Is this a sign of good things to come?

By Paul Nyathi | President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday made history by renaming the KGVI barracks on the same day that Zimbabwe’s first constitution was first promulgated 38 years before.

Yesterday falls exactly 38 years after the Lancaster House Constitution was signed for at Lancaster in the United Kingdom (SEE PICTURES). On that day several delegates from Rhodesia-Zimbabwe gathered to lay the legal framework for the new nation together with the British masters. Mnangagwa is Zimbabwe’s “first executive head of state” after Robert Mugabe since the Lancaster days.

Spelling boob

On another note however, it turned out that there was a spelling boob on the plaque he was to officiate on. Thousands of members of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces who went through the gates of the newly renamed Josiah Magama Tongogara Barracks in the last few days could not see that the board which was set up at the main entrance had the country’s name wrongly spelt. The board remained with the wrong spelling until the mistake was picked up by President Emerson Mnangagwa when he had to read it to officially open the barracks in their new name.

The President ended up embarrassingly summoning army top officials in front of live cameras to explain why they had not realised the spelling mistake right up to that moment.

Mnangagwa was over the weekend taken to task by Matabeleland pressure groups on media publications that went on incorrectly spelling an IsiNdebele word in congratulatory messages sent to him. – ZimEye