By We need to know what really is going on in the president’s head, how feels about both petty and major policies before he officially gathers cabinet to pronounce policy, how much time he will take to react to pressing issues or even share those lighter moments through the microblogging site. This would be priceless.
While Zimbabweans have many questions that may never be answered on social media, the power of social media cannot be understated, and for the Zimbabwe government, it has already acknowledged the role by creating a separate special ministry, confirming its relevance and importance.
The fact that we now have two seperate ministries overseeeing Informationa Communication Technologies is a major state,ent of how serious the sector is and this can only be supported by a leader who also walks th etalk and break away from the traditional to new media.
Ofcourse we are not looking forward to a Trump like storm character from him online, neither do we look forward to a prof Moyo arsenal type, while more importantly, there has to be a way to quickly and easily disseminate information to Zimbabweans without the current beautocratic process
Politics and Twitter seem to have a forged a strong relationship that has seen a lot of presence of politicians on the social media platform. Barack Obama, Donald Trump, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and even the cat of the new New Zealand, the Prime Minister has its own Twitter account. amongst other top politicians on Twitter. They are using it as a formal means to move communication while commanding a huge following, beating a lot of popular athletes, sports teams and Hollywood celebrities.
Donald Trump cites his Twitter usage as the reason that got him elected as the President of the United States of America.
But he is not the best example for politicians on Twitter, uttering a lot of garbage and nonsense and even contradicting with his own staff. A lot of politicians known on Twitter, like Trump are disgruntled politicians, churning out a lot of hateful, xenophobic messages, embodying the culture of trolling.
Despite the many negatives it represents, Twitter is still a force to reckon with.
Twitter the world over has bolstered grassroots conversations, disrupted the top-down nature of political leadership and thought, and has given voice to groups long hidden in the political periphery. Its relevance in today’s political world can never be underplayed.
While its not everyone who is on Twitter, saying something on Twitter doesn’t mean that it is limited to Twittersphere, it will be carried over to other social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp and be written about by journalists in both print and online media. Twitter has been known to influence the influencers, and Mugabe’s tweets can influence a lot of people.
There are just too many advantages of using Twitter that our president can tap into, it is cheap, fast and offers a lot of feedback that cannot be garnered any other way except on election day, which may be too late.
Millions of Zim youths are desperate to hear more from him concerning undiluted policy issues and direction towards economic resuscitation and that voice of reason needs to be more nuanced now than ever.
Given all that, we implore President Robert Mugabe to join Twitter and engage with us on a regular basis.
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