The episode of Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe’s appointment as a WHO Ambassador has largely irked a few countries and particularly the USA and UK who haven’t hidden their reservations to say the least. Nonetheless the flaks have been flying but not from all corners of the universe.
Some thoughts from the Afrocentric School have said why not arguing the health issues should far remove from political relationships. And if this were so, Mugabe should not be castigated. They opined that Mugabe’s great influence in Southern Africa is not lost on the WHO who appointed him and saw the issue as politically ill-motivated moreso as Dr. Tedros, WHO’s helmsman is being similarly castigated for letting his good reputation suffer a dent as a result of this.
The Zimbabwean state media reported on Tuesday that Mugabe, who is arguably the most educated President in the world today, did not know he had been appointed World Health Organisation goodwill ambassador and would anyway have rejected the role that has since been rescinded.
The WHO reversed its decision on Sunday to award the 93-year-old the honour to help fight disease after widespread uproar around the globe.
“The president was quite surprised that he had been appointed a goodwill ambassador by the WHO,” Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba told The Herald newspaper.
“There was nothing, whether verbal or written, from the WHO intimating that WHO wished to make the president a goodwill ambassador in respect of non-communicable diseases,” he added, saying Mugabe learned about it from the news.
“He was not going to oblige the invitation had it come his way anyway.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former Ethiopian health minister who took charge of WHO UN agency in July, rescinded his decision to appoint Mugabe goodwill ambassador for non-communicable diseases in Africa after facing fierce criticism.
The appointment angered international rights campaigners and opposition parties, who also accuse Mugabe of violent repression, election rigging and presiding over the country’s economic ruin.
Zimbabwe’s healthcare system, like many of its public services, has collapsed under Mugabe’s authoritarian regime, with most hospitals out of stock of essential medicines and supplies, and nurses and doctors regularly left unpaid.
Charamba said it would have been an “awkward” situation for WHO to appoint Mugabe as goodwill ambassador, as Zimbabwe is a top producer of tobacco.
Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, is in increasingly fragile health and makes regular trips abroad for medical treatment.
Kindly follow us on twitter:@AfricanVoice2
