In the run-up to the general elections last year, a
Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) music outfit, Crocodile Sounds, launched an album
titled Garwe Rauya, which was seen as efforts by the military to drum up
support for President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s election campaign.
The nine-track album was launched in May — two months
before the elections — at a colourful ceremony at Old Hararians Sports Club in
Harare.
Songs on the album include the title track Garwe Rauya,
Nechombo, Amai, Handidi Kusara, Tamba, Iwe Nhamo, Zuva Rinonzi Nhasi, Mudiwa
and Nechombo (instrumental).
However, the hype that characterised the album launch and
the subsequent airplay given to the songs has fizzled while the band paled into
oblivion after the elections.
“I think it was a project meant to prop up President
Emmerson Mnangagwa. Yes, the army has its own military band, but this Crocodile
Sounds was just a unique project,” said a source close to the military.
Efforts to contact ZNA spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel
Alphios Makotore were fruitless yesterday.
Last year people queried the link between Mnangagwa and the
military following the release of the album by the army’s Mechanised Brigade.
Mnangagwa is known by the moniker Ngwena (The Crocodile)
and his Zanu PF faction is called Lacoste — a French clothing label whose logo
is a crocodile.
Last year when contacted by Standard Style over the link
between Mnangagwa and the military band, Makotore said there was no such a
connection.
“The band is made up of members of the Mechanised Brigade
whose official mascot is a crocodile. There is no link whatsoever between the
president and that band,” Makotore said then.
Meanwhile, music follows Mnangagwa everywhere. When he
ascended to power with the help of the military — an event that saw Robert
Mugabe deposed as president — in November 2017‚ Jah Prayzah’s song Kutonga
Kwaro was adopted as his unofficial theme song by Zanu supporters.
Another Zanu PF loyalist musician Chief Hwenje Shumba who
hails from Mnangagwa’s rural home in Zvishavane, was the toast of the Zanu PF
election campaign with the song ED Pfee. Standard
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