Just wish some stories were true!

My Turn with Tichaona Zindoga
So yesterday was April Fools’ Day! The day is notorious for pranks or hoaxes that people play on each other which range from the good to the ultimate ugly. There is a whole catalogue of pranks that have been pulled across the world and have remained classically etched in the minds of the world.

The Time magazine and UK Mirror list some of the greatest hoaxes that were made in Europe and America in recent times.
Time has the following, among others: The Madison Capital -Times’ 1933 April Fools’ edition included a doctored photo of the Wisconsin state capital in ruins.

In the “spaghetti tree” hoax, Time commented: “Switzerland is known for banks and chocolate, not spaghetti, right? Tell that to the millions who fell victim to a BBC April Fools’ report touting the bumper harvests from Swiss spaghetti trees. The report, which ran three minutes, even led some to ask how they could have a spaghetti tree of their own.”

Another hoax concerned colour television in 1962. Colour TV was a rarity in those days and some Swedes understandably fell victim to a hoax by Sweden’s Sveriges Television, which invited a “technical expert” to explain on-air — in thoroughly technical terms — how a thinly stretched nylon screen in front of a television would bend light wavelengths and produce a colour image. The thousands who tried it learned quickly that there was no such trick — and were out of a pair of stockings to boot, writes Time.

Then just last year, it was reported that the US army announced it was enlisting cats to reduce military spending.
According to Time, the news release said “a young, healthy cat can jump over eight feet in a single bound so if an enemy approaches a cat, the cat will be able to jump on him and either disable him, or claw him to death if he fails to stop resisting capture.”

Yesterday the UK Guardian compiled what the UK media had pulled as pranks. Among others, the Metro led with “Apetite for selfie-destruction Government plans to ban selfies”.

This should really have sent people in this day and age on a rampage, and luckily, at the time of writing we had not heard of a London burning.
The Mirror said, “Farmer produces lambs with six legs to help boost profits and food yields” while the Express announced that Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur football teams, fierce cross town rivals, were to share Emirates stadium owned by the former.

There are many, many other pranks that have been pulled, not least the ones listed on the Museum of Hoaxes where in 1998 the Babil newspaper, owned by Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, informed its readers that President Clinton had decided to lift sanctions against Iraq, only to admit later that it was just joking.

Now, back home, there were also a couple of hoax stories that made headlines on Fools’ Day and they typically made funny to outright spurious.
In this paper we carried a story of Thomas Mapfumo making a stop-over in Harare en route to South Africa.

NewsDay announced that the High Court had ordered the release of Robert Martin Gumbura, the End Time Message pastor who was recently convicted of rape and sentenced to 40 years in prison. We were told that Gumbura walked out of Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison “to wild cheers from his 11 wives and church members.” And a “beaming” Gumbura, reported the paper, said it was good to be free at last.

He declared: “I am out to fulfil my mission to sire 100 children.”
If only it were true! The fact of the matter is that Gumbura is still in the capable hands of State where he will be guest for some time more, barring any miracles.

It will not be 100 children for him, really, nature and time will definitely see to it that he doesn’t — whether the same time and nature be cruel or not.

Then we had this other paper that overplayed its hand in the hoaxes by giving us one too many pranks, including the poor workmanship at its “US$1 billion bridge across Gwayi River (which) was constructed in total secrecy and in record time.”

Oh please! We shouldn’t even try to discuss the poor hoax, lest we give it dignity. However, the same paper carried one story that many Zimbabweans would fervently hope were true.

“World football governing body Fifa last night threw a bombshell on Cuthbert Dube’s Zifa presidential election victory when it refused to endorse the result, amid stunning revelations of serious irregularities in the Saturday poll,” announced the paper.

Now, if there was one story that should have not been a hoax, but a matter of fact, it is this one.
Not many in Zimbabwe, except Cuthbert Dube and his cronies, seems to like this man. Dube, following revelations that he awarded himself a cool US$6 million annually while PSMAS, the health insurance firm, was neck-deep in debt, is truly a discredited figure.

That he approved a mega salary and perks of close US$40 000 per month for former ZBC boss Happison Muchechetere at a time when ordinary workers there were not being paid for six months, does not help his reputation either. Dube personifies greed and lack of moral restraint and is seen as the face of looting and corporate cannibalism that have characterised Zimbabwe.

As such, in the run-up to the Zifa elections at the weekend, it was every well-meaning Zimbabwean’s wish not to see Cuthbert Dube anywhere near the helm of the football mother body.

It was not going to be.
Dube won.
Zimbabwe lost.
I liked the cartoon by the ever thoughtful and brilliant Innocent Mpofu depicting how Dube’s election was an own goal. It is.

Now, Zimbabwe will not move an inch in terms of advancing soccer in the country. Dube’s record speaks for itself: national teams never qualified for any major continental and global showcases.

It would be asking too much of one’s imagination to think Dube will cause a positive turnaround in the national game.  Things can only get worse. You can’t expect much from a man that ran aground his own football club. I have to acknowledge that Dube has been kind enough with his money —apparently from his PSMAS salary — to provide for the national team.

Yet it also indicates just how he runs the national game like he is operating a tuckshop: a good corporate manager would simply find suitable and sustainable partners around. Not with Cuthbert Dube.

We are going to see more heartbreaks, we soccer lovers of Zimbabwe.
If we had our way, we would gladly see Cuthbert Dube’s poor back. He may take comfort in that the public does not vote in selecting leaders for national sporting bodies.

Otherwise he would amass votes equivalent to those of Egypt Dzinemunhenzva, who is a living caricature of electoral and political failure.