President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s biographer and advisor, Eddie Cross, has publicly echoed what Zimbabwe’s Vice President, General Constantino Chiwenga, has already admitted; that Zimbabwe is being run by corrupt cartels and oligarchs.
According to him these flaunt obscene wealth, owning mansions with helicopter pads while ordinary citizens sink deeper into poverty going to bed on empty stomachs.
As noted by veteran Zimbabwean investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono Zimbabwe has become one of the most unequal societies in the world, crippled by corruption, incompetence, and sheer cluelessness at the top.
He says under Mnangagwa’s watch, billions of dollars have been looted through state capture and organised plunder, enriching a small political elite while hospitals collapse, public servants go unpaid, and young people flee the country in despair.
Eddie Cross’s statement is damning precisely because it comes from within Mnangagwa’s own inner circle. It confirms what Zimbabweans have long known; that the man marketed as a reformer turned out to be one of Africa’s most corrupt presidents and one of the worst leaders Zimbabwe has ever had.
This story about President Mnangagwa’s biographer and advisor, Eddie Cross, is particularly interesting because it is coming from a pro-ZANUPF daily newspaper — a publication that ordinarily defends the state and paints it in glowing terms, even when the reality on the ground is bleak.
For such a paper to publish revelations that align with what many Zimbabweans have been saying for years signals the depth of the crisis. It shows that even within Mnangagwa’s own circles and among his traditional defenders, there is now an acknowledgement that corruption and cartel capture have hollowed out the state.
When the propaganda machinery starts admitting the truth, it means the rot has become impossible to hide.
