By Cde Mandla Mpofu | The country is in trouble, because there are no criminals around Mnangagwa; there are criminals led by Mnangagwa. One contributor placated this message to the President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa saying: “Your proximity and association with dubious characters is aiding their criminality! They will produce pictures with an ‘alleged’ President, thereby making the innocent drop their guard.”

Many Zimbabweans have complained about ED’s choice of associates. Zimbabweans worldwide have expressed concern over the audios of yet another scammer linked to his presidency, alleging that the latest development confirms that the presidency under Mnangagwa has become a haven for dubious characters. Fraudsters, murderers, and all sorts of criminals are so close to the president.

Zimbabweans should seriously give themselves a deep self-searching moment. Our State House is now filled with thugs.

The convicted armed robber who is the President’s son-in-law, Mr. Paradzai Kutyauripo, is employed at the State House as the Director of all residencies across the country. To prove that criminality is in his blood, Kutyauripo used his sister, the violent and stubborn First Lady, to rob the chiefdom from another. Now, Kutyauripo is a chief by force and still occupies a senior post in the State House. It is unsurprising that many robbers commit crimes and hide at the State House.

It is again not a lie that Mnangagwa himself receives millions of dollars every month from his partner in crime, Owen Muda Ncube. Muda and July Moyo demand thirty percent from every miner, including the “Gwejas,” now fondly called artisan miners. Anyone who mines in Midlands must pay 30 percent of their produce to Muda, who then gives the collections to Mnangagwa. There is no doubt that Muda gets more money in kickbacks.

This is the country we call ours. The President partakes in criminal activities openly and is now a multi-billionaire from the money he robs from his own people. Zimbabweans are shocked that scammers like Uebert Angel and Wicknell Chivayo even enjoy office accommodation within the safety and cover of the Presidential Villa, from where they carry out their fraudulent assignments. This is hard evidence that the Mnangagwa presidency breeds and facilitates swindlers, charlatans, and treasury looters.

It can be said that nothing is impossible for a presidency replete with individuals who thrive on lies, false claims, certificate forgery, bribery, intimidation, robbery, murder, and recruiting fraudulent and corrupt persons as ministers, special advisers, and clandestine fronts for financial sleazes and presidential sons like Chivayo.

Zimbabweans hold that it is the height of deceit and duplicity that an administration boasting of integrity and zero tolerance for corruption could be the very sanctuary of the underworld. It is surely playing with Zimbabweans, and Mnangagwa is a thief put in the State House.

If the President were taking the advice offered by some politicians and pundits in recent days, he would desist from associating with people of dubious character. However, strange behavior and merely associating with dubious characters put the President’s name in disrepute.

This is presumably one reason why President Mnangagwa surrounds himself with criminals. Does Mnangagwa know that national security requires that he surrounds himself with those who have been vetted? Mnangagwa’s behavior reveals why the issue of executive power and the law in our constitutional order is more complicated than anything and always broken because a criminal is in power. It is not easy to answer whether the President, acting in this gray area, is “breaking the law.”

This is in addition to further allegations that Chivayo has been fronting for a close relation of the President for shady oil deals and huge contracts running into billions of dollars in major revenue-earning agencies. As Chivayo said, many government departments will give him tenders uncontested.

Zimbabweans must note how the Chivayo matters reminded the nation of the case of being eaten alive. We have several Zimbabweans in charge of receiving billions of dollars from miners and businessmen on behalf of the President. Where are we going as a nation?

Dubious persons close to the President are involved in serial fraud and looting of public resources. It is shameful how the public space has been saturated with allegations of individuals and cabals connected to the Mnangagwa presidency hounding government agencies and major domestic and international business concerns for kickbacks while strangling those who refuse to accede to their demands.

Today, it is no longer news that the Mnangagwa presidency holds the medal as the most corrupt administration in our nation’s history, which has also mastered the act of concealment with propaganda and deceit. The Presidency has not yet provided answers as to why it has not investigated and prosecuted the utterances by Chivayo. There are persons involved in the trillion-dollar sleazy contracts as detailed in the leaked audios by Chivayo, which has always been a complaint by Zimbabweans.

The Presidency has also not informed the nation why it has not investigated and prosecuted persons involved in the alleged stealing of our money. Such inaction in the face of huge sleazes points to nothing but complicity in very high places, and Zimbabweans now know the links as well as those to hold responsible. Mnangagwa’s corruption and Chivayo’s unlimited access to the presidency and security of the country mean they have upheld a President’s “inherent authority” outside the Constitution to acquire more wealth despite necessary intelligence for national security purposes. The friendship of Mnangagwa with known criminals like Passion Java, Walter Magaya, Hubert Angel, Makandiwa, Emanuel Chivayo, and many criminals now in our parliament like July Moyo and Owen Ncube, using such people for criminally amassing wealth, is demonic since citizens’ lives and liberty are potentially at stake.

Mnangagwa does not understand why the President uniquely swears an oath prescribed in the Constitution to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Implicit in that oath is the recognition that, no matter how much we might wish it to be the case, one cannot legislate for every contingency, and judges cannot supervise many national security decisions. But when the President leads the troops of thugs, then cry the beloved country.

Mnangagwa has rolled our country into the mud by choosing thieves ahead of those who voted for him. Mnangagwa’s association with ‘dubious characters’ has state agencies spooked about blackmail threats and are being undermined by these thieves now called children of the father thief.

This is not an argument for an unfettered executive prerogative. Under our system of separated powers, the Zimbabwean parliament has no right and ability to judge whether President Mnangagwa has in fact used his executive discretion soundly, and to hold him responsible if he hasn’t. But to engage in demagogic rhetoric about corruption, with more evidence that the President has abused his discretion, is foolish and irresponsible because they are afraid to put Mnangagwa in his place. Those around Mnangagwa are afraid of him, and he has become a loose cannon. Mnangagwa is a law unto himself and has transferred that power to the thieves around him.

Zimbabweans, we are under the powers of evil. We are cursed with having President Chivayo, an overall power to steal from us. Maybe there is stuff that can be used for blackmail against Mnangagwa; that’s why he is afraid to take action. Does he have close friends and associates with a dubious character more than that of Java, Angel, and Chivayo?

Zimbabwe is in trouble. There are no criminals around Mnangagwa; there are criminals led by Mnangagwa.