Very recently, I had the opportunity to see the 83-year-old head of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. The contemptible cranium was traveling at high speed in a convoy of shiny black Mercs, souped-up and overcrowded army trucks, police cars and motorcycle outriders.

I, and very likely every other poor chump of a motorist delayed by the hastily thrown-up police cordon, watched "the Big Man" zoom through the Namibian capital of Windhoek with a mixture of frustration and impatience. And in my case revulsion. All the passengers on the Air Namibia flight that had been ordered to maintain a holding pattern for 30 minutes until Mugabe's plane turned up (late as usual) no doubt also sympathized.

Mugabe! What can I say? When he inherited Zimbabwe (formerly the British colony of Rhodesia) from white rule in 1980, he had in his hands the grain basket of southern Africa. By the standards of sub-Saharan Africa, the country was an economic giant. It was blessed with fertile soil, magnificent national parks, a functioning infrastructure and a vigorous export market.