Zimbabwe President, Robert Mugabe showed that he is a cat with nine lives, as he refused to resign following his national address on live television broadcast on Sunday.
Mugabe, who has already been sacked as the party leader of ZANU-PF and given Monday deadline to either step-down or face impeachment, said he would ensure normalcy returned to the Country and also promised to preside over an upcoming congress of the ruling party, next month. He also did not resign on Monday.
“Whatever the pros and cons of how they [the army] went about their operation, I, as Commander-in-Chief, do acknowledge their concerns.
“I am aware that many developments have occurred in the party, given the failings of the past, and anger they might have triggered in some quarters …. [but] I am confident that from tonight our whole nation will put shoulder to the wheel.
“The congress is due in a few weeks from now. I will preside over its processes, which must not be prepossessed by any acts calculated to undermine it or to compromise the outcomes in the eyes of the public.”
Last Wednesday, the Army announced that it had taken over the reins of power, noting that it was not a Military Coup and gave reassurance of the safety of the President and his family.
On Friday, Mugabe appeared for the first time, after the Military intervention, at a graduation ceremony of Zimbabwe Open University in Harare.
The President’s refusal to resign came as a shock, surprising observers who speculated his resignation, following the political crisis in the Country.
Most of the Western Media had expected him to resign during the National Broadcast as some of them were giving live updates of his speech.
The speech was followed by sensational headlines like, “Chaos in Zimbabwe after Mugabe fails to announce expected resignation”, “Mugabe clinging to power”, Robert Mugabe stuns Zimbabwe by failing to quit – as it happened”.
President Robert Mugabe has never hid his rejection of Western policies and advice.
In October, he rejected the participation of elections observers from the West, for the 2018 Presidential Election, adding that the observer groups directly influence opposition parties.
“They want to work with opposition parties all the time. In other words, they don’t have that impartiality of mind and judgment.
“We don’t need them. We are saying no, we are going to have elections in 2018 and we are going to say no to the whites. We don’t mind their diplomats participating but the NGOs, no, We don’t want them at all.”
Mugabe’s consistent disapproval of same-sex marriage has also annoyed the West, making them tag it “Overt Homophobia Policy”.
In 2013, Mugabe questioned why the United States wants to force Africa to “embrace homosexuality.”
“Then we have this American president, Obama, born of an African father, who is saying we will not give you aid if you don’t embrace homosexuality.
“We ask, was he born out of homosexuality? We need continuity in our race, and that comes from the woman, and no to homosexuality. John and John, no; Maria and Maria, no.”
His seizure of white-owned farms in the Country which he re-distributed to the blacks also saw the Western Government imposing sanctions on his Governments.
In 2016, the President pleaded to the United Nations at the annual UN General Assembly to lift the sanctions imposed on his country, saying they were “being collectively punished for exercising ‘the right to sovereign independence”.
“As a country, we are being collectively punished for exercising the one primordial principle enshrined in the United Nations charter, that of sovereign independence. We are being punished for doing what all other nations have done and do, that is possess, own their natural resources and listen to the basic interest of their people.”
“I repeat my call to Britain, Europe and the United States and their allies to remove the illegal and unjustified sanctions against my country and its people. Let us all be bound by our commitments to Agenda 2030 in which we agreed to eschew sanctions in favour of dialogue,” he pled.
Now the world watches what next the old fox may have up his limbs.
