Nimble tongue

via Nimble tongue | The Zimbabwean 20 August 2014 by Jera

And, despite The Herald’s claims of Harare City Council water being clean, among the donations there were copious amounts of bottled water to enable delegates to keep their sharp tongues well lubricated.

The most nimble of such tongues was that of outgoing Women’s League chairperson, Oppah Muchinguri, who began her address with a slogan ‘pasi nevanopisa varume!’ (down with husband burners). Oppah Muchinguri may very well have been speaking of domestic violence in general. After all, there is a recent news item about Philione Mangachena, a Harare woman who torched her sleeping husband.

But immediately after Oppah’s slogan, all eyes must have swivelled in their sockets seeking out the reaction of Joice Mujuru, whose husband, retired army General Solomon Mujuru, died in a mysterious blaze at his farm. If the opening act by Muchinguri, was worthy of a bowl of popcorn and cool drink, then the next act called for a cigar and the finest whisky on offer. Deputy Foreign Affair ministers and ex liberation war combatant, Chris Mutsvanga fired off an attack at Didymus Mutasa and Joice Mujuru, who are believed to be allies in the presidential succession race. In his interview with The Herald, in which the deputy minister accused Mutasa and Mujuru of having a sinister takeover plot, Mutsvanga appeared to have had the benefit of the latest Students Companion, if not the Oxford dictionary, as he threw one jawbreaker after another.

“They dream of a vault to high office whence they will ensconce themselves to corrupt influence as a prelude to the restoration of a post-colonial Rhodesian order. They have a craving to undo all that the heroic struggle delivered to the people of Zimbabwe.”