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The story is part of a larger web of lies, disinformation and vilification of Zimbabwe, its leadership and its people.
Put Gamu and the X Factor reality show aside for a moment.

Her circumstances are already in the public domain and there won’t be any point adding any more opinion to that story.
All’s been said that could be said about that 18-year-old who probably doesn’t even remember how Zimbabwe looks like.
The fact that she claims that a “firing squad” awaits her back home if she and her family are deported back to Zimbabwe is not the issue.
Leave Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole out of all this mess. They have no duty of care for anyone booted off X Factor — for whatever reason.

The Gamu story, however, is a microcosm of a larger malaise involving the media, opposition parties in Zimbabwe and other groups that have taken part in the disinformation campaign against Zimbabwe.
This writer was surprised that even SW Radio’s Lance Guma wrote on his Facebook page: “I have not condoned her ‘lying’ but I think we are going overboard in our criticism. If we were allowed to peruse the asylum claims of many Zimbabweans here in the UK we would read much worse fiction than what Gamu said.”
This is surprising revelation, given that pirate radio station SW Radio has created more fiction than any other campaign organisation involved in the vilification campaign against Zimbabwe.

Chickens are coming home to roost.
Guma should celebrate that SW Radio Africa’s lies are now being repeated elsewhere; and the madness that characterises their daily broadcasts, is reaching its intended audience — the Gamus of this world and the UK Border Agency.
Many MDC-T supporters have joined the Gamu vilification campaign because of her ridiculous “firing squad” story; but many of them have used similar stories to gain Leave to Remain in the UK.

Read more on Gamu

MDC-T has been at the forefront of telling fibs about Zimbabwe.
Remember Sekai Holland once told SW Radio that President Mugabe wanted to eliminate all parliamentarians from MDC-T by abducting and killing them.
Ironically, Mrs Holland is now the Minister for National Healing and Reconciliation in President Mugabe’s Government.

Like many “asylum seekers” in the UK, she earned her position using a web of lies.
Many Zimbabweans were given refugee status in the UK on these lies, and subsequently granted British citizenship. Their first destination on British passport travel was Zimbabwe.
Some of these people are at the forefront of fighting for dual citizenship, and vilification of Gamu Nhengu.
The ridiculous stories they told to UK immigration officials will never be known. If the Border Agency could revisit asylum claims from 3-10 years ago, they’d find a lot of ridiculous claims.

Britain itself is now in a quandary. It has either believed these lies, or entertained them to justify imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe and cannot now dispute stories like Gamu Nhengu’s.
Britain has crafted its foreign and immigration policy on these recycled and overly exaggerated media reports; and reports from MDC-T and the anti-Zimbabwe lobby in the Diaspora.
We should all leave Gamu alone. She’s been fed a heavy diet of lies by the likes of SW Radio, the MDC-T, so-called pro-Zimbabwe organisations and various other online media organisations.
The MDC-T was in the media recently over stories that they sold membership cards and manufactured stories to use to justify ludicrous “asylum” claims.

That party’s UK and Ireland branch is now non-existent because of misappropriation of funds and corruption, some of it involving these lies.
This is the true “Gamu Story”, not the one involving an innocently naive 18-year-old who’s been “made” to hate her own country by her own people, who are now blaming her for reacting to their lies.
What a tragedy!
Sihle Dube is a lawyer and banker. She writes from the United Kingdom and can be reached via [email protected] . This article is reproduced from www.talkzimbabwe.com