Believing Diesel Can Come From A Rock, Opening Rubbish Bins - Crazy Stunts By Zimbabwean Politicians

African politics can get very absurd and ludicrous many times. One fails to comprehend the motives behind such crazy antics. The continent over, politicians have done some stupid things really. For Zimbabwe, it also comes with a sense of anger directed at the politicians.

In 2007, as the Zimbabwean economy was now taking a huge plunge that seemed irretrievable, Zimbabwe's ministers did the unthinkable. They were led to believe that diesel can come from a rock. Such desperation! They paid two head of cattle, three buffaloes and Z$5 billion to spirit medium Rotina Mavhunga who successfully made the government believe diesel could come from a rock.

High level cabinet meetings were held between Mavhunga and Mugabe, together with the cabinet. May be hard to believe, but this really happened in Zimbabwe. Whole ministers were sent to investigate these claims and for some reason unbeknown to us they fell for the story (which then made them to make all the payments mentioned above). Imagine! At that time, Mavhunga claimed that she was possessed by ancestral spirits who were keen to help Zimbabwe get over the then chronic fuel shortages. Another team was later sent to investigate the claims, and they just concluded the sensible, obvious thing: No diesel could come out of a rock, really.

Then comes 2015. It's the opening of a new session of Parliament. Some legislators are happy, some are complaining for receiving death threats just because they are from the opposition. But one extraordinary thing, by Robert Mugabe himself. He read the wrong speech! He read the speech he had delivered the previous month to legislature.

Funny thing, as he spent the whole 25 minutes reading the wrong speech, legislators from his party were wildly cheering him on. It was very absurd. His spin-doctor then, George Charamba said, "There has been a mix-up of speeches resulting in a situation where... the president delivered the wrong speech. The mix-up happened in his secretarial office. The error is sincerely regretted and corrective measures are being considered." Wild.

This year, Zimbabweans got quite angry. Some could not even get angry, they just found no energy to say anything because they were greatly shocked by the appalling rent-seeking behaviour exhibited by then Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa. He "officially opened" garbage bins in Rusape, a small town in eastern Zimbabwe. He could have been doing something better than opening bins. A whole finance minister, for that matter.

These are just some of the few ridiculous things done by Zimbabwean politics. It would require lots of pages to exhaust most of the absurd things done by Zimbabwean politicians.

Header Image Credit: Pindula News