By Bridget Mananavire
They call this the silly season; when politicians make exaggerated promises some people might deem unachievable. In recent weeks, we have also experienced silly tongues, as politicians have been slipping their tongues away, pronouncing inaccurate things.
The country is now obsessed with a gaffe made by President Emmerson Mnangagwa after he failed to calculate simple mathematics.
“… So if you now have four calves, and you had 10 cattle plus the four calves, that’s 40. But you will only need to pay for the first 10 cattle, what other better government this government is so nice, even in heaven you can’t find a government like this, it is very nice,” he said trying to explain a government programme on livestock.
The video was then infused with one of United Family International Church leader Emmanuel Makandiwa, where he was explaining how people have not learnt the subject of keeping quiet when you don’t know what you are talking about.
“This is something that Zimbabweans don’t know about, it is actually a study. We have a problem of people wanting to comment over things they do not have knowledge on,” Makandiwa said in the video.
People also went on to create memes and jokes around the mathematics failure. Some even created T-shirts with the wrong answer.
Others joked of how you will get in trouble after borrowing ED $14 and be asked to pay back $40.
“Kana uchida kupinda busy kwereta ED $10 wozokwereta futi $4, he will say, mupfanha une $40 yangu ka iwe”.
The jokes did not stop there as the wrong calculation has been used to discredit ED as a knowledgeable future president of Zimbabwe.
Mnangagwa also failed to remember the day he proclaimed as the date for elections and repeating to people at his rally that voting was going to be done on December 31.
He continued with the statement that people should come out in their numbers on December 31 and only realised that it was the wrong date after being corrected.
He is not the only one who has been escaped by facts as his vice president has also fallen victim of the mind.
Constantino Chiwenga got lost trying to tell people how many years the MDC has been running certain councils.
“Tava kusvika makore makwi…. maviri… gumi nemakore masere MDC yakabata maguta nematowundi,” he said in the video that has widely circulated on social media.
Opposition leaders have also been caught unaware with Tendai Biti also making a gaffe on the number of days in a week.
“Dams for farmers to farm 365 days a week,” he said and people edited it to include people shocked at the very long week.
MDC Alliance president Nelson Chamisa seemed lost as well. “The proof of the eating is in the pudding,” he said at a press conference instead of : “the proof of the pudding (is in the eating)” or just that “the proof is in the pudding”.
The statement means that you can only judge the quality of something after you have tried, used, or experienced it.
The gaffes might have rubbed off from down south, where former president Jacob Zuma was well known or missing it on the numbers. DailyNews
