Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe was ‘fast asleep':- Nigeria

The cheeky Nigerian journalists who recently embarrassed President Robert Mugabe when he attended the inauguration of that country’s new leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, say the nonagenarian was “fast asleep” just before they accosted him so he looked confused.

 

In a hard-hitting posting on Facebook last week by Omoyele Sowore, the publisher of Sahara — the online news agency that promotes citizen journalism and reports mainly on corruption and human rights abuses on the continent, and which roasted Mugabe while he was in Abuja — the journalists appeared to rub salt in Mugabe’s wounds.

“Africa is not some kind of a continent that has to be ruled by dinosaurs. We have a dynamic youth culture. We could only tolerate him for so long.

“Can you imagine being born in Zimbabwe and living as long as we have lived and never seeing another president?

“The moment Mugabe arrived to the inauguration, he fell asleep. He was confused when we first encountered him because he had just woken up,” Sowore said.

The posting is likely to invite more venom from sensitive authorities in Harare who do not take kindly to criticism, no matter how mild and well-meant it is. Mugabe’s acolytes went ballistic when the Sahara news crew accosted the long-ruling nonagenarian, going to the bizarre extent of rubbishing Nigeria’s body politic and emerging democracy.

Mugabe’s roasting in Abuja followed his humiliating jeering in Lusaka in January this year, leading to the inauguration of new Zambian leader Edgar Lungu.

Analysts told the Daily News last week that while Mugabe had for a long time been seen as a hero in Africa, he now risked leaving office as a disgraced pariah as more and more people on the continent were becoming increasingly critical of him and his long, controversial tenure in office.

The day had started perfectly for Mugabe while in Nigeria, with seemingly starry-eyed journalists swarming around him as he arrived for Buhari’s inauguration.

And then things suddenly took a turn for the worse for the nonagenarian, as the circling journalists began to ask him difficult questions — including his long and disputed tenure in office, when he was going to retire and how he felt being in Abuja to witness a democratic passing of power there when there was no democracy in Zimbabwe.

A YouTube video of the incident by SaharaTV, which has so far been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, shows an angry Mugabe squirming under the barrage of questions and refusing to answer his tormentors, with one feisty female journalist — Adeola Fayehun — shouting loudly that, “there is no democracy in Zimbabwe”.

In the video, Mugabe is seen arriving at the inauguration venue in his car and the seemingly indefatigable Fayehun asking the 91-year-old leader if he was happy to be in Nigeria.

A beaming Mugabe responds, “I am very happy” before the reporter interjected, asking when Zimbabwe was going to hold its own democratic elections.

As Mugabe disembarks from his car, he says, “we have had our elections”.

The video then fast forwards and goes on to show Mugabe returning to his car after the ceremony, at which point Fayehun asks: “Mr President don’t you think it’s time to step down? Is there a (presidential terms) limit, Mr President?”

And the daring reporters from Sahara TV continued badgering him.

“Don’t you think it’s time to step down sir?” one of them presses further. “When will there be change in Zimbabwe?”

Zimbabwean intelligence boss, Happyton Bonyongwe, who is seen walking in front of Mugabe, pleads with one of the reporters to stop asking difficult questions, saying “Aiwa, no, no, no, no, not here”.