Watch your step: Mugabe guards on alert

HARARE – In February this year President Robert Mugabe missed a step and tumbled off the podium at the Harare International Airport moments after arriving from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Despite security agents forcing journalists to delete pictures of the dramatic fall, many were able to recover them later.

The fall generated international headlines and internet memes. It was also reported that up to 27 members of the presidential security and advance team were suspended or fired for having failed to prevent the fall. The latest picture of Mugabe from his many trips shows us that the 91 year old’s security is now on guard to ensure that he does no fall.

The level of concern that the ailing president might collapse or trip again on the stairs is quite clear from the picture. It also raises questions why at such an advanced age, the Zanu PF leader is still hanging on to power. With his wife Grace also seriously ill, the burden of supporting the frail president, seems to have fallen on his security team

In February Information Minister Jonathan Moyo became a a figure of ridicule when he denied that Mugabe had fallen and instead blamed “a poorly laid carpet.”

‘’What happened is that the President tripped over a hump on the carpet on one of the steps of the dais as he was stepping down from the platform but he remarkably managed to break the fall on his own. I repeat that the President managed to break the fall.

‘’Nobody has shown any evidence of the President having fallen down because that did not happen. The hump on which the President tripped was formed by two pieces of the carpet, which apparently had not been laid out properly where they joined.

“And to be honest with you, even Jesus, let alone you, would have also tripped in that kind of situation. In the circumstances, there’s really nothing to write home about the nonsensical celebrations by malcontents who are imagining a fall that never was since it was actually broken by the President himself,” he said.