HARARE - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is heading for the wheelchair as health problems mount, a senior intelligence source in the President’s office has revealed to The Zimbabwe Mail.

A special wheel chair and other electronic gadgets are being designed in an unnamed Asian country, the source told our reporter in Bindura at the funeral of the First Lady Grace Mugabe’s brother, Reward Marufu.

In the coming weeks, special medical engineers will fly to Harare to prepare ground work of internal structural changes to be carried out at President Mugabe’s private residence in Borrowdale and his offices at Munhumutapa Building to accommodate state of the art high-tech gadgets.

The senior intelligence officer also confirmed that in future, the veteran leader will be on his fit only on special occasions, alongside a medical doctor and a special drug will be used to keep him fit for a small walking distance.

The source also disclosed that a number of the President Mugabe’s security details have undergone a special training to help them manage an extraordinary situation with regards to his mounting health problems.

President Mugabe’s health is taking a battering due to old age, family problems and a punishing schedule for a man of his advanced age and as a result swollen ankles, knees and all sorts of problems are mounting as the endgame looms.

A few weeks ago Mugabe collapsed into a pile in Uganda, Kampala during the Summit of African Union Heads of State and, in China, a week after; he had to be way led by Chinese security agents from the podium after addressing delegates at the Chinese at the Shanghai World Expo.

His sister Sabina died a few weeks ago and another sister Bridgette is in the intensive care in a Harare hospital.

Over the years, for a man of his advanced age President Robert Mugabe has looked remarkably active and ostensibly fit.

Closer inspection, however, reveals that while he is actively making it business as usual for continued stay in power, advanced age appears to have finally caught up with him. Like the rest of the body, the brain deteriorates with age.

At 86 and with 30 years as head of state behind him, Mugabe remains surprisingly in control of his mental faculty, at least during those occasions that he appears on television and on International Summits.

But of late pictures of Mugabe have appeared in the media that reveal a condition that would automatically rule him out as a serious contender for the presidency in a less authoritarian country.

In most countries, for instance, presidential candidates are required to pass what is tantamount to a rigorous public bill of health.

In the United States, such serious concerns were raised about the advanced age of the Republican presidential nominee John McCain that his campaign managers were forced to assure the nation that he was still fit not only to campaign but also to assume office as President of the United States of America. They handed over to the Associated Press 1 173 pages of medical documents spanning the period from 2000 to 2008.


Mugabe was a 12 year-old boy at Kutama School when McCain was born. Unlike his American counterparts, details of whose health make news headlines, the state of Mugabe’s health has been elevated to the status of a state secret closely guarded by him and those who surround him.

A research into the subject of the swelling of feet reveals that "systemic diseases and conditions are associated with foot and ankle swelling and are characterized by fluid retention or, less commonly, by an increase in thickness of the skin. Diseases of the joints, such as arthritis, can also affect the joints of the ankle and foot, leading to swelling of the involved areas."

Swelling of the extremities can be an indication of underlying chronic conditions, starting from the less frightening such as deep venous thrombosis (better known as blood clots) to the more severe and life-threatening conditions such as congestive heart failure. A reported recent visit to China by Mugabe can only lead to speculation as to where in this spectrum his health currently lies.

The abnormal buildup of fluid in the ankles, feet, and legs is called peripheral edema, or swelling of the lower extremities. This condition can be painless or painful.

Apparently the painless swelling of the feet and ankles is a common problem, particularly in older people. The condition may affect both legs and may include the calves or even the thighs. Because of the effect of gravity, swelling is particularly noticeable in these locations.

The following are listed as other common causes of foot, leg, and ankle swelling: prolonged standing, long airplane flights or motorcar rides, overweight and increased age. Among women menstrual periods and pregnancy may also cause swelling. Zimbabweans have nick-named their President Vasco da Gama because of his knack for excessive travel, which has taken him to every corner of the world. The imposition of travel sanctions on Mugabe and his colleagues has done nothing to reduce his penchant for travel to distant lands, mostly in the Far East of late.

He has just returned to Harare from a visit China and shopping trip to China where he was reported to have undergone a medical at a private clinic.

Surprisingly, starvation or malnutrition may also cause the swelling of feet, medical experts say. It is not conceivable that a Head of State would develop peripheral edema because of starvation while resident in State House, unless there were issues of entirely inappropriate dietary guidelines.

The experts say that swollen legs may, in fact, be a sign of heart failure, kidney failure, or liver failure. In these conditions, there is too much fluid in the body.

Heart failure is a life-threatening condition in which the heart can no longer pump enough blood to the rest of the body. Hypertension or high blood pressure is one of the most common causes of heart failure, a disease which is almost always chronic and becomes more common with advancing age. People, who are overweight, have diabetes, smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, or use cocaine are at increased risk for developing heart failure.

Among the most common symptoms of heart failure are weight gain, swelling of feet and ankles and decreased alertness of concentration.

Apart from swollen feet and ankles Mugabe now appears to have another health issue. His voluble but not particularly commonsensical Information Minister, unwittingly let the cat out of the bag about the President’s failing vision. He said Mugabe’s sight had deteriorated so much that he could no longer read the newspapers.

Apparently Mugabe had complained that his effort to keep himself informed about events in Zimbabwe through reading the state-controlled Herald was frustrated by the small size of the print.

Describing the newspaper’s font as "the size of ants", Mugabe, unbelievably, appealed to the minister to advise the editors of the state newspapers to increase the font size for his benefit. Always eager to please, the minister apparently promptly summoned the editors and duly delivered the President’s message.

"We could not believe it when the minister said the President had told him to ask us to increase the size of the font," said one of the editors. "We all looked at each other amazed at what he had just said. We could not hold ourselves and openly giggled about it."

But the minister was not to be easily deterred.

"The President clearly said he could not read stories in The Herald. Once when he wanted to read a story on page two about MDC and Zanu-PF he failed. He called me and said ‘what is this?"

The editors respectfully held their ground, pointing out to the Minister that there was nothing they could do about the font size, as it was a worldwide standard and could not be changed.

Notwithstanding his advanced age and deteriorating heath Mugabe appears determined, not only do battle with, Morgan Tsvangirai, but to defeat him and manage Zimbabwe’s affairs of State for more years.

At 57, Tsvangirai is almost four decades younger than his rival

Meanwhile, an unconfirmed　report published on an online publication says that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is actively considering successors after his doctor told him he is losing the battle against cancer.

The African Aristocrat　reported that his urologist Awang Kechick visited him in Zimbabwe and told him that his condition is advancing faster than any treatment could delay it.

The report says that Mugabe has been struggling with undisclosed health issues for a long while, although he has returned to public life looking healthy. However, his health has deteriorated dramatically in the last months, with some images showing him unable to walk without help during a recent trip to Uganda.

Mugabe’s condition is allegedly so volatile that his physicians don’t leave his side, and the State House has been equipped with state-of-the-art resuscitation facilities.

There are also assertions that Zanu-PF officials　’are aware’ of Mugabe’s ill health, and the succession issue has been high on the list of topics recently.

According to the article, Mugabe seems to have surprised everyone by dumping presidential hopefuls and selecting Simba Makoni.

Makoni left the Zanu-PF to start his own party, and he seems to have support from both the Zanu-PF and its opposition the MDC, as well as the media.

If Mugabe wins the elections in 2011 and institutes Makoni as president, Makoni will most certainly make an impression with the public, while, with Zimbabwe’s economic growth due to increase over the coming five years, he will also take credit for these developments.

This might be bad news for the MDC though, as four years is enough to rebrand the current ruling party.

Once a breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe's food shortages have been brought on by drought and Mr Mugabe's crippling land-reform programme.

Speculation regularly surfaces over the health of the aging Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who has been in power since independence in 1980.　　

This report was first published in the Zimbabwe Mail

By The Zimbabwe Mail

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