Nigeria: A Short Essay On ‘The Other Room’

By Banji Ojewale

“In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman”

– Margaret Hilda Thatcher (Late British Prime Minister)

*President Buhari and wife, Aisha

It’s fast turning out that ‘the other room’ in the cosmos of President Muhammadu Buhari is where we have to look for answers to some of the bewildering national questions of the day. When he was grabbed on camera as he faced the world to disclose the existence of an enclosure exclusive to his wife, the president hardly perceived the location as a world beyond his own vision. His remarks were a gratuitous riposte to a loving spouse’s customary admonition. He ignored her and sought to cage the woman, as it were. But the genie was out of the bottle.

Mugabe: Sleeping With The Dragon-Queen

By Dare Babarinsa

Finally, Robert Mugabe is separated from power. One impertinent journalist was said to have once asked the perennial president: “Mr Mugabe, when are you going to say bye-bye to the people of Zimbabwe?”

He replied: “Where are they going?”

*Robert and Grace Mugabe 

 Finally the people of Zimbabwe, who once regarded him as the ultimate hero, left him. It took a non-coup by the Zimbabwean military and the nudging of South Africa to convince Mugabe that the game has ended and it was time for the big masquerade to return to Igbale, the portal of the dead. What years of diplomatic isolation and protests by fractious opposition could not achieve, Grace, Mugabe’s graceless dragon-queen achieved. She wanted a dynasty and sought the hero to make her the queen after his long reign must have ended. She worked hard to change the tide of history using the old weapon of bottom-power to her advantage. She failed.

Lessons From Robert Mugabe’s Fall

By Georgina Asare Fiagbenu

We have just witnessed the end of the Presidency of President Mugabe. It is very interesting that today we refer to him as the former leader of Zimbabwe when a few weeks ago he was still President of that country and legally had more months to rule.

*Robert and Grace Mugabe 

During the last few weeks of Mugabe's rule, there was so much coverage about him than any other African leader. Getting attention on channels like BBC, CNN and Reuters is not for nothing. News on Robert Mugabe sells like tea to the British and beer to the Germans.

I am not sure that they are interested in him because he is the oldest President in Africa. It appears the West was looking forward to the day Mugabe will leave for them to ensure the reversal of some of his unfavorable decisions.

Tribute To Ekwueme: A Dream Embraces The Ages

By Pat Utomi

Hypocrisy may be the hallmark of political culture in Nigeria. It was evident when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was called to Higher Realm, as we lamented the “greatest President we never had.” With Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, gentleman, intellectual and great champion of fairness and balance in public life, it is even more sad watching the rush to praise on his demise. The rush of words of praise, plenty by those who toiled to prevent Nigeria from profiting from his leadership skills and installation of decency in public life, makes those not challenged with memory loss wonder about the essence of character in Nigeria. Do we truly look at ourselves?

*Dr. Alex Ekwueme 

I had the privilege of knowing the great man fairly well in good and in challenged times and learnt to gauge his stoic but sanguine personal disposition. His place as boss, mentor in my own run tells the story of who he was. As many very powerful engaged in frenzied lobbying for position when he was Vice President he asked I be invited to his home. A group of young Ph.Ds were being evidently pooled for his office but he wanted my position to come from the President. He had made the recommendation to President Shehu Shagari without my having any clue such a thing was in the offing.

Do We Have A Budding Grace Mugabe In Nigeria?

By Reno Omokri
There appears to be a lot more in common between former Zimbabwean First Lady, Grace Mugabe, and Nigeria’s present First Lady, Aisha Buhari, than immediately meets the eye. I don’t even know why few people have connected the dots before now, seeing as they are both almost always in the eye of a media storm.

*Grace Mugabe 

For one, they are both breathtakingly beautiful although I favour Grace Mugabe. My gosh, Grace Mugabe is beautiful! If I had ever been Mugabe’s deputy, I may have preferred to inherit her rather than the Presidency were anything to befall my boss. I hope I am not giving Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa any ideas.

But I digress, and I beg your pardon. I am, after all, a man, and women like Grace Mugabe naturally tend to have this type of effect on our reasoning faculties if truth were to be told. But beyond their ravishing beauty, both Grace and Aisha married men that were vastly older than them and this more or less made them trophy wives. Grace Mugabe is just 52 while her husband, Robert Mugabe is 93. The age gulf between them is 41 years.

The Robert Mugabe In Most Of Us

By Martins Oloja

This week I have had to deepen my understanding of why Master Jesus had to be angry with (religious) hypocrites of his time. Jesus is introduced to us in the scriptures as a calm, cool and collected teacher, preacher and healer until he encounters hypocrisy and speaks angrily about hypocrites. In the account in Matthew 23, Jesus who for the first time shows that he can lose his cool too, pronounces a series of woes on the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. 

*Mugabe

He condemns the Pharisees’ lack of spiritual values, as shown by the arbitrary distinctions they make. For example, they say: “If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is under obligation.” They thus show their moral blindness, for they put more emphasis on the gold of the temple than on the spiritual value of Jehovah’s place of worship. And thus, they “have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law, namely, justice, mercy and faithfulness.”​ (v-16-23).

Emmerson Mnangagwa: Profile Of Zimbabwe's New President

*Emmerson Mnangagwa, Robert Mugabe,
Grace Mugabe 

Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, the man known as "the crocodile" because of his political cunning, has finally achieved a long-held ambition to succeed Robert Mugabe as Zimbabwe's president.

Mr Mugabe, 93, resigned amid a military takeover and mass demonstrations - all sparked by his sacking of Mr Mnangagwa as his vice-president.

"The crocodile", who lived up to his name and snapped back, may have unseated Zimbabwe's only ruler, but he is still associated with some of worst atrocities committed under the ruling Zanu-PF party since independence in 1980.

One veteran of the liberation struggle, who worked with him for many years, once put it simply: "He's a very cruel man, very cruel."

Emmerson Mnangagwa Sworn In As Zimbabwean President

*Emmerson Mnangagwa being sworn in as
Zimbabwe's president in Harare
-Nov 24, 2017

Emmerson Mnangagwa has been sworn in as Zimbabwe's president in a ceremony at a packed stadium in the country's capital, Harare.

It follows the dramatic departure of Robert Mugabe after 37 years of authoritarian rule.

The former vice-president's dismissal earlier this month led the ruling Zanu-PF party and the army to intervene and force Mr Mugabe to quit.

Mr Mnangagwa, who had fled the country, returned from exile on Wednesday.

The opposition is urging Mr Mnangagwa, who has been part of the ruling elite, to end the "culture of corruption".

Grace Mugabe: The Fall of Africa’s Most Hated First Lady

           By Sisonke Msimang

I spent a lot of time in Zimbabwe in the mid-2000s, as the head of a human rights organization that worked across Southern Africa. Even at the height of the political turmoil in 2008, when opposition figures were assaulted in the aftermath of a stolen election, I was often struck by how deeply respectful Zimbabweans were of their president. Many people were obviously unhappy with Robert Mugabe’s leadership. Still, it was not unusual to hear people reference his role in the independence movement, to point out his clear intellectual gifts and his efforts to advance education.

*Grace Mugabe 

They had no such respect, however, for his wife. Grace Mugabe did not have a history in the liberation movement. She had done nothing for Zimbabwe under colonialism — she was too young. Ms. Mugabe instead inspired disdain. The narrative, universally accepted across the country, was that the shy young typist had stolen Mr. Mugabe’s heart and then corrupted him. Mr. Mugabe was a good man turned bad; Ms. Mugabe was the temptress who led him to his downfall.

And in a way, she ultimately did. In the wake of the military takeover of Zimbabwe’s government last week, the announcement that Robert Mugabe is no longer in charge of the country, his subsequent refusal to step down and his ultimate resignation, there is much uncertainty in the country. What is clear is that Grace Mugabe was at the center of the discontent that sparked the surprise coup; the goal, in removing the 93-year-old Mr. Mugabe, was to ensure that she would not ascend to the presidency after his death.

End Of The Road For Robert Mugabe

By Anthony Akinola

Had Robert Mugabe bought into the philosophy of Muhammadu Buhari regarding the place of the spouse of a serving political leader, he probably would have held on to his job until God decides to remove him, Were the place of Grace Mugabe to have been in the kitchen and the other room, just as that of Aisha Buhari is in Nigeria, those desperate to succeed Mugabe as President of Zimbabwe might have tarried a little bit. But because ambitious Grace Mugabe was all along eyeing the position of her husband, those who resented such an affront have conspired to bring an end to the 37-year rule of 93-year old Robert Mugabe.

*Robert and Grace Mugabe

Mr. Mugabe, described as “brilliant, intelligent and nasty” by a British commentator, became leader of Zimbabwe after successfully leading a revolt against the regime of Ian Smith in 1980. His emergence from the trenches to lead his people received the enthusiasm and endorsement of fair-minded people who believed it was absurd for the minority white population to be ruling the majority black population as the case was in former Rhodesia. Mugabe was received warmly wherever he went, hailed by all and sundry as a war hero.

Robert Mugabe Agrees To Resign

Reports from Zimbabwe say that the 93-year old Zimbabwean President, Mr. Robert Mugabe, has agreed to step down as president.

This is coming a few hours after the ruling party, Zanu-PF, announced his sack as the leader of the party.

*Robert and Grace Mugabe (pix:pressfrom)

His wife, Grace Mugabe, was removed as leader of the Zanu-PF women  league. Reports say she has also been expelled from the party. 

Mugabe has been under house arrest since Wednesday November 15 following his unceremonious removal from office and takeover of the running of the country by the armed forces led by Gen Constantino Chiwenga.

London Telegraph reports that the ruling party “had given the 93-year-old less than 24 hours to quit as head of state or face impeachment, an attempt to secure a peaceful end to his tenure after a de facto coup.”

Robert Mugabe Removed From Office By The Military

*Robert and Grace Mugabe 

Zimbabwe's army insisted that President Robert Mugabe is safe as it took over the state broadcaster and arrested a number of senior government officials during a night that saw military vehicles patrolling the streets of the capital while gunfire and explosions rang out.

Military officers denied they had carried out a coup, announcing on state TV that they were targeting a ring of government plotters following a power struggle that saw the vice-president flee the country last week.

President Mugabe Receives Wheelchair From Cabinet Ministers As Belated 93rd Birthday Gift

The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe on Monday received a gift from his cabinet ministers and it was a wheelchair.

The belated birthday gift according to the ministers is to enable their boss who is 93 move around his office and home with ease.

News24 reported that the mobile chair was presented to the long-term Zanu-PF leader at a ceremony in his office.

Mr. Mugabe is quoted to have thanked the ministers for the gesture.

“I thank all of you for putting your heads together to come up with this gift,” he said as he took delivery of the special mobile chair which insiders claimed was bought in China” he said.

Grace Mugabe: Zimbabwe’s Next President?

By David Smith

During a state banquet in Pretoria, South Africa, in April 2015, I had a brief encounter with Grace Mugabe, the first lady of Zimbabwe. I was asking her husband, Robert Mugabe, about the question of her succeeding him as president. “She doesn’t have those ambitions,” began Mugabe, the spectacles perched on his nose reminiscent of an elderly librarian, a narrow moustache clinging to his upper lip like a caterpillar.

 

*Grace Mugabe 

Suddenly he interrupted himself with mock alarm: “Careful, there she comes!” The frail 91-year-old, who increasingly resembles a hanger for his well-tailored suits, remained seated. I rose and turned to behold his 49-year-old wife, with her cropped hair and long black dress, lace hanging daintily at the wrist. Grace, who had been the subject of persistent gossip about a serious illness, was returning from an interlude on the dancefloor that delighted dinner guests.
“Hello, David Smith of the Guardian. We were just talking about you.”

“I just wanted to ask you if it’s true you might like to be president one day,” I asked.

Her hard features, which can resemble a mask with striking dark eyes and sculpted cheekbones, dissolved into a laugh. She did not deny it. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Just then a band struck up and I beat a retreat, past the glares of South African protocol mandarins, one of whom ordered me to leave, snarling: “I hope we never see you again.”

Few women in Africa provoke such fascination, or such loathing, as Grace Mugabe. Loyalists describe her as “Amai” (Mother), “The Lady of the Revelation” or, predictably, “Amazing Grace”, while detractors prefer “DisGrace”, “Gucci Grace” or “First Shopper”. There are reports that the couple have substantial foreign properties and multiple offshore bank accounts, Grace’s overseas shopping expeditions are legendary: she was widely reported to have spent £75,000 on luxury goods in one day in Paris in 2003, and to have taken 15 trolley-loads of purchases into the first-class lounge of Singapore airport. She has been forced to deny rumours that she has been unfaithful to the president and defends herself against accusations that she is pampered and lazy.

The four-decade age difference between her and her husband has invited urgent questions about what will happen to her after his death. She stands to lose the presidential credit card and possibly the luxurious mansion in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. She has grown up in a country where proximity to power is no guarantee of survival, and knows how quickly loyalties can turn. Mugabe’s long years of cunning divide and conquer have left the ruling Zanu-PFparty and the country without an obvious successor, creating an atmosphere among the ruling elite that seethes with mutual suspicion and treachery, and bitter factional divisions.

Grace had always appeared acquiescent, an adornment, mother of the president’s children. No one, until now, considered that she might have political ambitions. But late last year, the world met a new Grace Mugabe. Suddenly, without warning, she transformed from smiling president’s wife to political player in her own right. In early December, she was elevated to a senior role in Zanu-PF and confirmed as the new head of its women’s league. She then embarked on a national promotional trip, nicknamed the “Graceland tour”, flying across the country to attend a series of rallies, where she delivered tirades against her husband’s perceived enemies. At one of the rallies, Grace made her agenda clear. She declared: “They say I want to be president. Why not? Am I not a Zimbabwean?”

The political establishment was rocked back on its heels. Ibbo Mandaza, a former civil servant who has known the president and his wife for years, said: “Grace was always sedate, sitting in the background looking beautiful. Then suddenly this woman is someone else you can’t recognise. She was uncouth, unbecoming.”

Why Some Zimbabweans STILL Love Mugabe

President Mugabe 

It's not just loyal Zimbabwean state media that will enthusiastically wish President Robert Mugabe a happy 93rd birthday on Tuesday.

There are still Zimbabweans - and not just in the rural areas - who support and idolise Mugabe (though there's little doubt a bit of vote-rigging always helps win an election).

As one Zimbabwean tweeted this weekend: "There are many people who vote for Zanu WILLINGLY. Please deal."

So why, after years of economic hardship and international isolation, do some still love the man that critics accuse of turning the southern African country into a basket-case?

Here are some suggestions:

Powerful legacy

Like him or hate him, Mugabe played a key role in freeing Zimbabwe from colonial power in 1980. It's a victory he often likes to remind locals often ("Zimbabwe will never be a colony again" etc etc). His story resonates well beyond Zimbabwe's borders, which is why he also gets a lot of support when he travels on the continent.

Stressing the I-freed-the-country line is "chapter 1 in How to be a Dictator", Jeffrey Smith of @VanguardAfrica told News24. There are some signs that the younger generation in Zimbabwe is becoming increasingly disillusioned with the "debt" Mugabe and other war vets claim they're still owed nearly 40 years after the war for independence (As @BuildZimbabwe urged on Monday: "Don't let your loyalty become slavery. Reject the status quo"). On the other hand, legacies win elections. Higher education minister @profjnmoyo argued along these lines at the weekend.

Even Mugabe's Corpse Will Win Elections In Zimbabwe – Grace Mugabe

The wife of Zimbabwe's 92-year-old President, Robert Mugabe, has said that he is so popular that if he died, he could run as a corpse in next year's election and still win votes.

*President Mugabe and wife, Grace 

Grace Mugabe, 51, was addressing a rally of the governing Zanu-PF party.

Mr Mugabe has governed Zimbabwe since the end of white-majority rule in 1980 following a bitterly fought war.

His wife, who has often professed her undying loyalty to her husband, has assumed an increasingly high profile.

"One day when God decides that Mugabe dies, we will have his corpse appear as a candidate on the ballot paper," Mrs Mugabe told the rally in Buhera, south-east of the capital Harare.

"You will see people voting for Mugabe as a corpse. I am seriously telling you - just to show people how people love their president."

President Mugabe has been backed by his party to stand again in next year's election, but recently cut back on his public engagements.

Grace Mugabe has warned contemporaries of Mr Mugabe from the guerrilla war era that they are not in a position to replace him because they likewise would be too old.

"Anyone who was with Mugabe in 1980 has no right to tell him he is old. If you want Mugabe to go, then you leave together. You also have to leave. Then we take over because we were not there in 1980," she said, gesticulating towards herself.

Last September, the president was rumoured to have died after he reportedly cut short his attendance of an AU summit to fly to Dubai for a health check.

– BBC

Mugabe Son Lives In 10-Bed $42,000/Month Mansion In Dubai

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s son Robert Junior is living in a 10-bedrom villa located in an exclusive and pricey Dubai neighbourhood at a cost of $42,000 per month in rentals, it has emerged.

The revelation was made by Lebanese businessman, Jamal Ahmed, who is at war with Mugabe’s wife, Grace, over a botched deal to buy a million-dollar diamond ring supposedly intended as the President’s wedding anniversary present to the First Lady.

Grace, the Lebanese claims, has ordered the seizure of his properties in Harare, apparently to force the return of about $1.4m she paid for the ring through her account with CBZ bank in Harare.

Ahmed claims Grace surprisingly rejected the ring when it was delivered Dubai and demanded the return of her money. She reportedly insisted that the money be paid into a Dubai bank account.

The Lebanese argued that full refund was not possible since costs had been incurred in procuring and polishing the precious stone. He also objected to paying the money in Dubai saying this would be illegal under Zimbabwe’s laws.

In the ongoing court battle over the saga, the First Lady denied demanding payment in Dubai, saying she did not have a bank account there.

However, in response Ahmed said the Mugabes rent an expensive villa in Dubai which is used by son Robert Junior who is based there.

“Whether or not the second respondent has accounts outside Zimbabwe does not mean she did not ask for a refund in Dubai,” Ahmed argued.

Grace Mugabe 'Grabs More Houses' In $1.3m Diamond Ring Dispute

Frank Chikowore

Zimbabwean First Lady Grace Mugabe has allegedly grabbed two more properties from a Lebanese businessman, despite the court ordering her to vacate the three houses that she initially seized in a botched $1.3m diamond ring deal. Harare High Court judge Clement Phiri on December 21 ruled against President Robert Mugabe's controversial wife after she forcefully took ownership of three properties belonging Lebanese tycoon Jamal Ahmed, and gave her 24 hours to pack her bags and allow Ahmed's employees to return to the seized houses.

*Mrs Grace Mugabe

New court papers showed that the First Lady had taken ownership and control of two more houses belonging to Ahmed, who told the court recently that he now feared to return to Zimbabwe after being threatened with harm by Grace's son Russell Goreraza, her son-in-law Simba Chikore and Kennedy Fero. The three were part of Grace's her security personnel.

One of Ahmed's employees, Talent Kasiya, deposed an affidavit at the High Court on January 3, claiming that two more houses belonging to his employer had again been seized. 

"On Sunday December 18 I attended Dungarvan House, Wilson Avenue in Borrowdale, where I saw two men whom I recognised as having been part of the group that had initially come to the Cambridge Road premises. I noticed that the lock at the back entrance of Dungarvan House had in fact been broken and, as there was noone manning the gate, I was able to enter," read part of the affividavit.

Second eviction order 

Ahmed's attorney, Beatrice Mtetwa, confirmed the latest development.

President Mugabe Trips Gulp US$36m

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s globetrotting has seen him splurge US$36 million on foreign and domestic travel in the first 10 months of 2016, piling pressure on a cash-strapped government that is failing to buy painkillers for public hospitals, the Zimbabwe Independent can reveal.

By Taurai Mangudhla

 

*President Mugabe and wife, Grace 

While recurrent expenditure, mostly civil service wages, gobbled 97% of the US$4 billion 2016 National Budget as of September, the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) spent US$34,4 million on foreign trips that have yielded no tangible results for Zimbabweans. OPC spent US$1,2 million on domestic travel, according to figures obtained from the 2017 National Budget.

Mugabe’s trips outweighed expenditure by ministries such as Macro-economic Planning and Investment Promotion, Energy and Power Development, Transport and Infrastructure Development and Industry and Commerce as well as the Parliament of Zimbabwe.

The expenditure came at a time Zimbabwe failed to honour the Abuja Declaration, which states that governments should allocate 15% of the budget to health. Instead, only 9,7% (US$330 million) of the 2016 National Budget was reserved for the sector.

A huge infrastructure gap estimated at US$20 billion has also resulted in poor service delivery.

Former finance minister Tendai Biti criticised Mugabe for piling pressure on Treasury at a time the economy is floundering.

“What kind of a President spends two months outside the country on a holiday when his economy is in a fragile fiscal position?” Biti asked, adding “it’s an indication he is not fit to govern.”

Biti said Mugabe, who now prioritises his trips, was always kept in check by the opposition during the Government of National Unity (GNU) era.

“Post the GNU it is like a dog has been released from a leash,” Biti said.

The Last Days Robert Mugabe

Zimbabwe is engulfed, and not only by a political crisis. While its leaders fight, its economy is in meltdown.

BY MARTIN FLETCHER

*President Mugabe 

With considerable trepidation, I took the lift to the sixth floor of the ministry of justice in central Harare to interview the minister. It wasn’t just that I lacked the accreditation foreign journalists must obtain to work in Zimbabwe – the interview had been arranged through unofficial back channels. The minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa, also happens to be the vice-president, Robert Mugabe’s notoriously brutal chief enforcer for the past 36 years, and the most feared man in the country. “They don’t call him ‘The Crocodile’ for nothing,” said a Zimbabwean businessman who knows him well. “He never says a word but suddenly he bites. He’s very dangerous.”

But Mnangagwa, still powerfully built at 74, proved courteous enough as we sat in deep leather armchairs in his bright and spacious office. It was not in his interest to be hostile – not at this time. He is determined to succeed Mugabe and he will need Western support to rebuild his shattered country if he does, which is presumably why he gave me an almost unprecedented interview.

Aged 92 and the world’s oldest head of state, Robert Mugabe is fading. He falls asleep in meetings, suffers memory lapses and stumbles on steps.

He delivered the wrong speech at the opening of parliament in September last year and had to deliver the right one to a specially convened session the following day. As long ago as 2008 a WikiLeaks cable from the US ambassador reported that he had terminal prostate cancer, and he frequently flies to Singapore for unspecified medical treatment – blood transfusions, perhaps, or steroid injections. A diplomatic source talked of Mugabe’s “dramatic deterioration in the last two years”, and said: “He could go at any point.”

Mnangagwa did not admit he wants to be president, of course. Given Mugabe’s paranoia, that would have been political suicide. 

On the contrary, he was studiously loyal. When I asked which politician he most admired he immediately replied: “The president.” He refused to discuss the possibility of Mugabe dying. “Under British constitutional law you don’t conceive or desire the demise of Your Majesty. Why would you want to conceive or desire the demise of my president?” he asked. He even denied that he would seek Mugabe’s job when, to borrow the euphemism with which some Zimbabweans refer to the coming cataclysm, “the portrait falls off the wall”.

“I don’t see myself doing that,” he said. Of the decades he had worked with Mugabe, he said, “I was not serving to be president. I was serving my country.”

Nobody will believe Mnangagwa’s denial – certainly not close allies such as Christopher Mutsvangwa, a former Zimbabwean ambassador to China and the leader of the “war veterans” who seized the country’s white-owned farms in the 2000s.

I had met Mutsvangwa a few days earlier in the unlikely setting of a coffee shop in the affluent Harare suburb of Mount Pleasant. It was another encounter between a senior regime figure and a Western journalist of a sort that is becoming increasingly possible in the turbulence of Mugabe’s twilight days. Mutsvangwa told me he was “100 per cent” sure that Mnangagwa would be Zimbabwe’s next president. Indeed, he and other allies of the vice-president are already locked in a vicious struggle over the succession with Mnangagwa’s potential rivals in the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Grace Mugabe, 51, the president’s intensely ambitious and avaricious wife, set things going in late 2014 after her husband made her the head of Zanu-PF’s Women’s League and a member of the party’s Politburo. She persuaded Mugabe to expel the previous vice-president, Joice Mujuru, and her supporters from the party for allegedly plotting against the president. Mujuru – who as a teenage guerrilla during Zimbabwe’s war of independence in the 1970s gave birth in the bush, shot down a helicopter with a rifle and earned the nom de guerre Teurai Ropa (“Spill Blood”) – has now set up an opposition party, Zimbabwe People First (ZPF).

Having disposed of Mujuru, Grace and a group of “Young Turks” known as Generation 40, or G40, then turned their attention to Mnangagwa, seeking to oust him as vice-president and purge his supporters from critical posts in Zanu-PF. Grace made no secret of her ambitions, flying round the country in the presidential helicopter to address “meet the people” rallies. “They say I want to be president. Why not? Am I not Zimbabwean?” she asked. To give herself gravitas, she acquired a PhD from the University of Zimbabwe in three months; the degree was presented to her by the chancellor – her husband.

But Mnangagwa has his own cabal of older party members who fought in the liberation war and despise the G40 “upstarts”, who did not – Mutsvangwa calls them “power-grabbers” and “village head boys”. His so-called Lacoste faction (the clothing company’s emblem is a crocodile) has hit back hard, using Mnangagwa’s control of Zimbabwe’s Anti-Corruption Commission to launch high-profile criminal investigations against G40 leaders. For good measure, Mutsvangwa’s war vets have turned on Mugabe himself. In July they issued a communiqué condemning his “dictatorial tendencies . . . which have slowly devoured the values of the liberation struggle”. In November they sacked him as their patron.

A secret Zanu-PF document passed to me by a reliable source shows how sulphurous the infighting has become. Emanating from Mnangagwa’s camp, it accuses G40 of plotting “political euthanasia” against the party’s founding generation and of “coercing the First Lady into a spirited campaign against VP Mnangagwa”.

The document suggests Mugabe himself created G40 because, behind his “feigned love” for his deputy, he “has always felt threatened by VP Mnangagwa and the prospect of his presidency being outshined by that of his protégé”.

The nine-page document then sets out a detailed plan to destroy G40’s leaders through “brutal character assassination”, fomenting “fights and chaos” within the group, and sowing “seeds of distrust” between G40 and Grace Mugabe.

In short, the party that has governed Zimbabwe since 1980 is sundered as never before. Beneath the bright-blue jacaranda and orange flamboyant trees that shade Harare’s broad avenues, vendors hawk newspapers that gleefully proclaim “Crunch Time For Zanu-PF Factions”, “Zanu-PF Implodes” and “Blood On The Floor”. 

“They’re at each other’s throats and it’s not unlikely it will end in a violent confrontation,” Ibbo Mandaza, a political analyst in Harare, told me.

But Zimbabwe is engulfed, and not only by a political crisis: while its leaders fight, its economy is in meltdown.

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