ED’s Brought Back Augustine Chihuri Statue To State House To Threaten VP Chiwenga?

By A Correspondent | ZimEye | Analysis | The new Mnangagwa statue, bronze-faced and unyielding, rises with an almost spectral aura—a visage that seems to carry not the firm resolve of Emmerson Mnangagwa but the haunting features of Augustine Chihuri. The chiseled lines across the face speak not of triumph but of ironic subversion, an unspoken message etched into the very core of its creation. This statue, poised to adorn the State House, is less a symbol of Mnangagwa’s legacy than it is an artifact of whispered defiance, casting a shadow that intertwines history and intrigue.

It does not have the permanent black mark inflicted by Mnangagwa’s sister Diana after he tried to kill her.

The unmistakable resemblance to Chihuri—the man once positioned to arrest Constantino Chiwenga during Zimbabwe’s fraught 2017 coup—speaks louder than the bronze silence it embodies. This artistic misstep or deliberate ambiguity carries an ominous weight. Mnangagwa’s subtle, veiled commentary becomes a poetic dagger, unearthing the treacherous layers of betrayal, loyalty, and ambition that pulse beneath Zimbabwe’s political theater.

Chihuri’s role in that historical chess game, where soldiers in disguise disarmed the police’s Support Unit and shielded Chiwenga, now finds its echo in the statue’s silent gaze. The bronze lips seem to murmur the words that Mnangagwa hinted at recently: a need for order, for consequence, for the arrest of dreams too ambitious to stand unchecked.

And yet, the face—crafted to immortalize—is a paradox, for it immortalizes not Mnangagwa’s visage but the specter of a man who once stood at the crux of betrayal. The artistry, or lack thereof, carries with it a coded language understood by those attuned to the nuances of Zimbabwe’s fraught corridors of power. It is as if the statue leans toward Chiwenga and whispers: “Before you dream of power, remember who fell, who stood, and who remains.”

It is a sculpture of shadow and tension, not merely of form. What it symbolizes may outlast the presidency it is meant to celebrate, casting a bronze reminder that history, though malleable in the hands of power, has a memory of its own.

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