Well done Vimbai!

I thoroughly enjoyed watching our own Vimbai Mutinhiri co-hosting the show alongside IK, who has become a regular presenter on Big Brother Africa.
Quite honestly, Vimbai has become a star presenter since she landed her role on StarGist. She is flawless especially if it’s about fashion. She also hits the nail on the head when it comes to red carpet glamour.

Obviously, Zimbabwe was left out from the awards themselves simply because we didn’t have productions which aired on AfricaMagic.
And compared to Nollywood, as they call it in Nigeria, Zimbabwean film industry is way behind not in terms of quality but quantity as Nollywood which marked its 20th anniversary recently churns out volumes of films per month.

However, through Vimbai, Zimbabwe was well represented because she had a much bigger role co-hosting than the nominees themselves.
Every time she walked on that stage looking all pretty and cool, she represented Zimbabwe. And as Zimbabweans we took pride in that knowing that we were part of the event.

In all fairness, Vimbai went pound for pound with IK, who is a sought-after presenter for events of this magnitude.
But it was all the more exciting to hear Vimbai speaking in Nigerian local languages with such ease. At one time, IK even hailed Vimbai for her accent and joked that he would get Vimbai a Nigerian boyfriend.

The introduction of Vimbai on stage was dramatic and spot on, IK pretended as if it was during the Big Brother Africa series and Vimbai emerged from one corner of the stage oozing with cool confidence.

After the magical show, I was appalled to read an article by a certain Nigerian writer taking a swipe at Vimbai for her garments.
According to the writer, Vimbai’s dressing was a disaster. He even asked if Vimbai had done her dress rehearsals. The suggestion was that Vimbai was the wrong choice for the awards and we then asked if this was not a xenophobic attack.

What the writer didn’t understand from the outset was that firstly, Vimbai was dressed by Nigerian designers and being a former top model Vimbai was simply parading the garments.

Secondly, it was a good thing that Vimbai did not present the whole show wearing the same outfit. It would have been a disaster had she appeared on stage wearing the same outfit.

And in conclusion to the article, the writer then made a U-turn and lashed out at organisers for holding the event “the Nigerian way”.
Till today, I am not sure of what he meant by that but I suppose there must have been one or two things which were not up to scratch.

But that is common with every awards show some of the mistakes happen in full view of the cameras others occur behind the scenes.
However, we hope Vimbai will continue to shine on our screens and that as Zimbabweans we take pride in having our own on the continental stage.
She is a star!