HARARE – A police outrider in first lady Auxillia Mnangagwa’s convoy died after crashing into a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer, it was confirmed on Saturday.
The Good Friday accident on the road between Chinhoyi and Lion’s Den was the third involving President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s wife in just a year. Two of the crashes have been fatal.
A statement issued by the Zimbabwe Republic Police on Saturday said Sergeant Freddy Chipato of Chinhoyi Traffic was clearing traffic for the first lady’s convoy at around 4.30PM when he ploughed into a Toyota Altezza heading in the opposite direction.
Tinotenda Esau Mutandiro, the driver of the Altezza, had attempted to pull over to the left side of the road but police say his vehicle inexplicably “swerved to the right… and encroached into the lane of the motorbike.”
“The vehicle then collided with the clearing motorbike resulting in the death of Sergeant Chipato after sustaining serious body injuries,” police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said.
Nyathi bizarrely insisted that “the first lady’s convoy was not involved at all in the traffic accident.”
Mutandiro, a police officer stationed in Harare, was reportedly travelling to Karoi. Nyathi said he would be charged with culpable homicide.
On April 24 last year, one of Auxillia Mnangagwa’s aides died and three were injured after a vehicle in her convoy overturned on a rocky embankment near Muzarabani in Mashonaland Central.
A month later, the government denied reports that she had been involved in another road accident in Kwekwe. Instead, a government spokesman said she only stopped to render assistance after Zvishavane-Ngezi MP Dumizweni Mahwite ran over a seven-year-old child who was seriously injured.
Then, in July last year, the first lady was unhurt after her Toyota Land Cruiser overturned on the Harare-Bindura Road.
Other motorists said just before the crash, her convoy was driving aggressively and forcing vehicles off the road while speeding towards Mazowe.
Even in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, and sometimes during a lockdown imposed by her husband banning inter-provincial travel, the first lady has crisscrossed the country gathering villagers while saying she is carrying out charity work. The opposition says she is campaigning for her husband, while the opposition cannot campaign following a ban on political gatherings.
