{The Zimbabwe students union, on Friday, demanded the resignation of authorities at the country\u2019s top university after it awarded a \u201cmiraculous\u201d doctorate to President Robert Mugabe\u2019s wife.}<\/p>\n
The PhD was granted to Grace Mugabe, a 49-year-old former typist in the president\u2019s office, two weeks ago – just months after she enrolled for the course.<\/p>\n
Mugabe\u2019s wife – who was capped by her husband, President Robert Mugabe along with other graduates – was awarded the degree soon after she was endorsed to lead the ruling party, ZANU-PF\u2019s women\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n
The surprise endorsement worsened tensions in a party ridden with factionalism over Mugabe\u2019s succession.<\/p>\n
The awarding of the degree is seen as a corrupt means of buttressing her credentials as she seeks political office – and possibly the presidency when Mugabe dies.<\/p>\n
\u201cVice-Chancellor Professor Levi Nyagura and all who took part in this scam should resign for their pro-active or non-reactive roles in engineering the fake doctorate,\u201d Gilbert Mutubuki, president of the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) said in a statement.<\/p>\n
ZINASU said the degree awarded to Grace was \u201ca serious insult to the students, the intelligentsia, doctors, professors and lecturers associated with the University of Zimbabwe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the criticism, state-owned companies have splashed newspaper advertisements congratulating the First Lady, with one company saying \u201cher achievement shall always serve as an inspiration to all Zimbabweans as the country moves towards attaining universal education.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mutubuki said: \u201cAny recipient of such a sham miraculous doctorate should feel ashamed unless their sense of humanity and guilty conscience is no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The University of Zimbabwe has not commented on the matter but has promised to issue a statement. \u2013AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The Zimbabwe students union, on Friday, demanded the resignation of authorities at the country\u2019s top university after it awarded a \u201cmiraculous\u201d doctorate to President Robert Mugabe\u2019s wife.} The PhD was granted to Grace Mugabe, a 49-year-old former typist in the president\u2019s office, two weeks ago – just months after she enrolled for the course. Mugabe\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000054231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-16585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000054231,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16585.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16585.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16585.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16585.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16585.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16585.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000054231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16585"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=16585"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=16585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}