Winky D sleeps on duty

By Vasco Chaya and Farayi Machamire

Zimdancehall heavyweight Winky D does not follow his gospel after all!The Disappear singer, who is a BVR ambassador, had not registered as a voter when the first registration exercise ended on December 19 last year.

The Panorwadza Moyo singer only got to register as a voter on Saturday in Epworth where Heal Zimbabwe Trust in collaboration with the Election Resource Centre (ERC) and Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (Zimrights) organised a concert to promote peace and voter registration.

Given the way Winky D pours scorn on people who have not registered as voters on the advertisement which has regularly been flighted on ZTV since last year, many were left shocked.

In the highly-followed advertisement, Winky D is, rather ironically, heard singing: . . . usati wanoregister usanditi hesi . . . (If you are not yet a registered voter do not greet me).”

When the Daily News contacted him for a comment, the Ninja President absolved himself of blame.

“The issue was that I was asked to register to vote at a big event such as the one we held in Epworth over the weekend. Initially, I was supposed to register to vote in Mufakose but the event was postponed,” said Winky D, who is set to unveil his latest studio project Gombwe on February 2 at the Harare International Conference Centre.

Despite the shock caused by his late registration as a voter, the Gafa delivered a sensational performance at the free musical show held as part of the 13 Million Voices For Peace initiative.

The Zimbabwe reggae-dancehall artiste belted out songs from his long list of hits which resonated well with the bumper crowd.

The Dancehall Igwe had revellers eating from his palm with hits like Type Yezvimoko off album PaKitchen, Disappear, Idya Mari, Gafa Life from the album Gafa Life and Extraterrestrial, Panorwadza Moyo, Happiest Man as well as 25 “Twenty Five”, off the album Gafa Futi.

The music sensation also known as Messi wereggae and Truthsayer had words of advice to the ghetto youths in between his hits.

“I have been brought here by Heal Zimbabwe and the ERC but before I came onto the stage, I registered to vote because I am a proud Zimbabwean,” he said as he introduced what he termed “one of the biggest songs in the history of Zimbabwen music” — Musarova bigman.

“Every Gafa in Epworth is a survivor, every Zimbabwean is a survivor,” he chanted before dropping the song titled Green like di Garden.

Winky D closed his two-hour performance with the crowd still calling for more and remained dancing to his hits long after he had left the stage.

Heal Zimbabwe Trust executive director Rashid Mahiya said the idea to use arts to relay the message of peach ahead of the elections had gained traction among young adults.

“This is not our final event, we have various areas we are targeting, including Chipinge.

“This is all to say when you vote please vote in peace; Zimbabweans have to vote peacefully. We have heard a lot of cases of registration slip intimidation and we have documented these cases and made reports to the police, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec)and to the Human Rights Commission. And this is the reason we are having these programmes,” said Mahiya.

ERC, which ferried citizens to and from various registration centres during the show, said the concert had fulfilled its objective.

“We decided to partner with artistes in Epworth as well as Winky D so that we can appeal to youth through popular culture. And we are happy with the overwhelming response.

“Zec set up their registration centre and the four kits they had initially set up had been overwhelmed with the large turnout of citizens registering to vote. They had to bring an extra kit to meet the demand,” said ERC communications manager Tatenda Mhike. DailyNews