Foreigners kick Zimbabwe in the teeth

The drawcard is, of course, a unique hospitality that Zimbabweans flaunt even to nations hostile towards them.
But consider the tantrums that Zimbabweans have suffered in countries nearer home, such as xenophobic attacks in South Africa where sheer numbers of Zimbabwean migrants reportedly threaten job security for locals. In Botswana, Zimbabweans are literally shoed away, like thieving dogs.
Anger by Batswana has apparently been simmering since Rhodesian days when people from this country travelled in large numbers to shop for cheaper goods supplied to wholesale outlets by South Africa. The foreign shoppers were accused of causing sharp increases in prices that the locals could not afford because of their lower incomes.
Zimbabwe apparently remain unforgiven for those price hikes.
Notwithstanding all that, however, the smiles on Zimbabwean lips and the warmth in their hearts continually lure foreign visitors who return to their native countries to use their experience as Zimbabwe’s good ambassadors.
Unfortunately Zimbabwe’s good will towards foreigners has been negatively exploited by bad elements who might even turn the country into a haven for international criminals should law abiding citizens not help security agents to root out foreign criminals hibernating among them. Recent disclosures are that Nigerians, Congolese and Angolans among other foreigners, have been engaged in multiple marriages of convenience with local women to acquire residence permits and citizenship in Zimbabwe.
To curb the fraudulent practice, the Government has now introduced computerised and serialised marriage certificates.
But while these measures may all be very well, they do not however appear draconian enough to drive the fear of the Zimbabwean law into the hearts of the foreigners and the locals with whom they have colluded in the multiple conjugal practices that, for what we do not know, might just be the tip of an iceberg of worse things that have been going on unnoticed or, might continue in future.
For instance, it is beyond any reasonable possibility that the different names the foreigners used in “marrying” different women might also have been used as cover ups in committing other crimes?
It would be blissfully naïve to think beyond that possibility and then go on to try to discover what other crimes of perhaps an even more horrendous nature the foreigners have been responsible for using their multiple Zimbabwean spouses.
The notoriety of Nigerians in particular as illegal drug mules, for instance, is well known in Asia where illicit drug trafficking is punishable by death.
There have been reports in the recent past of some Zimbabwean women intercepted at airports in some Asian countries with the contraband hidden in their luggage.
The lame excuses that they gave, as for other drug traffickers, was that they did not know who planted the drugs on them.
But, of course, such premeditated explanations by expert criminals will not outwit expert law enforcement agents who think well ahead of international criminals.
In South Africa, Nigerians are known to have occupied an entire commercial sea front in Port Elizabeth, even using security by Nigerians to ensure the foreigners control of that party of another country’s city.
In Harare, Zimbabweans have accused Nigerians of taking up choice space in the formal sector, thereby negating the Government’s indigenisation and economic empowerment programme.
In South Africa, as in Zimbabwe, the West Africans are said to set up makeshift structures as shops or some such business facilities, then they marry local women apparently to try to guarantee their residence there.
But those who profess knowledge of the Nigerians claim that beyond the nondescript structures a bigger world of nefarious activities take place and that these include drug peddling.
It therefore appears prudent for those policing the law in Zimbabwe to try to discover, with the aim of curbing any such practices, if the little businesses operated by foreigners in Zimbabwean cities do not front cloak and dagger dealings, rendering them persona non grata.
Zimbabweans found assisting aliens to commit crime, perhaps for a fee, should be made to face the wrath of the law as also a deterrent to would-be offenders, while their accomplices should be given marching orders for recruiting more Zimbabweans as criminals.
When that happens, a clear message will be sent across, warning foreigners not to take Zimbabwe’s hospitality for granted, become too comfortable and cast off their loin skins to bare the nudity of their criminal minds. To do that will be tantamount to playing with fire.
The poignant message encoded in this article is that, for them to enjoy their stay in Zimbabwe, foreigners ought to requit our hospitality with unmitigated respect for the laws of our land.