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There is no Boko Haram in Zimbabwe, which Boko Haram is a terrorist organisation that has killed thousands of people and kidnapped and raped women and girls in Nigeria and neighbouring countries. It is the same Boko Haram that Nigerian government forces have been too afraid to confront.

It is a sobering thought to know that every society has its own lunatic fringe – thank goodness for whoever recently brought that into our everyday lexicon.

In Zimbabwe the opposition and its media sympathisers are what we call the lunatic fringe, not because it is inherently bad or illegal to be part of the two.

Zimbabwe guarantees various constitutional freedoms, including freedom of association, freedom of movement and freedom of the Press.

So it is perfectly normal that the lunatic fringe is allowed to exist.

But we have not explained what the lunatic fringe is or the characteristics thereof.

A couple of months ago, when Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku made a ruling that quashed prosecution of those who insulted President Mugabe, Professor Jonathan Moyo explained the anatomy of the lunatic fringe that it was the characteristic “of the typically imbecilic and idiotic disposition of opposition parties towards virtually everything that has to do with President Mugabe, ZANU-PF and the Government”.

“The same goes for the similarly imbecilic and idiotic claims that some sections of the media routinely make as an expression of what has become their template of covering anything that has to do with President Mugabe, ZANU-PF and the Government,” he said.

“There’s no reason why a constitutional democracy such as ours should use the law to discipline imbeciles and idiots in politics and the media. Society always moves on, leaving imbeciles and idiots behind and there’s a lot of evidence of this in Zimbabwe’s politics and media. Imbecilic and idiotic behaviour necessarily, and by itself, leads to irrelevance in society not least because imbeciles and idiots can only succeed in making up the lunatic fringe.”

This is very instructive, and does it need any elaboration when Zimbabweans are confronted daily by this lunatic fringe which has the “imbecilic and idiotic disposition . . . towards virtually everything that has to do with President Mugabe, ZANU-PF and the Government”?

When the audio-visuals of a Nigerian news crew calling itself Sahara Reporters harassed African Union chair President Mugabe, who was in that country for the inauguration of new leader Muhammad Buhari, the idea of a lunatic fringe quickly came to mind.

In Chinua Achebe’s old world, this Nigerian lunatic fringe could be called the efulefu or something to that effect.

Everything had worked well and Nigerian hosts behaved agreeably.

Then came this crew with its slutty woman they call Adeola Fayehun who, for all there was to see and watch, never showed like she was in genuine pursuit of news.

WELCOME TO NIGERIA . . . Property destruction has almost become normal in Nigeria where Boko Haram is on the prowl

And if she and her crew think they were journalists – we are told she has a masters in the field – she did well to shame the profession not least because they displayed ignorance of the Zimbabwe political processes such as when the last elections were held and how a leader is elected into, or leaves, office.

And then there was the question: “Is there democracy in Zimbabwe?” to which the reporter answered to say, “There is no democracy in Zimbabwe! It’s very sad. It’s about time to step down.”

The cacophony rang in: “When will there be change in Zimbabwe, Sir? Will there ever be change in Zimbabwe, Sir, just like we have in Nigeria?

“Thirty something years, and you come here to witness democracy.”

All this while Fayehun was laughing, smiling and making faces at the camera like a street woman while the other members of the crew behaved as animated as college activists.

Even if the show and the purpose of the performance was comedy, the whole charade was neither comic nor interesting.

It was disgusting.

However, it also called for one to look more closely at Fayehun’s paradise called Nigeria.

In fact, one does not have to look closely at all for all signs of a country gone and going wrong, questions for which Fayehun must have been asking, are all over the place.

In fact, Fayehun and company should have taken time to worry about their country rather than worry about the health of our President and how he intends to serve the people who gladly elected him by a margin of 62 percent two years ago.

There is no Boko Haram in Zimbabwe, which Boko Haram is a terrorist organisation that has killed thousands of people and kidnapped and raped women and girls in Nigeria and neighbouring countries.

It is the same Boko Haram that Nigerian government forces have been too afraid to confront.

The kind of democracy that Fayehun likes to brag about to President Mugabe is one that has given Nigeria numerous coups and counter-coups – up to 10 – since the 1960s and it is only just now that the country has wiggled out of the bane of Western African politics.

Even then, it is often whispered that Buhari, Fayehun’s democratic president, has had a hand in the Boko Haram insurgency.

This should worry the likes of Fayehun.

The villagers that are terrorised by Boko Haram are also largely illiterate, especially in the north of the country, whose vast resources it should have been using to better its poor literacy rate that stands at just about 60 percent.

At that rate, for a country of 173.6 million, it means that as many as 69,44 million Nigerians are uneducated and that is enough to fill about five Zimbabwes (with a population of 14 million) with uneducated Nigerians.

Zimbabwe is Africa’s most educated country in Africa, thanks to President Mugabe.

We are also not lost to the fact that Sahara News could have been worried more about the fact that their country has the dubious distinction of being the only African country still battling polio – and one of only three in the world, including Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Maybe, lastly, Fayehun would have better asked, as suggested in some quarters, the Chairman of the African Union, how Nigeria, the largest oil producer, in Africa, could avoid the ignominy of fuel shortages.

President Mugabe is preaching the idea of value addition and beneficiation, which idea could help resource-rich countries such as Nigeria.

Sahara News squandered an opportunity.

These explanations should not be construed as though we are attacking the people of Nigeria, who are nice Africans.

We are just telling their lunatic fringe not to soil the good name of that great African country.