Zimbabweans begin a new week of uncertainty as the noon deadline for an ultimatum issued to leader Robert Mugabe to resign draws near and Kiira Municipality MP Ssemujju Nganda claims what is happening in Zimbabwe will soon come to Uganda.
Hon. Nganda believes all long-serving African leaders (Museveni has been in power since 1986) will end up being humiliated by their subjects.
After hanging on to power for close to 40 years, President Robert Mugabe has been forced to exit in a manner that cannot be termed dignified in any way.
Hon. Nganda said: “All the African leaders, many of them have taken the same path but they think they’ll arrive at different destinations.”
The opposition legislator compared what is happening in Zimbabwe to the Arab spring that swept away a number of North African dictators at the turn of the century and such winds of change are bound to sweep Uganda soon.
“When it happened in Tunisia, Gaddafi didn’t know that it’ll reach Libya. It has now happened in Zimbabwe and they are saying Uganda is different. You simply can’t take the same path and expect to arrive at different destinations.”
Meanwhile, an official source with direct knowledge of negotiations says that Mugabe has agreed to the terms of his resignation and a letter has been drafted.
The source said generals had given into many of Mugabe’s demands including full immunity for himself and his wife Grace, and also that he would keep his private properties.
The source added that the generals’ aim with Sunday’s televised address was to get Mugabe to declare the military’s actions constitutional and that he accepted them.
A defiant Mugabe stunned the nation he has ruled for 37 years Sunday when he refused to say in a nationally televised address if he was stepping down.
His party had given Mugabe, who has been under house arrest since the military seized power Wednesday, 24 hours to resign or be impeached, and thousands of Zimbabweans had taken to the streets Saturday calling for him to go.
But in a bizarre and rambling speech, Mugabe instead insisted he was going nowhere, and that he would see his political party Zanu-PF through its congress in a few weeks.
Zimbabweans who’d been glued to state television to watch the live speech came out into the streets afterward, some in shock.
