By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |
Jonathan Moyo, the Higher and Tertiary Education minister, has threatened to withdraw the degrees of students who last week demonstrated during a graduation ceremony at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ).
Tonderai Dombo, a graduand and former student leader, waved a placard demanding jobs at President Robert Mugabe last Thursday.
Mugabe is the chancellor of all State universities and caps students at graduation ceremonies.
He was quickly arrested and forced to pay a $10 fine for disorderly conduct.
Other graduands took a cue from him and also inscribed protests on hastily devised placards.
Taking to Twitter, a fuming Moyo wrote: “Just because one is Mr Dombo does not mean they should throw stones everywhere anytime. Disrupting a graduation ceremony can cost a degree!”
There were reports that some post-graduate students had refused to be capped by Mugabe, but Moyo waved them off.
“The claim that any graduate refused to be capped at UZ yesterday is only true in the heads of the lot of fakes out there!” he added on Twitter.
He called on graduates to stop moaning about high unemployment and find ways of creating jobs.
“If varsity dropouts like Bill Gates can create jobs, then graduates like dreadlocked Thembinkosi Rushwaya should be expected to do better!” he said.
Constitutional law expert and leader of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Tendai Biti rubbished Moyo’s threat to withdraw the degrees.
“It is not possible because those protesters are no longer students because they have graduated. They obtained those degrees because of academic conduct, not as a donation,” Biti told the local independent media.
“Even if they were a result of donation there is still procedures and legal routes to be followed. They can take away Grace (Mugabe First Lady)’s degree because it was an honorary one.”
He was referring to Mugabe’s wife who UZ allegedly gave a doctorate after studying for less than five months.
It was probably the first time that Mugabe had encountered protests by graduands. Nehanda Radio
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