This was 2015 when Cecil John Rhodes loomed large during then Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s state visit to South Africa. The Zanu PF leader had arrived in South Africa on an official visit, accompanied by ten of his cabinet ministers and his wife Grace Mugabe.
Journalists were reduced to laughter as he joked about the late colonialist.
SABC’s Vuyo Mvoko was among them.
“We in Zimbabwe had forgotten about Cecil Rhodes until South Africa said it has his statue in Cape Town, where he was the minister of the Cape and mischievously wanted to also take control of Zimbabwe,” said Mugabe.
“We have his corpse, you can keep his statue,” he added, causing South African President Jacob Zuma and the twenty cabinet ministers from both governments to break in laughter.