By Alex T Magaisa

As we remember Morgan Tsvangirai, a couple of anecdotes, the first a leadership trait that I admired & second, a trait that brought the ordinary man behind the veil of officialdom. Morgan knew that his role attracted sycophants and bootlickers who tried too hard please him.

Oft-times, people wanted to ingratiate themselves with him at other people’s expense. So they would gossip a lot about others. For example some would say, “President, so and so is plotting to topple you”. Morgan didn’t like gossip. He was tired of this tittle-tattle. Everyone was gossiping about everyone. So he would simply call both parties. They would arrive and he would put the matter at the table.

Sometimes he would simply call the accused in the presence of the accuser and say, X is saying you are saying this, is it true? Morgan had observed during his long career that many people lied to the leader, especially when talking about other party members. To “finish the sports” he would just ask the accuser to confirm his story in front of the accused.

Needless to say, there was a lot of stammering! It’s important for a leader to protect himself from those who try to further their interests at the expense of others. I observed this early on in our working relationship & knew to never peddle rumours but to focus on verified facts. But still, people never stopped gossiping! The second aspect was a lighter side of his character which to my eyes made him very human and vulnerable like all of us.

As Prime Minister he was surrounded by lots of security. He had his personal team, state security & when he travelled, the host country provided security. Morgan found this all too stifling. There were so many protocols and procedures that had to be observed.

As the guys who were part of his protocol team might confirm, he found all these controls cumbersome. Sometimes he just wanted to be Morgan.

Sometimes he would play a game of cat and mouse with the security chaps, “hide and seek” & they who would run around in panic when they “lost” him! He would laugh the laughter of Morgan (those who know know it) when they found him! It was just a bit of banter.

Nothing serious. On one occasion, when we visited a country he frequented one of the security chaps quietly asked me to “please keep an eye on him”, which was funny because MT also asked me to join “the game”.

I said “Sorry Save, I’m not on your side today!” “Maitwa guard!” he laughed. RIP MT!