Poet in satire over ED ‘Idyai Murivo’ remarks

Standard Style
KWEKWE human rights defender Emmanuel Nkosilathi Moyo has penned a satirical poem titled Hatidi Muriwo (we don’t want vegetables) that mocks President Emmerson Mnanangagwa for saying that Zimbabweans should avoid meat and eat vegetables as the latter was good for their health.

By Stephen Chadenga

KWEKWE human rights defender Emmanuel Nkosilathi Moyo has penned a satirical poem titled Hatidi Muriwo (we don’t want vegetables) that mocks President Emmerson Mnanangagwa for saying that Zimbabweans should avoid meat and eat vegetables as the latter was good for their health.

Mnangagwa made the remarks recently while responding to grievances in an interactive session with residents who had raised concerns over the exorbitant prices of basic commodities, including meat, at a national clean-up campaign at Kuwadzana 2 shopping centre in Harare.

In the poem written in Shona and without mentioning Mnangagwa’s name directly, Moyo pokes the President by saying, “a greedy man rants that people should eat vegetables as if he has been caught by a rat trap, while his mouth is left with fat from roasted meat”.

He said the comments by the “greedy” man are like an insult from someone standing at the top of a mountain who asks for rocks from people living on the plain below.

“Vano chema nzara vana munyika yechipikirwa, Tiripanyanga dzamushore kutungamirwa nousina njere, hatidi muriwo tipeiwo yakarungwa munyu (Children cry from hunger in their country of birth, while they wallow in poverty being led by a clueless leader),” Moyo says in one of the poem verses.

The human rights campaigner, who has in the past published books criticising Mugabe and the Zanu PF-led government, said he was driven by passion for the “total political and economic emancipation of Zimbabweans”.

“We are a wasted generation yet our political leaders continue to make jokes with our lives,” Moyo told Standard Style.

In November 2017, Moyo released a 14-track album with most of the songs being political satires against Mugabe and Zanu PF, whom the activist accused of destroying the country’s economic and political fortunes.

He courted controversy in 2016 after he sent Mugabe prison garb as a birthday present.