zimbabwe has moved on from Mugabe’s era – Mnangagwa

    He did not say when Mugabe would appear before the committee.

    “My point is that we are not witch-hunting; we are actually trying to get institutions to respond to the 15billion dollar leakage in terms of diamonds.

    “When we have received all the evidence we will deliberate on it, but in terms of him coming we had resolved that we will invite everybody, especially him since he was the source (of the information),” Mliswa said.

    A number of former and serving top officials in government and the security services have appeared before the same committee to answer questions regarding the “missing” diamonds

    NAN

  • Former Zimbabwe ministers charged with corruption

    Former Zimbabwe ministers charged with corruption

    Two former Zimbabwean cabinet ministers who served under ex-president Robert Mugabe have been charged with corruption, their lawyers said on Saturday, the latest sign of a crackdown on officials loyal to the ex-President.

    Mugabe, 93, stood down in November 2017 after 37 years in power following a de facto military coup, making way for his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to take over, Reuters reported.

    When the military seized power they arrested key allies of Mugabe and his wife, Grace, who was vying with Mnangagwa to succeed her husband.

    Former foreign minister, Walter Mzembi and ex-energy minister, Samuel Undenge, were charged on Friday with “criminal abuse of office,” their lawyers said.

    They both deny wrongdoing.

    Undenge is accused of issuing a $12,650 contract without due tender to a company that did no work.

    Mzembi and Undenge were granted bail on Saturday, asked to surrender their passports and remanded until January 22 when their cases will be heard.

    “We are going to make an application for an exception to the charge because the charges that my client is facing are ridiculous,” Job Sikhala, Mzembi’s lawyer, told journalists outside the court.

    Undenge’s lawyer, Alex Muchadehama, described the case against his client as a “circus.”