Opinion By Dr Charlton Tsodzo|Ok Zimbabwe, one thing you will need to understand, it will take forever to have someone with the oratory skills of Robert Mugabe, so to expect President Mnangagwa to have the same aura and charisma at the UNGA as abaaBona maybe expecting a tad too much really…that’s probably never gonna happen in our lifetime in my view…I watched ED’s inaugural address to the UN, given his capacities, he didn’t do too badly….of course people always need to be careful of exaggerating accents when speaking publicly (because the accent has the uncanny tendency to revert to default settings during the speech)…however I think his demeanour was great, a bit more work needs to be done to get rid of the timid sitting position (that remains a no-no for me). You could tell George was a bit nervous for his boss (understandably so, shefu was doing it for the first time-ka) but enough was done in my opinion …well done George and your team content-wise. Interesting clarity and position on Palestine and Saharawi. Of course the usual mantra on sanctions and Zim being open for business as well as the commitments for Zim to accelerate growth, attract investment and rejoin the international family of nations…this was to be expected and we await practical roll-out of programmes of action in that regard (acknowledging progress so far and lamenting the slow pace of reform and behaviour change by gavhmend, tabaiwa nenhamo amana ngachikurumidze kuita turn around chunhu ichi).

I will point out however on what i thought was the most unfortunate report as part of his speech to the GA…the report on the Commission of Inquiry into the cold-blooded murder of citizens post-election. We do not want Zimbabwe ever getting unnecessary international attention and spot-light over unnecessary loss of life as what happened when the miritari was unleashed with live ammunition on defenceless citizens during the post-electoral disturbances. May we see the back of such tragedies and unwarranted disproportionate use of force by those with guns siyacela… and may the Commander-in-chief please be the commander in chief and ensure we never have any such dissonance in the chain of command and no live ammunition should ever be used on defenceless citizens ever again. We want to heal as a nation and move forward, we want to recover economically and grow, not be seen to be fire-fighting and setting up expensive commissions to inquire about losses to life that should never have occurred in the first place. Otherwise, ndikoko mdhara, chidzokai kumusha tisevenzere nyika vana vawane sadza, musazoite hwaMugabe hwekubva ku UN motonanga ku Singapore kunogezwa makwene mumusoro…God bless Zimbabwe…Mulungu adalitseni Zimbabwe…robonga…