Online Reporter
LADIES and gentlemen, gather round.
The judges have deliberated, the people have wheezed-laughed and the results are in.
This year’s prestigious award for Supreme Mambara — a title recognising unparalleled, publicly-spectacular mastery of the absurd — has ended in a dead heat.
In one corner, a man who symbolises failure; in the other, a man who literally tried to eat his crimes. Choosing one winner is impossible.
It’s like asking whether you would rather drive over a sinkhole or swallow a traffic ticket.
Contender 1: His Worship the mechanic
Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume presented a master class in metaphorical governance.
His council, which treats a functioning water pipe as a mythical artefact, decided the festive spirit was best conveyed by a vintage Rolls-Royce.
The plan: a graceful glide into Christmas. The reality: a steaming, coughing heap of symbolism, expiring next to a pothole.
The solution? Not a mechanic, but buckets. Buckets! In a city where residents queue for water, council staff were filmed pouring the precious liquid into a car’s radiator, performing emergency horticulture on British engineering.
The mayor then completed the parable by abandoning the vehicle and walking to the event, thus personally experiencing the crumbling infrastructure his office oversees.
His entry wasn’t just a failure; it was a catastrophe.
It was pure poetic Mambaradom.
Contender 2 : The human shredder
Then we have Sergeant Paul Dzimbanhete, a man who took “destroy the evidence” far too seriously. After being filmed pocketing a US$50 bribe, he was confronted by investigators.
His brilliant counter-strategy? To become a human goat and swallow the note.
One can only imagine the scene: a grown police officer, cheeks bulging with illegal tender, thinking stomach acid beats video evidence.
His notebook, citing the victim for “dangerous parking” was the lying cherry on top of this undigestible cake.
The magistrate, sadly, did not award points for creativity or fibre intake.
The verdict
So, who takes the crown?
Do we honour the grand, symbolic failure of an entire institution, beautifully captured in a boiling radiator?
Or do we reward the breathtakingly literal, biological absurdity of a cop trying to digest his way out of handcuffs?
The committee is split. Both are masters of their craft. One showcased that you can’t run a city on polish and photo-ops. The other proved you definitely can’t run a police service on corruption and a cast-iron stomach.
Therefore, in a historic first, the title of Mambara of the Year is jointly awarded.
To Mayor Mafume, for giving us the perfect metaphor.
And to Sergeant Dzimbanhete, for failing to understand what a metaphor even is.
Congratulations gentlemen. You have earned it.
