Mugabe says he's lonely
2013-03-05 14:35
Cape Town – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe says he now
feels lonely at home and in government as he is now surrounded by "small people"
he cannot relate to on an equal footing because of age difference, a report said.
According to News Day, Mugabe, 89, said the only person who
came closer to him on maturity and age was the Zanu-PF secretary for administration
Didymus Mutasa and described other cabinet members like Media, Information and
Publicity minister Webster Shamu and Information Communication Technology
minister Nelson Chamisa as "kids".
Mutasa, born in 1935, is 11 years Mugabe’s junior, while
Shamu and Chamisa are 67 and 33 years old, respectively.
". . . They are gone [his age-mates] and those who remain,
you look down upon them because they are young. They have not had the same
experience, the same length of life and, therefore, the same advantage of
gathering as much knowledge and experience as yourself,"Mugabe said.
"And so you can’t discuss with them things that happened in
the 1930s or even 1950s. They will not know. There is that limitation,” Mugabe
said in an interview with Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation to mark his 89th
birthday.
Africa's oldest leader
"You take my cabinet as it is, there is no one I can talk to
about how we used to approach girls or we would go to this and that place,
riding bicycles. There is no one."
"There are others like Mutasa. He comes close,
but others are just children, the likes of Shamu, Chamisa. You feel that
loneliness. You have lost others and sometimes you think of it and it makes you
very lonely."
Mugabe who is married to his 47-year-old former secretary
Grace said there was no one even in the family who could give proper advice as
most rely on him as the elder.
"The consoling part of it is that, well fine, there are
young ones and young minds you can talk to. You can also try to educate, you
can also try to relate a bit of history to and so on and so forth. But they
remain young ones who listen much more than they share ideas with you," Mugabe
said.
Africa's oldest leader and the world’s second oldest after
Shimon Peres of Israel, Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from
Britain in 1980.
Mugabe has lost several close colleagues in his party
including Vice-Presidents Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, Simon Muzenda, Joseph Msika and
lately John Landa Nkomo.
- News24
