Followers of this column will know of the two ungodly characters that Scrutator hates and despises the most – one Tlali Kennedy Kamoli – who once purported to be a soldier and commander of the Lesotho Defence Force. And one Robert Mugabe, the cruel savage, who inherited a jewel called Zimbabwe from the colonialists and led it to ruination with the result that even poor Lesotho is now host to Zimbabwean refugees who could no longer stand the squalor and penury of their country.
I must say I do love my Lesotho but one needs to be really desperate to choose this Kingdom for exile, not least because our economy is too small to offer opportunities to those fleeing their countries. But alas, the Chinese and Nigerians are here. So why not Zimbabweans?
You can imagine how elated I was at seeing tanks rolling into the streets of Harare and putting Mugabe under house arrest. So happy was I that I asked for leave so I could remain glued to my television. I could thus not write my column last week. I thought I was dreaming. I have many Zimbabwean friends who had given up on their country. They thought Mugabe could only be removed from power through death. Officially 93, death was not visiting Mugabe sooner.
My own information is that Robert Mugabe is actually much older. When he was born, there weren’t proper birth registration systems at that time. The colonialists had not traversed every part of Africa with pens and paper. Certainly not that part of Zimbabwe where Mugabe was born. It is called Zvimba. So my information is that Mugabe is a real fossil. He is not the oldest President in the world as many media organisations suggest. He is actually the oldest human being alive, at 125 years or even more.
Just consider this true scenario. Robert Mugabe walks into cabinet every Tuesday. He then greets everyone and opens the meeting only to fall dead asleep after five or so minutes. Out of courtesy, his deputy proceeds with the business of chairing the cabinet. He then follows Mugabe to State House to brief him on what cabinet discussed and decided. A few minutes into that briefing, Mugabe falls asleep again. Not only that but he urinates in his pants and on the stretched legs of the deputy briefing him. When Mugabe travels for overseas summits, he carries along his sons, daughter, uncles, nephews, aunts, cousins and herdboys all paid for by the emaciated Zimbabwean taxpayers. He commandeers millions of dollars from the central bank to look after his relatives. Once in the summits, Mugabe then does what he does best; sleep. His relatives in the meanwhile indulge in grandiose shopping.
How and why it took so long for Zimbabweans to get rid of this fossil shall forever astonish history. Imagine, 37 years of being ruled by a dinosaur who does not care about the plight of his people. For once when you compare Lesotho to Zimbabwe, I must say I become very proud.
Mugabe, like Idi Amin, like Tlali Kamoli, is one of the greatest shames of modern times. He made me totally embarrassed to be an African. But as they say, what goes round comes round. Nothing lasts forever. The old codger finally met his Waterloo. Zimbabwe virtually came to a standstill as Zimbabweans celebrated the demise of their brute. Should the resignation of a 93 year old surely ignite such euphoria?
If you were astounded by the levels of elation of Zimbabweans at the resignation of their leader, just consider these stories. In Zimbabwe, dozens of people have been jailed for calling Mugabe too old. At 93 Mugabe demanded that his citizens honour him by calling him a “young old man”. Zimbabweans have been jailed for waving at the motorcade of the President. Waving at Mugabe in Zimbabwe with an open palm is a jailable crime. The open palm is the symbol of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). At his last rally before he was sacked by Zimbabweans, four Zimbabweans were jailed by Mugabe’s police. Their crime was to laugh at the rally. Apparently, these Zimbabweans had laughed so loud that their laughs were confused with booing. It’s a crime to boo while ‘President’ Mugabe is speaking. Such is the level of despicable tyranny that Zimbabweans lived under that you cannot be surprised by their happiness at finally seeing the back of Mugabe. In Zimbabwe they have a law called “undermining the authority of the President” which just about outlaws all behavior deemed disrespectful of the President. There can be no better banana republic?
Just compare that with the case of our own Kamoli who expected everyone to stand-still when his motorcade entered the barracks, who expected cats to stop chasing mice when he entered the barracks and who wanted everybody to kneel before him.
There is one good thing about all psychopaths like Mugabe and Kamoli. They end believing in their own immortality. But when they fall, they fall hard. Did you see Kamoli’s entertaining performance in court this week.
Apparently the fallen commander wanted Judge Teboho Moiloa to grant him bail on Kamoli’s own version of exceptional circumstances.
Generally, the courts are loath to give bail to suspects facing serious charges. Kamoli has many. He is facing one murder judge. At least for now. He faces another 14 attempted murder charges. We expect more to follow. Subversion and treason charges over his 30 August 2014 coup attempt. More murder charges over Ntate Maaparankoe’s killing and many more. Why all these charges haven’t yet been preferred against him is a huge mystery.
So in arguing for exceptional circumstances to be discharged on bail, Kamoli tells us that he is sick with flu and needs to stay close to his doctors?
Does this man take us for fools? Has flu become such a sleek disease to warrant it being treated as an exceptional circumstance? Does everyone hate Kamoli so much that there is no one willing to bring him a pack of Corenza at Maseru maximum? Why does he need a doctor for flu? Has he forgotten that he is no longer army commander and no longer has the power to stop cats from chasing rats?
To his credit, Judge Moiloa did the right thing.
Kamoli also harps about the fact that he cooperated with the police when they called him for interrogation. That is hardly a reason for bail. All criminal suspects are required to cooperate with the police. But it will be foolish to believe that after having had a taste of life at Maseru Maximum, Kamoli will continue cooperating. Kamoli must do himself a favour and stop imagining himself as a candidate for bail. His “lawyers” won’t tell him the truth. But Scrutator will.
Anyway back to Mugabe. There is a common trait among scoundrels like Mugabe and Kamoli. Their arrogance is monumental. Even as the tanks had taken positions around Harare and General Constantino Guveya Chiwenga announced that he was in charge, Mugabe still tried to hang on.
His much anticipated resignation speech on Sunday turned out to be the dumbest and dampest of squibs. Instead of simply resigning, he essentially pleaded for another 37 years to rule. This was despite that his ZANU PF’s central committee had already assembled and sacked him from the party while demanding that he resigns from the State’s presidium.
Tyrants are not only delusional. They are myopic. So even when Kamoli was called to the police station, he probably thought the police would give him tea and cake and release him. He apparently does not believe in his well demonstrated cruelty. Tyrants never believe it when their Waterloo moments arrive. When he was caught in a hell-hole down under which he shared with rats, Saddam Hussein still called himself the “President of Iraq”.
Fed up with his antics, ZANU PF assembled to start impeachment proceedings against Mugabe. They were really not joking. To save himself of this final moment of humiliation, Mugabe dispatched a resignation letter and Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Mudenda halted the impeachment proceedings.
So how did it all get to this for this once venerable liberation war-icon. It’s called the bedroom coup. Apparently, Mugabe so much fell in love with his wife Grace, 42 years his junior. So much in love was the old man that he succumbed to Gucci Grace’s every whim and caprice.
Zimbabweans are generally good mannered docile and timid people. In fact, it is their docility that explains why Mugabe has trampled upon them for so long. So surely Grace could not have been Zimbabwean. She was born in Benoni after all. Just google her rants at ZANU PF rallies to confirm how much of an uncouth she is.
As she got intoxicated by her proximity to power, she berated just about everyone. She has no respect in other humans. She has reptilian traits. It’s not surprising that she became Zimbabwe’s Number Onefigure of hate. On my list of enemies, she had just taken the third spot after Mugabe and Kamoli.
Mugabe was a typist at the State House typing pool when she caught Mugabe’s eye in the 80s. She was married to one Stanley Goreraza. She then began ditching his marital bed for trysts with Mugabe. At the time, Mugabe’s much loved first wife, Sally Hayfron, from Ghana, was on her death bed from a kidney ailment. There can never be a better example of crass immorality.
When Sally died in 1992, Mugabe had already fathered two kids with Grace. They wed in 1996. Lady Scrutator happened to have been on a MISA sponsored internship in Zimbabwe then. I getcrashed the wedding. It will forever rank as the most sumptuous I ever attended. At First Grace kept away from politics, preferring to concentrate on shopping sprees in Europe and elsewhere, earning herself the moniker First Shopper. Her problems started when she decided to join politics full time and seized the position of head of the women’s league from one Oppah Muchinguri, herself a former girlfriend of Mugabe.
Grace was not content with just becoming head of the Women’s League. As her 93 year old husband became notorious for pooing and urinating in his pants, Grace thought of herself as his most worthwhile successor. He started clearing her path by scolding and having all potential rivals for succession expelled from the party. This angered most Zimbabweans. Mugabe’s long term deputies Joice Mujuru and later Emmerson Mnangagwa were targeted. But while Mujuru, who joined Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle as a 15 year old virgin, went quietly to form her on party. This was not to be with Mnangagwa aka The Crocodile. He plotted with the generals to oust Mugabe. Mnangagwa will now be sworn in on Friday as Zimbabwe’s second post-independence President. Mugabe’s ambition to rule until and after death is now all in flames. That’s a good thing. Grace had told Zimbabweans that if Mugabe died, then ZANU PF should field him as a corpse to contest next year’s elections. Unless of course they accepted her as her husband’s successor. Such had become the extent of her clinical madness.
Grace is entirely responsible for her husband’s downfall. A young woman who totally destroyed her husband by alienating the husband from all her long time comrades. So if there is a person Zimbabweans should thank, it’s their Gucci Grace. She made the coup possible.
Unlike Kamoli’s coup, General Chiwenga’s coup was an excellent coup. It removed a bad man Mugabe. Kamoli nonetheless wanted to remove a good man Thabane. That was totally unacceptable. What do we also learn from Mugabe and Kamoli’s experiences.
Evil begets evil and all things must come to an end. Evil men can never prevail over good men.
