SOME Bulawayo residents were awestruck by the wedding of President Robert Mugabe’s daughter Bona and her pilot husband Simba Chikore at the First Family’s Borrowdale Brooke mansion in Harare on Saturday at which no opulence was spared.
JUNIOR MOYO/ NONHLANHLA SIBANDA
The couple exchanged vows before about 4 000 guests in an extravagant ceremony estimated to have cost around $5 million and attended by the who is who in Zimbabwean political and business circles.
Trevor Chishabva of Morningside said it was awesome and it would take double the effort to see any other wedding in Zimbabwe beating this one this century.
“It was awesome and I was inspired by the wedding as I have never seen such a wedding before. I can only wish to have a wedding like that,” said Chishabva.
Eliot Jombe from Gwabalanda said the wedding was lovely and entertaining.
“When I saw the wedding, I wished I was from a rich family or a royal family because they have money to do anything,” said Jombe.
Another resident Edmore Komboni said what he liked most about the wedding was that it was cultural and he envied Bona’s character. “The wedding embraced our culture because they used Shona instead of English.
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“Even Bona is a person who is down to earth and leading by example because we always expect rich people to show off their wealth and some misuse it,” Komboni said.
However, another resident who requested anonymity said the wedding was in bad taste as obscene wealth was flaunted in the face of suffering Zimbabweans.
“We know that Bona comes from a rich family and deserved a flashy wedding, but what about the fellow Zimbabweans suffering from the effects of floods in Tsholotsho and Tokwe-Mukosi?” asked the resident.
“We know the president as a person who disapproves of white people, but why did they hire white South African companies to prepare for the wedding instead of local companies?”
Other residents said they did not bother watching the wedding because they were toiling to feed their families.
“We have no comment on the wedding because we never saw it.
“We were busy working and just heard from others that it was extravagantly opulent,” said a resident.
The wedding was also attended by South African President Jacob Zuma, Zambia’s Michael Sata, DRC’s Joseph Kabila and Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
Congolese rhumba maestro Kofi Olomide and the Soweto String Quartet entertained the guests along with a local line-up that included Jah Prayzah and Sulumani Chimbetu, among others.
