IT WAS a story no one dared touch.
It took a daring British journalist to write what had been the talk of the town.
Grace Mugabe, that much loathed Zimbabwean First Lady, was reportedly having an affair with the dictator’s trusted banker, Gideon Gono.
It couldn’t come juicer than that,
But there it was, splashed on the front page of South Africa’s biggest Sunday paper, the Sunday Times.
I will not go into the merits of the story.
Who would want to kill such a good story even when it was clear there were things that just did not add up?
The story sounds more like bar talk.
The papers in Harare have refused to touch it. It is too hot.
In fact they know the consequences.
Papers say Mugabe is reportedly seething with anger over the revelations.
The Sunday Times reported he was shattered after his sister told him about the affair while she was on her deathbed last August.
You see it’s not easy to accept betrayal when one is 86.
But the gods have a way of exacting revenge.
It was Mugabe who sired children out of wedlock in the early 1990s.
His first wife, Sally, was seriously ill with a kidney ailment when he was busy caressing the young secretary in his office.
But you see the man is old.
At 86, it is him who badly needs to visit a local ngaka to order some pitsa to boost his libido.
It is said no adultery is bloodless.
Expect blood on the floor in Harare.
The lecturers at the National University of Lesotho embarked on a mini-protest yesterday.
Their major grievance this time had nothing to do with their conditions of service or the fact that the library needs books. It was about them this time.
I think they are a whinging lot.
These lecturers have had it easy over the years. They had been paying rentals of just M600 a month, for years.
Now that the university has asked them to top up their rentals they are throwing tantrums.
Where in the world does someone get a house for M600?
Unless they want to stay in a mok’huk’hu!
Ka ’nete these guys should just pay.
Ours is a profession that is deemed one of the most dangerous on planet earth.
Colleagues have paid with their lives in the line of duty.
It would be foolhardy though to go all out in search of martyrdom.
Ordinarily we do not seek martyrdom.
So we take threats to harm colleagues quite seriously.
I hear the knives are out for journalists for daring to raise genuine questions about what is going on in the country.
Journalists are being accused of backing rival factions.
But journalists are not political condoms.
We refuse to be used in these battles for political supremacy.
We are neither pro nor against any faction.
News is news, simple.
I also don’t have ambitions to run for political office.
The reason?
Because politicians are generally of questionable moral fibre.
They lie a lot.
I must say I view most of them with contempt.
