For at least 15 minutes, President Robert Mugabe’s motorcade(advance squad) last night was stuck in a traffic jam at the intersection of Rotten Row and Samora Machel Avenue following heavy rains that pounded the city centre yesterday.
Sirens could be heard wailing away, while the President was said to be held up at the Zanu PF headquarters where he had just finished chairing his party’s politburo meeting.
There was panic and pandemonium as his guards struggled to clear the traffic maze stretching almost a kilometre long.
When the President’s motorcade eventually emerged into Rotten Row, the jungle of traffic that had seemed impossible to clear just minutes earlier, disappeared so fast one could hardly believe it was the same road where a labyrinth of cars had been locked in an inextricable jigsaw.
Usually, if one does not move off the road when the President is passing, he or she will regret ever having bought a vehicle, but yesterday, the situation was different.
The combative motorcade outriders were turned into hapless traffic police officers to clear traffic.
Meanwhile, Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said the politburo did not discuss the mysterious death of retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru preferring instead to dwell on its conference slated for Bulawayo next month.
