Despite the long-drawn political enmity that cuts the line between MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa and Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the quadragenarian opposition leader has publicly backed Mnangagwa’s announcement of a mandatory 21-day national lockdown in the pursuit of minimising the spread of Covid-19 in the country.
In his announcement Friday evening, Mnangagwa chillingly warned would-be-defiant Zimbabweans that he will deploy the dreaded security forces across the country to enforce the rare national lockdown which starts on Monday 30 March 2020.
And, in a rare show of oneness, Chamisa has solidly backed Mnangagwa’s national lockdown move, which he described as ‘wise’.
Said the 42-year-old opposition leader who controversially lost to Mnangagwa in a widely disputed 2018 eectoral contest for the presidency:
“The decision to lockdown Zimbabwe is necessary, wise and supported. We are in circumstances of a catastrophe.There is only one Zimbabwe.We are one people.Politics aside, we must unite to save lives. Measures to test, detect the virus and cushion the vulnerable (are) essential!”.
The coronavirus scourge has killed thousands globally while hundreds of thousands have been hospitalised, to date. For Zimbabwe, business tycoon James Makamba’s late son, Zororo, became the first citizen in the country to succumb to the coronavirus pandemic.
Zwnews
