Impostor tweet falsely claims Zimbabwe’s army called for president to step down

“Now we call @edmnangagwa to step down with immediate effect. We can't be ruled by thugs or otherwise we will bring back the tanks,” reads the tweet published on March 24, 2023.

Several Zimbabwean government accounts were tagged.

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Screenshot of the false tweet, taken on April 6, 2023

The claim was tweeted after broadcaster Al Jazeera aired an investigation exposing a money laundering ring in Zimbabwe dubbed the “Gold Mafia” that implicated individuals linked to the government.

The replies to the tweet were mixed: some believed the tweet was authentic and supported the purported call for Mnangagwa to step down, while others labelled the account as fake.

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A screenshot of replies to the false tweet

The claim in the tweet is, indeed, false.

Imposter account

The account behind the tweet @zimnationalarmy was created in July 2022. The link in its Twitter biography redirects to an inactive website.

The official army website links to a different Twitter account, @ArmyZimbabwe (archived here). This account was created in 2018 but is seldom used -- the last and only post was on June 24, 2020, about alleged incidents involving troops deployed during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The impostor account appears to be official -- it tweets more frequently and has more than double the number of followers compared to the official army account.

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Screenshots comparing the fake Zimbabwe National Army Twitter account, left, to the real one

Army spokesman Alphios Makotore confirmed to AFP Fact Check that the tweet from the impostor account was “a fake”.

2017 image

A reverse image search revealed that the attached picture of a man in an army uniform has been online for more than five years.

The same image appeared in a CNN article on November 20, 2017, about Zimbabwe’s military takeover after former president Robert Mugabe’s resignation (report archived here).

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The image as it appeared in the CNN November 2017 article

It shows former army spokesman Sibusiso Moyo as he read a statement during a state broadcast by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation on November 15, 2017.

Moyo, who went on to serve as foreign minister, died on January 20, 2021 (archived here).

‘Gold Mafia’

The tweet was published a day after the first episode of a four-part documentary series (archived here) produced by Al Jazeera exposed billion-dollar money laundering operations using gold.

The investigation features undercover reporting, confidential documents and exclusive interviews, including with one of the country’s most influential diplomats and self-proclaimed prophet Ubert Angel. In the first episode, Angel claimed that he was authorised to serve as Mnangagwa’s proxy to make the alleged illicit deals.

As reported by AFP, Zimbabwe's government said on April 4, 2023 that it would investigate allegations of fraud and corruption raised in the documentary.

Zimbabwe is expected to hold general elections in August, although no date has yet been set.