‘Hopewell is being arrested because he is a brave and good investigative journalist’

By Sindile Ncube

There seems to be a pattern developing whereby whenever there is a scandal involving loads and loads of money, the Mnangagwa regime arrests Hopewell Chin’ono on fake charges.

It is widely recognised that Chin’ono’s initial arrest in fact was sanctioned by Mnangagwa himself who felt that the investigative journalist was embarrassing him by exposing his family’s involvement in the Drax scandal involving US$60m.

The latest corruption scandal involving Zanu and its offshoot crooks is this story about a woman called Henrietta Rushwaya who was arrested for trying to smuggle 6kgs of gold when she was about to fly to Dubai from Harare Airport.

Rumours are swirling all over the place that members of the Mnangagwa family are involved in this scam in some capacity. The issue is still muddled because no one has really done an in depth investigation into the whole saga.

No one serious would trust the the police and the Zimbabwean courts to do an honest job about this. With that going on, we then found out that Hopewell Chin’ono was arrested at the beginning of this week by officers said to be from the President’s Office.

Now, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see what’s going on here. I think Hopewell is being arrested because Mnangagwa fears that the investigative journalist is the type of person who has the dedication and journalistic ability to establish the facts and identify the people behind this bizarre saga, most likely Mnangagwa’s family.

In other words, Hopewell is being arrested for being a really good and brave investigative journalist. This is how desperate and oppressive this Zanu regime has become. They are shutting up investigative journalists, exactly the kind of repression that happens in dictatorships.

This saga with the gold stinks to the high heavens. It is going to prove to Zimbabweans that the country is being run by actual criminals; men and women for whom without Zanu would be petty thieves liberating cigarettes from growth point tuck-shops.

#FreeHopewell
#Zanupfmustgo

You can follow Sindile Ncube on Twitter @sindiscorner