A video of former Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, trended on Tuesday, barely 24-hours after African leaders were shuttled in a bus in London when they attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on September 19.
In the short video clip, widely circulated on Twitter, Mugabe is heard saying: “We are not a British colony, you must know that, we are not a British colony.”
He was responding apparently to a British journalist at an event in Egypt. “At that point, I as wrestled away by Zimbabwean and Egyptian security,” the unnamed journalist recounted.
Mugabe gets another bite when he is heard saying amid restraint by security detail: “What has the British to do with Zimbabwe, who are you? Bloody idiot.”
Robert Gabriel Mugabe was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017.
He was deposed in a military coup that allowed his ousted veep, Emerson Mnangagwa to become president. Mugabe died two years later.
Despite only two African leaders having been photographed on a bus in London as they attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, social media users are mocking all African leaders.
Only William Ruto of Kenya and Samia Suluhu Hassan were captured in the now viral photo first circulated on the morning of September 19, the day the Queen’s funeral was held.
Critics say the leaders have been given instructions that they could not disobey because they were not in charge in the UK.
For others, it is instructive that the United States president, Joe Biden, was allowed to use his full motorcade but the African leaders were denied, a sign of how limited their powers are as leaders outside their jurisdictions.
Others stretch the ‘bus treatment’ to how important the British government views them.
The viral photo that triggered all the reactions is below:
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
