Harare, Zimbabwe — This week, it was exposed that Bona Mugabe, the only child of Zimbabwe’s leader President Robert Mugabe, owns huge swathes of land in leading suburbs in the capital Harare, 21 farms, an $8m estate in Dubai, and a fleet of high-end automobiles. And more.
The properties, called throughout continuous divorce procedures in between the more youthful Mugabe and her previous airline company pilot hubby Simba Chikore, have actually activated outrage in the Southern African nation.
Mugabe, 33, and Chikore, 46, have actually been wed for 9 years. Previously this year, Mugabe submitted for the nullification of their union, pointing out irreconcilable distinctions.
Chikore, who is objecting to the divorce, insists he is entitled to joint custody of the couple’s 3 kids and part of the possessions the set collectively got, need to the Harare court grant the demand.
The acrimonious separation has actually shone the light on the shocking wealth collected by the long time Zimbabwe ruler’s household, with court files seen by Al Jazeera showing that there is an $80m realty portfolio in the ex-president’s household.
Chikore likewise noted various vehicles, consisting of an $800,000 Rolls Royce and 3 Range Rovers, as a few of the properties the household owns. Bona’s attorney, Fungai Chimwamurombe, verified the homes’ credibility in the court documents to journalism.
Zimbabweans today madly required to social networks to oppose the stunning discoveries about the Mugabe household wealth.
“This is how unclean Mugabe was. Simply a pointer of the iceberg. Envision what his other kids and himself own, his uncles, aunties, rats, pet dogs and buddies,” one Facebook user, Gideon Baba Tyler Mtetwa, composed.
‘Unconstitutional circulation of wealth’
Musa Kika, an attorney and executive director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, stated Chikore’s claims, if shown to be “precise and real”, would recommend unconstitutional circulation of wealth “on account of distance to political power”.
“If shown to be real and precise, this breaks the spirit of our Constitution. Our Constitution needs fair circulation of the limited resource of land and specifically states in area 293( 2) that ‘the State might not push away more than one piece of farming land to the very same individual and his/her dependants’,” Kika informed Al Jazeera. According to him, the term “push away” consists of both leasing and selling of land.
Steven Chuma, youth interim representative of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), Zimbabwe’s primary opposition, stated the divorce case had actually shown that the land reform workout was “never ever about landless bulk however was implied to self-enrich leaders of the post-colonial state.”
The land reform workout was a questionable project in the early 2000s by the older Mugabe who took land from white farmers for evident redistribution to landless Blacks.
Critics implicated him of reallocating the lots to buddies and allies then, and the accusations have actually resurfaced once again.
“The one guy, one farm concept has actually been tossed into the dust bins by the ZANU-PF [ruling party] robbery committee,” Chuma informed Al Jazeera.
‘Looting par quality’
The most recent discoveries come hardly 2 weeks after outrage due to stunning disclosures of massive gold smuggling by people connected with Zimbabwean federal government authorities and the ruling celebration in an Al Jazeera documentary.
The four-part documentary, The Gold Mafia, was shot by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit), based upon lots of undercover operations covering 3 continents and countless files.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who fell the late strongman in a 2017 military coup, has actually been the topic of examination in current months, with some questioning his function in the gold robbery scandal.
Uebert Angel, a cleric designated ambassador by Mnangagwa, was captured on electronic camera offering to utilize his diplomatic position to smuggle countless dollars and wash funds for Al Jazeera undercover press reporters impersonating Asian press reporters.
And now, some Zimbabweans are requiring comparable examinations to establish how Mugabe’s child wound up with a large selection of properties.
“As much as Simba succeeded to note those homes as a settlement strategy, it did expose something to the world,” stated Garikai Mazara, a previous media character. “It does not require one to be a rocket researcher to see that the homes noted by Simba Chikore were crudely obtained. It is my impassioned hope that the administering judge in the divorce settlement, after giving with the case, will have the existence of mind to ask how those homes were obtained. And after that suggest for a judicial query. Eliminating 2 birds with one stone, it is not without precedent.”
Others queried just how much wealth the Mugabe household had actually collected for many years.
“21 farms they own, what of the moms and dads then? Looting par quality! The freedom war was a wild-goose chase if it birthed this system!” one Facebook user Eric Knight composed.
“Many Zimbabweans were surprised today with the quantity of land owned by Bona Mugabe in Borrowdale. This is how land has actually been taken from Zimbabweans by ZANUPF corrupt political leaders. The Government demand land from council, then it is moved to ZANUPF corrupt political leaders,” reporter Hopewell Chin’ono composed.
Numerous Zimbabweans were stunned today with the quantity of land owned by Bona Mugabe in Borrowdale.
This is how land has actually been taken from Zimbabweans by ZANUPF corrupt political leaders.
The Government demand land from council, then it is moved to ZANUPF corrupt political leaders.
pic.twitter.com/zClq4AIxPF— Hopewell Chin’ono(@daddyhope)May 3, 2023
Others assaulted Mugabe for being hypocritical while he lived and in power.
“This divorce has actually opened a can of worms that Robert Gabriel Mugabe was a hypocrite and pseudo Pan Africanist … he was a male who stopped working to practice what he was preaching on Black empowerment as he freely stated 1 male 1 farm, yet he lagged the scenes robbery huge quantities of land,”tweeted one Kerina Mujati.