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Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Dr Christopher Mushohwe shows the media drill holes on the ceiling panel after a break-in at Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s offices at the New Government Complex. — (Picture by Tawanda Mudimu)

YESTERDAY on this page we carried a leader calling for the protection of the country’s founding pillars from Western-sponsored barbarians bent on effecting illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.

These fifth columnists have been targeting the security sector which they are trying to divorce from the people it is sworn to protect.

The history of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces makes them resistant to regime change lobbyists as they were honed from the integration of the victorious Zanla and Zipra forces along with the vanquished Rhodesian Front forces.

However, over the years, many of the ex-RF servicemen went on early retirement leaving a core force of senior officers tempered by war and grounded in the country’s founding values.

And the ZDF statement about the top job in the land being a straitjacket fitting only those who will defend the nation’s founding values made it clear to reactionary forces that it will not be business as usual in Zimbabwe should they attempt the destabilisation they have wrought all over Africa since the 1960s.

To this end, we urge the security forces to extend their vigilance to the highest offices in the land.

It is unthinkable that Vice President Emmerson Mnagangwa’s party, ministerial and Government offices have been targeted by brigands a record six times without any suspects being brought to book.

An attack on the VP’s office is not just an attack on the person of Mnangagwa but an attack on Zimbabwe as he holds the office in trust for Zimbabweans, future and present.

What makes the break-ins at the VP’s office all the more chilling is the clear agenda-setting in the pro-opposition private media that have been dutifully working to try to give Cde Mnangagwa a bad name true to the dictum give a dog a bad name and hang it.

Prior to the latest break-in, the Daily News was quite strident in its attack on the VP. The paper opened the week with the headline: “Mnangagwa begs Mugabe”. On Tuesday it was: “VP allies face Zanu-PF sack”. Wednesday it was: “Mnangagwa in a corner”. And Thursday it was: “Another break-in at Mnangagwa offices:.

It was a week of Mnangagwa bashing. One would have to suspend belief to dissociate the break-in at the VPs office from the feverish agenda-setting in the Daily News which has, of late, become chief cheer leader of the People First project linked to ex-VP Joice Mujuru.

We will not waste time belabouring the motives of the Daily News and whoever is behind the break-ins save to say the sprinkling of cyanide, a deadly fast-acting poison, on the VP’s desk after the break-in at his party offices bids the security services to heighten their protection and vigilance around the VP.

It will be a sad day not only in the history of Zanu-PF but the country at large to let nefarious characters decide the Zanu-PF succession matrix. That is the role of the rank and file of Zanu-PF when the time comes.

To VP Mnangagwa we say, soldier on. To warrant such attention, you must be doing something right.