New Zimbabwe police chief statement was loaded

It was a simple but loaded statement.

 

“Today, in Zimbabwe, there is a small, but happy family,” new police boss Godwin Matanga said at the official opening of the new Criminal Investigations Department headquarters.

 

“That family has been reposed with the rare honour of having one of its own leading the Zimbabwe Republic Police.”

 

While Matanga may have been talking about how happy his own family was with his promotion, he could as well have been talking about the police force as a whole.

 

Sources say the police were relieved with the promotion of Matanga as one of their own had been elevated because there had been of a lot of speculation that President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his administration might bring in someone from the military to lead the police.

 

Zimbabwe police had become discredited because their boss Augustine Chihuri was linked to the G40 faction which was fighting to get rid of Mnangagwa.

 

Chihuri was booed at the inauguration of Mnangagwa when he took his oath of office before the new president.

 

At one time about 30 senior police officers were reported to have been axed but the decision is reported to have been reversed by Mnangagwa.

 

The elevation of Matanga signalled a thawing of relations between the two main arms of the security forces.