AN explosive leaked audio recording allegedly of First Lady
Auxillia Mnangagwa (pictured) has exposed the simmering bad blood between
President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the military.
This comes hardly two years after the military, led by then
Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Constantino Chiwenga, ousted former President
Robert Mugabe and installed Mnangagwa in a military-assisted operation.
Chiwenga is now Vice-President, but has not been seen in public for months now
as he is reportedly battling ill health.
Repeated efforts to get a comment from the First Lady
proved fruitless yesterday as she was not picking up her mobile phone
throughout the day.
But Information secretary Ndabaningi Mangwana said from the
information he received, the audio seemed to have been manipulated.
“The information I received is that there is a lot of
manipulation and simulation of the First Lady’s voice on the audio
circulating,” Mangwana said.
Zimbabwe National Army spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel
Alphios Makotore said he was unaware of the alleged audio, hence he could not
comment on its contents.
“I am not aware of the said audio,” Makotore said.
The audio, in which the First Lady ranted at a top military
commander, went viral on Monday. The First Lady rails at one Murombo believed
to be Colonel Samson Murombo, the commander of 1 Presidential Guard Infantry
Battalion situated at Josiah Magama Tongogara Barracks (formerly KGVI), whom
she accused of “spying” on her. The battalion is responsible for protecting the
first citizens’ official residence and guest house.
The audio may have inadvertently laid bare the tensions
between Mnangagwa and the rank and file of the military that was the power
behind his rise to State House in November 2017.
The audio revealed a skittish, but combative character of
the First Lady who used abusive language to attack Murombo.
It is understood that the eight-minute-long audio could
have been recorded last month when First Lady Auxillia was in Bulawayo visiting
former First Lady Janet Banana, the wife of the late former President Canaan
Banana, as well as veteran nationalist Jane Ngwenya, and Zodwa Dabengwa, the
widow of the late Zapu leader, Dumiso Dabengwa.
However, it is still a mystery how the recording was leaked
and who recorded it in the first place.
“You’re spying on me,” Auxillia reportedly accused Murombo,
who was not given a chance to respond to the allegations even though he pleaded
with her to defend
himself.
Murombo is occasionally heard pleading: “Excuse me Your
Excellency,” but the First Lady curtly responded: “Just tell me what you want
from me because if I die,
it would be you.”
The unmistaken voice of First Lady Auxillia further accused
Murombo of using someone called Manjoro, believed to be a Central Intelligence
Organisation
operative and member of her security detail, to spy on her.
“You must waylay me on the road. I’m coming from Bulawayo.
If you don’t, straight away I’m coming to your office and you can do what you
want with me. You can’t deal with women like this. I’m going to make a story
about this. I’m coming to your office to sit there. What threat am I? To who?
What threat do I have?” Auxillia ranted.
“You draw your confidence from the fact that you have a
gun. I’m coming there and you can shoot me. If you don’t shoot me before I get
there, we’ll kill each other in your office.”
The First Lady also claimed that she was aware of a plot to
kill Mnangagwa and said those who wanted to do so could go ahead, but leave her
alone because she had children to look after.
She went on to describe Murombo as a man with an “ugly
face”, who was “trying to get to Mnangagwa through me”.
When Murombo asked if he could be afforded a chance to
speak, she yelled back: “Get away! I’m just a mere woman, a grandmother. Go and
shoot Mnangagwa, I ask for a pardon. Don’t shoot me because I’ve children. Just
shoot Mnangagwa, because I know this is all about him. Just go and shoot him,
why do you want to shoot me? What have I done? What threat do I pose to you
Murombo? I don’t even know your wife. I don’t discuss politics, I don’t discuss
military issues. I’m coming to your office.”
In May, the First Lady stormed the government-owned
NatPharm and demanded to see documents showing where they were sending drugs.
She vowed not to leave the NatPharm warehouse “before they
provide me with the current distribution list of the medicines they
dispatched”.
At NatPharm, she was captured on video quizzing officials
about stockpiles of undistributed medical drugs at a time most public hospitals
were without drugs.
Earlier, she had also been recorded threatening to confront
mobile network operators over tariff hikes at a gathering in Masvingo province.
Political analysts and opposition parties have repeatedly
been questioning First Lady Auxillia’s “philanthropic” work, which has
reportedly seen her interfering in government business.
But Auxillia hit back then, saying opposition political
parties should not remain in election mode and should stop attacking citizens
concerned with the well-being of Zimbabweans, including their supporters.
“I have been a health ambassador for quite some time and my
role is to help the vulnerable in whatever possible way. When I (paid) a visit
to NatPharm, I had asked the Minister of Health (Obadiah Moyo) to accompany me
so that I could appreciate their operations. It is unfortunate that he was in a
meeting. He sent a representative,” she said.
Moyo said then: “Indeed, we discussed with the First Lady
about her familiarisation tour of NatPharm. Because I was engaged elsewhere, I
dispatched one of my senior staffers at the ministry to accompany her. In
relation to a meeting I had with NatPharm executives, it was a scheduled
meeting which was not influenced by the First Lady. She is merely fulfilling
her philanthropic work, nothing more nothing less. In any case, she is now our
ambassador for health and child care.” Newsday
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