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Masvingo College students take part in a street carnival in Masvingo City yesterday ahead of the 21st February Movement Celebrations slated for the Great Zimbabwe monument tomorrow

Masvingo Bureau
The 21st February Movement celebrations roared into life in Masvingo yesterday, with a street carnival across the town to raise awareness about President Mugabe’s birthday bash to be held at the Great Zimbabwe Monuments tomorrow.

Business came to a standstill in Masvingo City and the suburban areas as the street carnival party marched from Mucheke Stadium to the Masvingo Civic Centre, drawing the attention of hundreds of onlookers who lined up the streets to catch a glimpse of the colourful procession.

The carnival party comprised drum majorettes, ZCC Mutendi Brass Band, members of the Zanu-PF Women’s League clad in party regalia, students from various schools and colleges in and around Masvingo City and traditional dance troupes in their gear.

Addressing hundreds of people gathered at the Civic Centre at the end of the event, Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial secretary for the commissariat Cde Jappy Jaboon said the province anticipated to hold memorable birthday celebrations in honour of President Mugabe.

Cde Jaboon said the street carnival was held to raise awareness among the people of Masvingo about the 21st February Movement celebrations that coincide with tyhe President’s birthday.

“The street carnival was highly successful as it was joined by ordinary people who saw it fit to be part of the celebrations in honour of our President who turned 92 (at the weekend). Our main aim was to raise awareness about the celebrations that we are going to host for our President on Saturday,’’ he said.

“We are going to have arguably the best ever 21st February Movement celebrations and we are expecting a bumper crowd to be part of the festivities on Saturday,” added Cde Jaboon.

“There is unanimity within Zanu-PF in Masvingo that our province should organise the best ever celebrations to mark our President’s birthday. Everyone agrees that there is one centre of power in Zanu-PF, and that centre is President Mugabe whose birthday we are going to celebrate at the weekend. Our President has also strongly spoken against factionalism and we are all agreed to work as a team to host a successful event,” said Cde Jaboon.

Zanu-PF Secretary for Youth in the Politburo Cde Pupurai Togarepi also called for unity among Zimbabweans ahead of President Mugabe’s birthday celebrations.

He said today’s youths had a lot of lessons to draw from President Mugabe’s life and paid tribute to them for being part of the celebrations.

The celebrations will continue today (Friday) with Zanu-PF youths leading other youths in Masvingo in a clean-up campaign starting from Mucheke Stadium to Masvingo Civic Cen- tre.

In the evening, there will be a Miss 21st February Movement 2016 beauty pageant at the Masvingo Civic Centre where 20 models from all the country’s 10 provinces will fight it out for this year’s crown. Masvingo College students take part in a street carnival in Masvingo City yesterday ahead of 21st February Movement Celebrations slated for Great Zimbabwe on Saturday.