Just a few weeks after Professor Lovemore Madhuku showed some interest to form a political party criticism came in different forms across the Zimbabwe. Some people accused him of trying to dilute votes in the next election and some went further claiming that the Professor is trying seek attention from his former allies in the MDC party. The three parties in the government of national unity know that Madhuku could be a force to reckon with regardless of a poor showing in the just ended constitutional referendum. Small threats like these led to the dilution of votes in the harmonized elections of 2008 when the Mavambo/Kusile party was launched.

After falling into a deep slumber for the past five years of basking in the glory of the government of national unity the MDC woke up to the shocking voting patterns in the recent constitutional referendum.

This surprise wake up call brought shivers to the MDC executive and recent media reports suggest that the Prime Minister is now trying to resuscitate broken relationships with former Comrades to forge an alliance ahead of the presidential elections scheduled for this year. The biggest worry is whether this is a unity of purpose or a strategy to silence critics. After the results were published the rural areas commanded a large turn out as compared to the urban areas. Recent the MDC has been shooting down research findings carried out by independent groups. They believe that they still command a large support base. The MDC should 1) lobby the rural electorate 2) weed out corruption amongst its leaders 3) stop wasting resources wining and dining in Harare to please ex-cadres.

Anti-rape underwear which delivers a 3,800 kilovolt shock to any would-be attacker has been created by a team of female engineering students. After disabling the assailant, the undergarment has been designed to automatically send a text message to police or family members containing the GPS location of the attempted crime. Read more here.

It hard for me to imagine how my life would be like without the gadget I carry in my pocket, my cellphone. On April 3rd, the mobile phone celebrated its 40th anniversary. That is to say the day the first call was made from a mobile phone by a Motorola employee. Thus transforming the world of communication. One of the first mobile handsets which I remember well and was used by many, is the Nokia 5110. Do you remember your first handset? Mine was a Nokia 3110.

It is un African and morally incorrect in the spirit of Ubuntu to call for a death wish for someone. Regardless of how much you hated that person or whether it’s a peaceful death you wish for, African cultures condemn such action. A misplaced wish for Mandela’s death by University of the Free State Vice-Chancellor Professor Jonathan Jansen sparked outrage when he told students that he wished the former President of South Africa would die. At 94 the health of the former state man has been getting a knock and he has been in and out of hospital recently as messages of speedy recovering continue pouring in from world over.

In just less than a week The Herald has reported incidents of mothers losing their newly born babies to strangers. I’m not going to dwell into the emotional feeling of losing a baby, cause I just don’t want to take my mind there. It’s torture, unbearable. The first story which was carried during the Easter holiday was of a woman who lost her one week old baby to two female strangers at Parirenyatwa hospital after she had just been discharged. When I read the comments to the story knives were out for the mother who left her newborn in the hands of strangers whilst she went to look for food for 30 minutes. The two reasons that came to my mind as I read this story were that the baby was stolen for either ritual purposes or for the baby thief to keep as theirs. I ruled out ritual purposes slightly as I remembered an Ndebele drama I watched in my childhood days.

In this drama a woman made her South African based husband believe that she was expecting. When the time for the husband’s visit to the country was nearing, she visited a local clinic where she joined a queue with expecting mothers and some with their babies. She got friendly with one of the mothers who had a newborn and offered to hold the baby while the mother went to ladies, and that was it, she stole the baby. This drama series was not much different from the second case reported by The Herald, where the unsuspecting mother was lured into somehow ‘trusting’ the baby thief. The baby thief was said to have been looking pregnant and was seeking accommodation.

Police dealing with these cases rely heavily on the public to assist and come forward with information. If you see someone saying they have been blessed with a baby and yet you don’t recall seeing them pregnant, that is a cause for concern. Without the assistance of the public, such cases can be hard to deal with.